Page 101 of Forever My Siren Luna

The sound that came after brought tears to my eyes. You would think the sounds would be something I was used to by now, but you can never get used to this.

Time. Sounds and time will drive you mad in this place. There is no way to measure time. No indication of how much time is passing. The sky is always the same. We can only measure the days by the food deliveries. Hours and minutes mean nothing anymore. Through the horrifying sounds, time passes, and my mind begins to be tainted with that madness that we all must fight to survive.

After far too much time had passed, and at the same time, not very much time at all. The door burst open.

Two demons throw the broken, unconscious body of a black-haired woman into the center of the room. Her face had been bashed in, her nose broken, an eye swollen shut. Her jaw appears to be broken as well.

Her clothes have been torn from her body, hanging in tatters to reveal grotesque claw marks all over her bruised and bloody skin.

“No more cages,” one of the monsters cackles. “We have no more bloody cages. We filled them all on the last raid.”

“Caim did a number on the bitch. She won’t be waking up for some time. We will tie her to the wall with her own hair when she does.”

The girl's face was so broken, there was no telling if she had been beautiful or not, but her hair was still very beautiful. Even coated in blood, her raven hair was gorgeous. It was thick and down the length of her back. It is a petty thought, considering all that has happened to the poor woman already, but I can’t help but to think that cutting her hair to tie her up with it would be such a waste.

I have always wanted raven hair. My sister-in-law once helped me dye my ginger hair black, but my brother made her change it back. He said I was less identifiable as his sister with black hair, and he was scared harm would come to me.

Harm came to me anyway, and my brother is likely long dead. I should have just kept the black hair, as dark and beautiful as this woman’s is now.

The monsters left, slamming the door shut behind them, making all the caged girls scream and cry louder than before.

Not me. With them gone, I pushed my body up from the mattress, hurrying to the woman to check to make sure she was still alive. Most of the other women are too scared to do anything but watch, but Irrita follows after me. She picked the woman’s head up, placing it in her lap while I tenderly rotated her wrist to find a pulse.

It’s faint, but there is one.

“They put the collar on her. She must be Lycan,” Irrita commented.

I shook my head, “If she could get to her beast, her beast could heal most of this damage away.”

“Most, but not all,” Irrita’s purple irises glossed over. “Nothing can ever heal everything.”

I know what she means. We all know what she means.

“The collar,” one of the girls from a cage nearby said. She’s been here just a few short weeks, a gift from a pack that allied with the demons. “It’s one of the larger ones. It’s meant for a shifted beast to bring them back to human form. If you can angle her broken jaw just right, you might be able to pull it off.”

I study the metal clasp, my eyes meeting Irrita’s when I see that the girl is right.

“It will be excruciating,” Irrita said.

“No more painful than what she has already endured.” By the sounds, those haunting, everlasting sounds, this woman seemed strong enough to endure a bit more pain if it could free her in the end.

Thirty

Cedric

“Please, be here. Please be here. Please be here,” I murmured to myself, swimming along the coast of the western borders to Wayne’s pack, hoping to find some sign of my King and my people.

I’ve been calling for them all morning, sending out wave after wave of magic, hoping not to have to go this far from my princess. I wanted someone to meet me halfway so I could get back by the time they left.

There’s not a prayer of that working out for me now. I had to swim like hell to make it here, and now I can’t see any signs of them anywhere.

It was just a single squad of knights, led by Lillian, accompanying our king, but I still thought I could find one of them in the water.

As I was circling the docks again, I was about to just go on land to see if I could find anyone on two feet since I was having such a hard time with fins, but then the King himself came diving into the water.

The transformation started out subtly, his fins taking form with his legs. The pack here is under the impression he was a diplomat to the king, and so they can not be made aware of the full force of his magic.

He sank down, then let his magic flow over him, radiating out brightly in the cover of the reeds to hide any vision of him from the docks and shore.