Deciding Her Faete (Beyond the Veil Book 2) (5 page)

Chapter Seven

April sat huddled in a corner of her darkened cell, her head resting on her knees. Jason was quiet now, probably passed out from the pain, she figured. He tried to talk to her sometimes through the other side of the wall in between the beatings, and it broke her heart not only from how much pain had been inflicted upon him but the fact that he tried to talk through it to her, hoping to convince her it didn’t hurt that much.

“Please, Jason,” she had cried. “Save your strength.”

They hadn’t even let her see him since they got to this wretched place. The vile Kheelan and his goons had marched them straight to the palace after she had launched herself at him, trying to hurt him. She saw that same blue spark emit from her palms again, but Kheelan seemed unfazed.

They shoved Jason in a cell first and then pushed her forward down the tunnels, turning several times until they reached another door. Just minutes after they had secured her inside, she’d been frantically looking for a way out when the first sounds of Jason’s abuse came through a small grated air vent in the back far corner of the cell. For hours and hours, she cried as that bastard Kheelan took delight in doing whatever it took to wring pained screams out of her mate. April had never felt so helpless in all of her life, and she was terrified that they would kill him. On the walk over to her prison, she had overheard one guard telling the other that Jason’s bonds would prevent him from shifting fully, which also would stop him from healing as well.

How she wished that she could free him from his bonds. She had seen what wolves were capable of when they were in a full shifted form. Jason could have probably obliterated the lot of them before more guards could arrive to stop him. Now, even if somehow she managed to escape and free Jason, there were way too many Fae to take on even in his wolf form. She had gone over scenario after scenario of escape plans, even a few carefully whispered ones with Jason once he’d assured her that Fae do not have the kind of hearing that wolves do, only to come up empty every time.

So instead of escaping, she cried and screamed and clawed at the wall when they came to beat him. “Stop it! I’ll fucking kill you all,” she had promised. The fact that she meant it had surprised the hell out of her. She’d hated people before. Her cruel foster parents, several of them in fact, and the hunters who liked to shoot wolves back in her former town, just to name a few, but never had she thought herself capable of actually taking another life. She thirsted for blood now. Something inside of her was practically demanding it.

She also thought about Donovan in those moments. April knew that he must be going out of his mind. Without ever even meeting him, just from how Jason spoke of him, she knew Donovan would never stop searching for them. She only hoped that it wouldn’t be their corpses that he would find.

A noise from down the hall snapped her out of her reverie. Then she saw the cell door directly in front of her open. Two guards she did not recognize unceremoniously shoved a woman with short dark hair inside and then they left without saying a word. The stranger looked completely unafraid, like being in the cell of some sort of medieval looking dungeon was no big deal for her. Although she did scrunch up her nose in distaste. April couldn’t blame her. The stench in here was godawful.

She then watched the attractive woman pace her cell continuously until something she had said caught April’s interest.

“Donovan had better get my message to my mates.”

“Donovan? Do you mean Donovan Olson?” April asked her, still keeping herself hidden.

“I’m not sure what his last name is, but if I said the word Beta, what would that mean to you?”

April gasped. This woman knew Donovan. She immediately got up and moved to the front of her cell. “That is my Donovan’s rank. His Alpha is a wolf by the name of Gabe Errikson.”

“That’s him,” the woman replied with a smile. “He’s your mate?”

“Yes, he is, one of them, and we haven’t, um, well—
you know
.” April felt her cheeks redden from her confession. She wondered if there was no end to her verbal diarrhea from the last few days.

“You haven’t claimed each other,” the dark haired woman acknowledged with an amused smile, “but that’s okay. I knew my men were meant for me before we,
you knowed
, too. What is your name, and how in the hell did you end up down here?”

“My name is April, and Jason and I were taken from the earth realm and brought here. They have been torturing J-Jason.” April’s voice caught on her mate’s name, and it felt as if her heart was bleeding. “But they aren’t even asking him any questions. Who the hell does that? Interrogates a man without actually asking any questions?”

“Is he in there with you?” the woman asked, peering into her cell.

“No, they have him on the other side of the wall,” April replied, her voice trembling. “I hear him shouting and growling, but they won’t let me see him.” She left out the part about being able to talk to him just in case the woman in front of her was some kind of spy. With the ordeal she and Jason found themselves in, her brain was telling her to be suspicious of everyone, even though April’s instincts were urging her to trust the stranger.

She immediately felt bad about her paranoia when the woman held her hand out. April reached out until they were able to clasp hands. When they finally touched, a blue light sparked between their palms. They both gasped and pulled back their hands, staring at each other with wide eyes.

“You are a healer?” the woman whispered in shock.

April frowned in confusion and then anger. She wondered if there would ever come a day when she knew more about herself than apparently other people did. She decided to trust the kind woman. Maybe she’d even be able to help April figure out the truth about herself. “I don’t kn—”

The sound of the door at the end of the hall slamming open interrupted them.

“Get back,” the woman ordered quietly.

