Page 53 of Forever My Siren Luna (The Hidden Cove #2)

Elelira

“ Can I not convince you to stay here?” Lachlan asked me again, staring at me from across the stables as Cherum readied one of the spare horses for me.

I smiled softly from hearing his voice in my head, but shook my head no. We’ve been over this since Cherum interrupted us and told us of what happened to Nilo, Beretta and the rest of the team being attacked at the border. I am not going to just stay home and do nothing, no matter how much he begs.

“ I love you,” I told him to soften the blow.

“ Then stay home,” he growled.

“ Ah, that’s not how love works.”

I understand his worries. His mother was killed in battle, and he doesn’t want to be left alone again. He doesn’t want to lose me.

I don’t want to lose him either.

I bet that was why his mother fought. She would rather die alongside her mate than have a life without him.

This sounds like a simple rescue mission, though. I'm not staying here and doing nothing.

“ You can take charge of the pack in my stead.”

I chuckled to myself. He’s trying to offer me some form of control as compensation for staying. It won’t work.

“ I love you, ” I told him again.

He growled, but didn’t respond for a long period, then muttered a " You too," in the newly formed link. His anxieties are great already. Nilo is his best friend. They grew up together. They battled and lived life together. Nilo has yet to even find his mate.

Then, his newly marked wife is marching into battle right alongside him.

If I were a kinder wife, I would stay. My kindness only goes so far, and the risks of not going with him far outweighs the inferior risks of going.

I'm a warrior. A strong one, only matched by Lachlan himself. Val is powerful and can handle anything that may come our way.

Also, Beretta is my sister. I may not have known her as long as Lachlan and Nilo knew one another, but she helped me to grow into the warrior I am today.

She taught me to stand up for myself, and to take what I wanted in life.

She showed me, as much if not more than Jack, how to take the weakness of your past and to transform it into a strength.

I’m going. I need to help to save Beretta from whatever demons of the North stole my dear friend.

“What a way to start a honeymoon. Ey, lass?” Cherum mused while tightening the cinch on the saddle. “Mel here got an entire week to ensure his mate was broken in. You barely got a night to break in your stallion.”

“Cherum,” I groaned, my face heating at his crude talk.

Mel was already up on his horse and kicked Cherum in the side. “Excuse him, Luna. When he gets anxious before battle, he starts making vulgar observations.”

“Vulgar is what you like to do in the ocean that I piss in every morning,” Cherum snapped, poking the gamma in the leg.

“You just wait, you red-haired, milk-drinking mama’s boy. You wait until you find your mate. I’ll be pissing in your bathtub every-”

“So,” I interrupted them loudly before they started to really fight. “You think this is going to be an all-out battle?”

Both men, who were just fighting and looked as if they would tear into one another at any given moment, looked somber all of a sudden.

“Aye, lass. If it was just a vampire horde or a mindless band of orcs, we would have already sent out a support team and Nilo would have been able to handle the invasion through the night. Demons, though,” Cherum shook his head. “I doubt there is anyone left to support.”

“You mean?....”

He can’t mean they might all be dead. No. I would know it if Beretta were dead. I would know it in my soul if something that tragic happened to the woman I think of as a sister.

“They can’t be,” I whispered. “You can’t be saying that they’re all dead. You can’t mean Beretta….. No,” I whispered, shaking my head.

Cherum came around to place a soothing hand on my back, his power seeping into me to help calm the beginnings of the storm raging inside.

Soon, it’s not just Cherum’s hands, but another set of arms gliding around my shoulders, the sparks shooting through my body to comfort, though I still feel heavy with dread.

I turned to look up at Lachlan. He’s staring down with such concern and tenderness. He felt my pain, and he came to ease some of it.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me how grave this is?”

His eyes shone with Killian pressing forward with his concern too. Val is as distraught as me in their subconscious space. She and Beretta’s beast were as close friends as me and Beretta. Killian still pressed forward to observe me before retreating back to comfort her.

“It’s okay, my Lira. We don’t know anything yet. They could have gotten away.”

“You don’t truly think that. That is why you are so desperate to keep me home.”

He pressed his lips together, not answering, but that is an answer in itself.

“Beretta can’t be dead. She can’t,” I shook my head against his chest, hitting him lightly with my fist while he continued to try and hold and comfort me.

“She’s not dead,” a voice rang out from behind me. His firm tone was unyielding. “Beretta is not dead.”

