Feral For Her Freedom

Time was a funny thing. My entire life I’d always thought I’d have more time. I’d had years before I reached my first season. I’d had time to formulate a plan to avoid Zeta. Then I’d had time to figure out an escape. After that I always had more time until Zeta caught me. I had time to figure out what the hell I’d do if I ever found my consort.

Now I was out of time.

I could not escape like I had planned. I didn’t have a damn clue as to what I would do if my consort claimed me. Worse, what I’d do if he declared me feral. I wasn’t ready to die yet. I had a life to live, but a life in a cage and under the thumb of a male seemed worse than death.

The blue eyed wight, who seemed to be in charge, pulled me to my feet, but I fell right back to the ground as my legs gave out. “No,” I breathed, “no.” My words were muffled by the muzzle.

The male went to pick me up, but I scrambled back, my eyes flooding with tears. They weren’t tears of sorrow but of fury. I screamed as loud as I could with the muzzle and swung my restricted arms around wildly. He ducked to avoid my cuffed hands and pulled a syringe from his pocket. Uncapping it he advanced towards me.

“This will not hurt you,” he told me and darted forward. He moved faster than any wight I’d ever seen. It was like I had blinked. He was several paces away from me one second and the next his face was directly in front of mine, the syringe buried in my neck.

His grayish blue eyes stared directly into mine, reminding me of the sky before a storm. They were the last thing I saw before my head lolled back and my eyes shut, drowning me in the dark oblivion.

When I came too, I immediately wished I’d stayed unconscious. The first thing I saw were bars, slanted at an angle.

The bastards had shoved me in a cage.

With a soft grunt, I pushed myself up and sat cross legged. My head felt much too heavy from my neck, but I forced it up and sat straight.

The muzzle had been removed as had the handcuffs, a mistake on their part if they thought a cage would be enough to keep me contained and them away from danger. Always being underestimated had its advantages.

A sharp pain shot through my entire body, from my toes up to my skull. “Fuck,” I muttered holding a hand to my head. I stretched out my limbs and let out a huge yawn. I scratched my neck that was stinging slightly from where I’d been injected. The familiar feel of my claws was absent. Looking down at my hand I saw that my claws were completely gone, and human fingernails were all that remained. My tongue darted to my teeth and only felt smooth rounded edges rather than my pointed incisors. My senses were dulled as well, I was completely and utterly human.

I tried to activate my pure state, but nothing happened. I stared at my fingers, willing my claws to form but they didn’t even twitch. I growled out of habit in frustration and choked when my tongue got in the way.

After a small fit of coughing, I tried growling again. It felt all wrong, not natural like it did in my pure state. I’d always sounded just like a wild beast, not like I was drowning. My low rumble had been reduced to a pitiful spluttering.

I went to stand and stumbled into the bars, catching myself before falling to the floor. My legs were numb but as I forced my weight upon them, they began to tingle with feeling. The pain in my feet was sharp, as if I was standing on glass but a little pain had never stopped me before.

A loud creak had my head whipping to the left. I couldn’t see very far down the aisle without squeezing my face between the bars and because I didn’t want my head to get stuck, I simply waited for them to approach me. I was the only one down here in these empty cells, I wondered why there were so many when there was hardly ever any disturbance or situation in which a wight needed to be contained.

The sound of feet approached me and finally the wight with blue eyes and the head tracker, Jude, I remember him being called, stood before me.

I wanted nothing more than to give them an aggressive smile showcasing my teeth and clink my claws on the bar. I wanted to taunt them with my mastered pure state, but they had done something to prevent me from accessing my ability. I settled for a look of indifference instead.

The blue eyed wight stayed slightly behind Jude, his hand clasped behind his back while the tracker stood an arm’s length away from the bars. He gave me a once over before holding out a hand. His companion placed a pair of spandex shorts in his hand which Jude then threw at me.

I caught them in my hand and simply held onto them, the oversized shirt I was wearing was ample for now.

Upon seeing I had no intention of putting them on at the moment, Jude pulled a folder from under his arm and opened it. “Daylin Farringhow,” he read from his folder, “age twenty-seven, approaching her eighteenth season and still unbonded. Attacked forty-seven wights,” he looked at me with cold eyes, “eleven of which were severely injured.” I gave him a fake smile and shrugged indifferently. They’d all deserved what I’d done to them and I would not apologize. “Has never attended The Finding as law demands after a female’s fourth season has passed and has also illegally resided within twenty-eight territories.” He snapped the folder shut and tucked it back under his arm. “Your file containing your attacks are more than enough to declare you feral. However, we are giving you one chance, miss Farringhow. Impress your consort and hope he accepts you and you will be cleared of your crimes, if not you will be euthanized within the hour.”

“How stupid do you think I am?” I demanded, clicking my nails on the iron bars and cocking my head. My badly shorn hair that fell just to my collarbone was covered in dirt and clumped with blood and bear feces. My arms were stained with blood, and mud and grime streaked my face and caked my legs. I had no doubt I looked anything other than grotesque and probably smelled horrid. Anyone who saw me would immediately declare me feral, but my mind was still in one piece. I had control and was conscious of my every move, so I was not a true feral and Jude knew it.

“Pardon?” Jude asked dryly.