April immediately faded into the darkest corner of her cell and observed the woman as she took on a disinterested appearance. Kheelan strode up to the woman’s cell without even sparing April a second glance and announced that the king would speak with her. They had an argument about using shackles. The woman easily won, impressing the hell out of April and even giving her a bit of added courage. And by their exchange, April also got the impression that she wasn’t the only one who would be doling out some justice to Kheelan when she got the chance.

The woman nearly stumbled out of her cell, but immediately straightened up and winked in April’s direction. April then watched as the woman strode out of there with her held head high, like she owned the place. Damn, she was going to have to get her number when all of this was over, she thought. She may have just found her new best friend.

She was just about to see if Jason had woken up when his loud cries informed her that he in fact, was awake and they were hurting him again. She ran to the wall and banged on it repeatedly, not caring about her bloody fists.

“Damn you!” she screamed. “Just leave him alone.”

She slid down the wall, gasping for air and feeling so completely helpless. “Just leave him alone,” she whispered.

She gently placed her hand against the wall, this time pretending it was Jason she was touching and comforting instead of some cold stone. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so, so sorry. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.” She banged against the wall again and shouted, “It’s me you wanted. Well, I am fucking right here!”

Her sobs were uncontrollable now, choking her with every blow she heard them deliver to Jason.

“It’s not your fault, angel,” came a familiar whispered voice, startling her.

She swiped at her blurry eyes and immediately recognized the speaker crouching low in front of her cell. “Donovan?” she breathed. She had thought she heard a growl earlier when the woman stumbled out of her cell but figured she had only imagined it. That it had only been wishful thinking.

She crawled over to him, not trusting her legs to be strong enough to stand. She got as close to the metal bars as she could, and Donovan slid his hands through them, hugging her to him as much as the bars between them allowed.

“They won’t stop hurting him,” she whispered.

A particularly loud scream from Jason had them both flinching, and April watched as tears slid down Donovan’s cheeks. He then tried to pick the locking mechanism on the door.

“Do you know which of these tunnels lead to the other side of the wall?” he asked her in a rushed frustrated whisper when the lock wouldn’t budge.

April nodded and pointed in the direction of one of the furthermost tunnels. She also explained that she had observed the direction Kheelan had come from after the first time he hurt Jason. He had come to taunt her with the blood of her mate on his hands. Donovan let out a low furious growl in response.

“And you?” he asked, his wolf rising to the surface. “Have they hurt you?”

“Not physically, no.”

“Sit tight, my angel. I am going to go rip apart the men hurting my brother, get their keys, and then Jason and I will come and get you.” He then cupped her cheek, bringing her face closer to him, and kissed her lips tenderly.

“Donovan,” she began after he released her reluctantly and stood up, “make it hurt.”

With a slight quirk to his lips, he nodded and ran off in Jason’s direction, disappearing from sight.

Then all hell broke loose as the ground beneath her began to violently shake.

Chapter Eight

Jason drifted in and out of consciousness as he hung from the shackles on the cold, damp wall. He’d tried to keep track of how long he and April had been captured, but after the first day of torture, it had become a blur. That Fae bastard certainly hadn’t been kidding when he’d threatened to peel them in the car. He was a sadistic fuck, and Jason was only praying that they would concentrate on him and leave April unharmed.

When Kheelan had first arrived and watched as the guards secured him to the wall, he’d slowly undone his jacket and shirt, placing them on a bench in the corner. For a moment, Jason had grown concerned what his intentions might be, but those fears were quickly abated by Kheelan’s mocking laughter.

“Like I would lower myself by lusting after a beast,” Kheelan sneered as he walked over to a cabinet and perused its contents. “I have a King’s bed to go to when I’m done here, dog.
You,
I just need for the sweet sounds of your pain.”

Jason had held up pretty well when the two guards had just beat him for the first couple of hours before they shackled him to the wall. He was after all a wolf. He had also been able to hear the soft crying of his mate from an open grate on the other side of the wall, and the last thing he wanted to do was worry her. Unfortunately, when Kheelan had stepped in, things had escalated quickly, and no matter how hard he tried to keep from screaming out as the fucker meticulously broke each of his fingers slowly, seeming to savor the expressions of pain that crossed his face with the snap of each bone, he ended up losing control.

“How curious,” Kheelan had remarked nonchalantly as he snapped the last finger on Jason’s left hand. He seemed fascinated by the half-shift changes in Jason’s body in reaction to the pain. “Does it cause you even more discomfort to not be able to shift fully according to your instincts?”

A low growl escaped Jason’s throat, and his electric blue wolf eyes narrowed at the male in front of him.

“I was initially skeptical at what the magic users told me, about how their binding cuffs would affect shifters, but they do seem to be keeping your beast at bay, don’t they?” Kheelan mused as he picked up a small, thin knife and approached Jason once more. “Why don’t we see just how strong they are now?”