Jack was standing near the stable’s entrance, eyes red, but a determined look on his face.

“I would know it beyond a doubt, and I know she is alive and fighting. My Beretta would never give up without a fight.”

All of us are quiet, Jack’s eyes locked with Lachlan’s, some unspoken communication passing between them.

“Then we have no time to waste,” Lachlan said with resolve.

With a curt nod of his head, Jack said, “My crew, the men who have trained with yours since our arrival, are ready to follow your command.” He took a step forward. “I am ready to follow your command, Alpha.”

As an alpha himself, it must have taken a lot to get him to say those words. Even with his beast shining through, there was no hesitation in his eyes. He was yielding to Lachlan entirely. All for Beretta.

Lachlan kissed my head, then walked off with Jack, the two alphas discussing the arrangements for all the extra men to travel to the border.

“Well, I’ll be. The things a man will do for love,” Cherum stated, staring at the two alphas with amazement.

“Indeed,” Meldec commented, watching while perched on his horse. "Ced would have loved to see a humbled Captain Jack."

I was just about to mount my horse when Mimi’s doctor came running into the sables, pushing through warriors as they were preparing for departure while frantically yelling my name.

“LUNA! LUNA ELELIRA!”

I stared in confusion as he found me. He was panting heavily to catch his breath.

“What is it?” I asked, giving him my arm to steady him. We have the attention of most around us now.

“It’s Miss Niomi, Luna. Niomi,” he continued to pant, sweat pouring down his face. He must have been looking for me everywhere among the warriors departing from the castle. There are a great many and I must not have been easy to find.

“What has happened to Mimi?” I asked, now feeling worried.

He looks from me, to the men behind me, then back at me again, searching for the words to tell me whatever has him so frantic.

“She…. She has collapsed. Her heart, Luna. It is giving out.”

~

Unknown

The sounds. That’s something I will never get used to. The sounds of endless chaos and depravity going on around me. The sounds echo off the walls, amplified by our own fears. The sounds are what breaks you first.

Everything has gotten worse over the past few days. The normal sounds, well, as normal as they can become when you are living in a literal hell, have been overrun with constant torturous cries and chants for destruction.

Whose destruction, I don’t know, but the pack or kingdom they are after now must be something powerful.

Something big. Through the bars in the window that give us a sliver of a glimpse of the outside world, we have seen hordes and hordes of demons and dark fae of every kind marching through the pavilion. They all seemed ready for war.

Our master has not paid us a visit in several days either.

That is completely out of character for the wretched filth. He rarely goes a day without defiling our bodies. He seems addicted to the screams of the newer girls housed in the rusty, filth-covered cages at the end of the room that is no better than a dungeon.

Those of us who have been here the longest have learned how to play the game. The game of survival. When we act as though we concede, no longer fighting the brutality done to us, we no longer have to be subjected to the acts performed on us by the other monsters housed here.

Just the king of the monsters. The ruler of the damned. That’s the only one we have to tolerate, feigning enjoyment of the act. Nothing is ever enjoyable here. Not even remotely close. You will find no similarities to anything warm or satisfying here. Far from it.

This place is utter hell, ruled by the devil himself.

But, when you learn to tolerate letting the devil degrade your body and suck the life out of the air around you, you get things your maddened mind thinks it needs, like moldy bread and maggot-infested soup.

He even requires only those he is solely privy to indulge in to bathe before seeing him.

When you live for weeks, even months in a cramped cage, covered in your own waste and body fluids, and the fluids of countless others, only getting cleaned from a hose with sulfuric water sprayed directly at you once a week, that seems to just worsen your smell, making your insides feel as rotten as the outside of your body smells, the cold baths with lye soap you get as one of his pets feel like a luxury.

Watching the girls whimpering and crying in the cages right now, from where me and the other surviving woman are lying on sour-straw-filled mattresses almost makes me feel grateful for the hard, fuzzy green bread I’m trying to bite into right at this moment.

Almost.

Suddenly, a ruckus from right outside the room could be heard, getting louder and louder every drawn-out second. A monstrous voice was bellowing loudly, pain laced in his deafening sounds.

Irrita and I gasped, falling into one another when the sound of a woman’s mad laughter filtered through all the other noise.

“SHE BIT IT OFF! THE WHORE BIT IT OFF!”

“That’s what you get, you rank dick, bird fucker! It wasn’t very much to bite off anyway.”

“YOU BITCH!”

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.