My hand uncurled from the bar and I walked back and forth across my cage, my nails dragging across the metal eerily. “I asked,” I repeated, “how stupid do you think I am?” I met the eyes of the tracker, an act of disrespect and a challenge. “You aren’t giving me another chance. You aren’t allowed to do a single thing to me until my consort has been found or is dead. If you think you can scare me into submission you have another thing coming.” I stopped and pressed my face into the bars. “I know exactly what rights I have and every loophole imaginable.”

“You will conform if you wish to live.”

“I will bend to no one’s will except my own,” I snarled. “Death does not scare me. Killing me is just proof that males are truly pathetic and weak. You are incapable of dealing with an unruly female, so you act like cowards and eliminate them. That is why there will never be another Ultimate. Every male has grown soft. You’ve even drugged me.”

“That’s a lot of talk from someone who has been running their entire life.”

“Says the male who’s been chasing after me for the last five years.”

His jaw clenched in anger, he was out of ammunition and we both knew it. He turned on his heel and stormed away, his companion looked at me before following after Jude. A smug smile crept on my face thinking I’d won. However, Jude wasn’t gone long. He came back with a hose snaking behind him.

The blue eyed wight had a bucket full of soap and a brush.

I backed away from the bars slowly. Knowing exactly what was about to happen.

“Because you’re so fearless, I don’t think you’ll mind attending The Finding tonight then, will you?” He turned the nozzle on the hose, and I was blasted with frigid water. I gasped as the icy water hit my skin and hunched over as I was drenched.

The door to my cell swung open and the blue eyed wight approached me with the soap. Instead of pouncing on me and scrubbing me down, he just held the bottle out to me urging me to take it myself.

I grabbed it from him and threw it at the opposing wall, the plastic bottle bursting open and the soap splattering on the wall. The male didn’t seem upset or even angry, he just handed me the other bottle. I looked at him like he was crazy.

“Jericho, just do it yourself,” Jude ordered, “we don’t have all day.”

Jericho ignored him and only lifted it towards me again. “Just take it or I will have to wash you myself.”

I really didn’t want someone else touching my body, so I took it and soaped myself down. I wasn’t about to demand that they turn around or not look as I shucked off the shirt, left in nothing but my bare skin. These two were the ones grooming me for a reason. Sending anyone else in was ‘too dangerous’ and they didn’t want to increase my count of harmed wights.

The males didn’t even bat an eye, I didn’t care either.

Any other female would be blushing and embarrassed, shy about showing their body. The way I saw it, a body was a body. I owned my body, and I didn’t care if anyone saw it. Besides, there were many more things to worry about than nudity in my life.

I was washed down three times before I was deemed ‘clean’ and given a towel.

Jericho handed me a folded pile of clothes that I looked at in disgust. It was a plain white pair of cotton undergarments and a dull grey shapeless dress that was only a slight step up from a potato sack.

It was the uniform of The Finding. All females wore the same undergarments and dress. No makeup was allowed. Our hair had to be its natural color and pulled up in a tight bun. We wore no jewelry or shoes. We were judged by our natural beauty and separated accordingly.

I brushed the tangles from my hair and twisted it up into a bun, fastening it in place with a few bobby-pins. Because my hair was still wet it was slicked back to my head just the way I liked it when I put it up and gelled it. I then held out my wrists ready for the cuffs.

Jude looked skeptical. “You don’t need them if you behave,” he told me, hoping to bribe me into good behavior.

Jericho understood me though and clasped the cuffs onto my hands, concealing them in metal. These cuffs were for my own protection. I knew I’d get pissed off and attack someone, so it was best if there was no chance that I could kill someone. There would be no coming back from that if I did. I had three plans as of now and being euthanized was not in any of them.

My first and second plan required me to attend The Finding. If I found my consort, I had two options. First, if my consort was a ball-less bastard I’d probably be able to dominate him and have him under my thumb. If he was a chauvinistic prick like the majority of males, I’d probably end up attacking him and be rejected which would lead me to my second plan.

If I was rejected, I’d then go to the second part of The Finding, also called the Consortpool. This was for widowed and rejected consorts to find another option. If I was again rejected, I had an escape plan in mind.

My third plan was if my escape plan failed. It would require a bit of begging and ride on the fact I’d never actually killed anyone. It was this last-ditch effort that had me cautious of my own temper. Of course, there was a chance that I wouldn’t even find my consort and I’d have more time to formulate a better plan.

“Let’s go. I want this over and done with as soon as possible.” My eyes shifted over to Jude and his impatient movements. I bet he couldn’t wait until I was rejected so that he could finally euthanize me and be done. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one to inject the needle. “Put the muzzle on, I don’t need any fall back if she bites the nose off of a male.”

Jericho hesitated, in a low voice he while eyeing me warily he replied, “Are we allowed to? It’s against the regulations for her face to be covered during The Finding.”

Jude thought about his words for a moment before making a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Just put it on. We can take it off if asked of us.”

The male did as he was instructed, and soon the weight of the muzzle fell around my neck. Giving me a once over, he nodded at Jude. The Zeta tracker led me forward as I took the trek I never thought I’d have to make.

One foot in front of the other I walked to my nightmare.