Page 51 of Whispers of Wisteria (The Garden of Eternal Flowers #5)

A dull pressure reverberated within my chest, making it hard to breathe. I was pressed against something hard—bone and muscle—and my arms dangled uselessly toward the floor.

The shackles were gone.

A hard shoulder dug into my stomach, and rough fingers dug into the backs of my thighs. My skin crawled as the scent of unwashed males surrounded me, and my cheek scraped against a hard back. The stranger moved, and my heart pounded in tandem with his steps.

Maria was ranting again. “Put her down now, you son of a bitch—”

“My mother was no bitch,” my captor replied, tensing. “We’re not dogs, we’re wolves.”

“It’s the same thing!” Maria snapped. Then, in a slightly more controlled tone, added, “Besides, that’s not the point. Gloria, you’re a fucking wolf—you outrank these morons. Do something!”

I blinked, and the darkness retreated to the corners of my vision. I spotted Gloria.

Her eyes were a bright, caramel-golden color, and her thin face looked sharper, more angular, as she bared her teeth at the wolves invading our cell.

“I suggest you stop before you end up hurting yourselves.” Gloria’s voice reached me through static.

The wolves laughed. Or maybe just one of them. I couldn’t tell.

“Shut up, Alpha,” one said. “You can’t even get down from there.”

There was a blur of movement from the far side of the cell, and a sharp crack cut through the air. It was a blur from the corner of my vision.

Gloria.

My head was spinning, and I blinked, trying to focus until I could see once more. She was still upright, but her body was limp, and her head lolled forward.

She didn’t move again.

“Gloria?” Maria shouted, rounded on the wolves. “What the hell did you just do?”

Now everything was spinning.

The men laughed. There were two of them, and the one holding me loosened his grip as his touch drifted.

It was Ada who stepped forward this time, still stuck in her cell with Maria. “She’s still alive,” she said. “Your orders were disposal only.”

“It’s close enough,” he said, squeezing the back of my thigh. “She’s basically dead already—and she will be by the time we’re done with her.”

I was thrown from the man’s shoulder, and the wind was knocked from me as I fell onto the floor. The landing rattled my bones, and I hid my face in my hands as I tried to curl into a ball.

“Leave her alone!” Maria’s protest rang through my ears.

They didn’t listen.

The one who’d dropped me nudged my hip with his foot. I flinched as light flooded my eyes, and a sharp bark of laughter sounded above me.

“She’s barely conscious,” he said. “Hardly worth the trouble.”

“But you’re still going to act like an animal, aren’t you?” Ada asked flatly. “Even my most idiotic pack members have better sense.”

The second man—taller, broader in the shoulders—stepped forward. “If you wanted to watch, you could have just asked,” he said, his broad, toothy grin standing out against the shadows. “Maybe you’ll learn a thing or two. Not everyone wants to be tamed.”

I blinked, trying to understand. Tamed?

But his meaning became clear as the other man fell to his knees over me. He loosened the top buttons of his jacket as he smirked and grabbed the front of my shirt. “Welcome to the real world, little fae,” he explained. “Out here, it’s survival of the fittest.”

Meanwhile, the second man had already begun to shift into his wolf form.

Was a shifter’s strength determined by how quickly they could transform?

If that were the case, then I was about to be eaten by some mediocre-level talents. It was almost insulting.

However, even if they were losers, they could still kill me.

Ice flooded my veins. Everything hurt, but this pain would be nothing compared to what would happen once teeth and claws ripped through my skin.

My body screamed as I forced my fingers to twitch—dragging myself into a roll. I had to keep running.

I couldn’t give up yet.

“Where are you going?” My captor pressed his palm against my hip. He easily overpowered me as he turned me to my back once more.

How—how could I have allowed myself to be bested by these morons? The other one hadn’t even finished shifting! What kind of incompetent shifter/onmyoji operation were these people running?

“Oh!” My captor climbed on top of me, his knees pressing into my thighs. “She’s still got some life left to her.”

Finally, a gray and white wolf was present in the cage as the man completed his transformation. However, he wasn’t all that intimidating with his droopy, unfocused manner while he stumbled sideways on shaky legs.

My skin flushed. It would be so humiliating to die in such a manner.

I couldn’t focus on him for long, though, as the unchanged shifter leaned over me, pressing his palm between my breasts. He wasn’t even trying to keep his weight off mine, and the added pressure was making it even more challenging to breathe.

“Use your knee!” Maria was shouting in the distance. “Kick him in the balls!”