Jason didn’t feel the knife enter the skin on his chest, that’s how sharp it was, but he did smell the coppery tang of his own blood, as well as the pressure against his flesh and then the piercing burn of his nerve endings followed as Kheelan slipped the blade under the skin and sliced through it. He had never known that kind of pain existed as he did the second the Fae grabbed the flap of skin and slowly began to draw it back, using his knife to ensure a straight line as though he were skinning a salmon.

Jason’s screams filled the air as his torture continued until he finally passed out. The sound of April yelling out his name was the last thing he clung to before the darkness claimed him.

****

Taunting, followed by several sharp, successive jabs to his open wounds, abruptly brought Jason awake. He heard April’s screams again, a sound that gutted him even more than the pain being inflicted upon him. Then he heard another sound—the rumbling of the stone walls around him. He was still groggy from blood loss, so he thought he was imagining it at first, but then, the floor also began shaking, the ceiling began raining dust and chunks of rock and rubble down, causing the two guards to finally cease beating him.

“What the hell is going on up there?” the Fae guard, who moments ago had been beating on him, asked his partner standing at the cell door. “The alarm has been tripped. We should be up there protecting the King, not down here with a half-dead dog,” he finished with disgust.

“We stay where the Captain told us to,” the other one answered as they braced themselves for another shake of the palace walls.

It sounded like the castle was going to crumble down around them, and Jason almost wished it would if only for the reason that Kheelan wouldn’t be able to inflict any more damage on him. He winced as pain assaulted him, and when he looked down at his chest and stomach, he saw a mass of blood and open flesh. It almost seemed as though the sadistic son of a bitch was trying to create some sort of pattern by removing large strips of Jason’s skin.

Shit.
No wonder he had passed out. Even a wolf couldn’t maintain consciousness after losing this amount of blood. It was everywhere, covering his entire lower body and pooling out around him on the cold stone floor.

Oh Goddess, April!

Kheelan had gone, and Jason could only hope that he still left her alone. Fortunately, the only screams he had heard coming from April’s cell were the ones she uttered on his behalf. He tried to bring his wolf to the surface, straining to see if he could hear her through the grate, but the shaking and rumbling of the palace was making it impossible to hear anything but the grumbling of his two guards.

Then Jason did hear the most wonderful sound, a low growl from his brother’s wolf. He’d heard that same sound a million times as they hunted together, usually right before his big brother ripped into their prey.

“There’s something out there. I can hear it,” the Fae guard said, peering into the hall as he opened up the cell door.

“Then go and deal with it, you idiot,” the one closer to him responded as he looked up in fear toward the protesting ceiling. “Kheelan will have
us
chained to the wall if we leave his prisoner.”

Jason’s wolf had finally decided to join the party, pacing in his head, telling him that this quake and the shaking of the palace weren’t natural, that there was magic being used here.

“You should have left with your friend,” Jason said quietly, trying to pull himself up to stand against the wall.

“I do not fear an earthquake,
dog
. This palace has stood for thousands of years.” The guard sneered at him before he turned back to face the now open cell door. “You should be more worried about yourself with the amount of blood Kheelan has taken from you.”

“He didn’t mean you should fear the earthquake, fucker,” came Donovan’s voice, just before he finally appeared in the doorway, his low growl rumbling over the sound of crumbling stone. “You’re going to lose more than blood now that I see what you’ve done to my brother.”

The guard’s eyes went wide at seeing Donovan covered in blood. Jason was fairly certain that the Fae scum figured out that the blood belonged to his partner. Donovan stepped fully into the cell and then shifted into a huge black wolf. He leaped at the Fae guard, whose arms came up to cover his face, a fatal mistake as the move left his chest and stomach open to attack. Donovan took full advantage. Jason watched without pity or remorse as his brother ripped and tore at the male until he was a bleeding pile of flesh on the stone floor.

“Donovan,” he finally said once the man was most certainly dead, “we need to get out of here and get April.”

The black wolf finally looked up from the gore, and then Donovan shifted back, rushing to Jason’s side with a tormented look on his face as he took in the damage that had been done.

“Goddess, Jason,” Donovan whispered in horror. “What did he do to you?”

“Just get something to undo these cuffs. I need to shift a few times so I can stop some of this bleeding and begin to heal, but these are some kind of magically enhanced metal that prevented me from shifting.”

Donovan looked through the dead guard’s bloody clothes until he finally found a key ring that unlocked the bindings. As soon as Jason’s wrists were free, his wolf exploded from his skin and he collapsed to the floor in exhaustion. And then a piercing scream from April assaulted his ears. She was calling out to them for help.

“Fuck,” Donovan muttered as he knelt beside him. “Shift back, brother. Hurry and I’ll help you walk. April is in danger.”

When Jason shifted back to his human skin, at least the blood had stopped gushing from the wounds on his front. Kheelan was a sadistic fuck, however because he must have been using some sort of poisoned or cursed blade as the actual open cuts had not gotten any smaller.

“Let’s go get our mate. I can’t hear her over all this racket.” Jason leaned against his brother as they left the cell. “What the hell do you think is going on up there?”

“War, brother,” Donovan replied, “we’ve brought war to these bastards.”