“No!” Ada argued. “Use your thumbs to gouge out his eyes.”

There was an uncultured ruthlessness to their suggestions, but they weren’t wrong. However, neither option would work for me. My legs were trapped, and—at Ada’s shout—the man grasped my wrists and pulled them up over my head in a painful grip.

Even though my position was precarious, it wasn’t until he’d lowered his face to mine that the true terror began to break through the indignation, chilling me to my core.

No…

My vision turned gray as he pressed his nose into the junction between my ear and neck, and I could feel his sharp inhale and following sigh against my skin.

Something moved near my hand—a second wet nose brushed my fingertips. The cold, damp retreated, allowing a brush of stale air to touch me, before a rough tongue pressed against my hand.

But he didn’t bite me—not yet.

What was he doing, staring at my fingers? How was that any way to eat prey? They spoke of the natural way of the world, but apparently had never seen a National Geographic documentary before in their lives.

But then it stopped mattering.

My thoughts blanked the moment the man shifted his weight, pressing harder against me. The pressure crushed the breath from my lungs as his leer dropped to my face, lingering.

Everything else faded.

“Stupid fae,” my attacker said. “What kind of family lets a bitch like this walk around unguarded?”

The wolf beside him let out a low growl, circling close, his jaws parted.

I couldn’t lift my head—couldn’t move my fingers.

But I could still feel.

And I knew what would come next.

The cold floor was damp beneath me, and somehow, that made it worse.

A rushing sound moved past my ears as my body began to go quiet, retreating in that too-familiar way I’d tried to forget.

I was slipping again—and this time, I wasn’t sure I could make it back.

Fumbling fingers slid clumsily down my outer thigh. My skin crawled as I struggled to open my eyes, but darkness continued to cover my vision.

My body felt wrong, like I wasn’t fully in it anymore.

The touch drifted inward, grazing the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. My thoughts screamed, but no sound left my mouth. It was like poison, spreading across my skin.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

Nobody was coming to save me.

My fingers twitched as rough hands gripped my hips, dragging me further beneath the weight.

I had to do something. I couldn’t let this happen. Not again.

I would rather die.

There was a change in the air. It was so subtle that I might have imagined. I could hardly feel past the heavy breathing against my ear and the sweaty, frenzied motions of the man ripping at my tights.

The ice retreated from my veins, and as the hands lifted, likely to prepare himself, my panic lifted.

Things were different this time. I wasn’t just Bianca anymore.

The next time I tried to open my eyes, a sliver of light broke through the darkness.

The dirty-blond-haired werewolf was fumbling with his jeans, and at that moment, I loathed him.

He didn’t notice at first. Not that my muscles had tensed, nor that I was even looking at him at all. He was grinning, pushing his pants down past his hips, before he looked up and met my gaze.

His happy panting stopped, and dark honey eyes morphed from elation to terror within a second. “What the—”

I was going to kill him.

The pressure exploded around me, and I was airborne, twisting to face the ground as Spellslayer appeared in my hand. The kneeling man fell face-first to the floor and stumbled as he attempted to crawl away.

I landed on him, pushed my knees into his back, and thrust my blade through the center of his neck. It cut through bone and muscle like a warm knife through butter.

The once loud room suddenly silenced.

‘Kill them both.’ The voice I’d been waiting for rang in my head.

I stepped away from the corpse, pulling my sword from the sticky mess. A line of blood flicked off my weapon in a graceful arch.

The wolf was fleeing, almost to the open cell door. The animal knew when he’d been outmatched.

He was fast, but he wouldn’t make it.

I threw my blade at him, and it embedded in the wolf’s back. His body fell onto the steps, the echoing end of a whine fading through the prison.

The air swelled as I reached for my weapon and pulled it free. The wolf stayed down, breathing heavily, staring up at me with wide, panicked eyes.

My grip tightened, and I threw my weight forward and pierced him directly through the throat.

The crimson haze stayed in my vision as my mouth went dry, my thoughts numb. Somehow, I was standing, unable to tear my eyes from the thick red blood coating the ground at my feet.

“Holy shit!” Ada’s shout pierced through my throbbing head. I glanced at her as she stood, pointing at me. “She’s Mu! I fucking knew it.”

“Shut up!” Maria rounded on the hyena. She pushed her shoulder and looked towards the closed dungeon door. “Someone might hear you!”

“You knew?” Ada glared at Maria. “How could you not have told me?”

“It’s on a need-to-know basis,” Maria answered.