Just a Rogue

Wyatt

My wrists are raw, not just chafing. The silver is incrementally damaging my skin, weakening me. I’ve tried to shift over and over, but my wolf is barely there, poisoned by the silver, whimpering at the back of my mind. I spent some time raging overnight, banging the bars over and over, trying to yank the chain out of the wall, trying to break the damned cuffs. Nothing. This prison is extremely sturdy and well built. I’m not sure I could do it even with my full strength, but definitely not with silver poisoning.

So I am inspecting my surroundings instead. I want to be as familiar with the area as I can, so that I am prepared when I get the chance to make a break for it. There is a constant low light, no clocks, I don’t have a watch, and with my wolf missing I have no real sense of how much time has passed since I was brought here. It has to have been hours. Xavier knows we’re missing by now, and I hope that he is formulating a plan.

My cell is about eight feet wide and ten feet deep. The front wall is made of thick bars facing a hallway, with another row of empty cells across it. The other three walls of the cell are made of cement blocks. I cannot see into the adjoining cells, but I watched as Blake and Finn were dragged past me and tossed into them. I heard them get chained to their walls as well.

We were left alone, and I haven’t seen any guards patrolling the hallways. We felt safe enough talking, trying to figure out what happened. It occurred the same way with all of us. Ambushed while trying to capture pack females. With only my own experience, I might have thought I just had the bad luck to come across a woman who had a guard I hadn’t noticed. But with all three of us succumbing to the same play, I realize it was all a set up. The pack was expecting us. They laid a trap, and we fell right into it.

I fear for Xavier and the others. Surely all three of us disappearing will make him realize that the pack didn’t just claim our caves, they lured us here. They have it in for us. I have to find a way to warn him.

I wish I could know what time it is. I wish I knew what Xavier is doing, what his plans are. I think it must be morning by now. I did spend some time laying on the bed in here, and I think I slept some, and I hate how comfortable I found it to be. That’s the first time I haven’t slept on hard ground in weeks, or more like months. It’s a sad thing when a jail cell is the most comfortable place I’ve been in a long time. Except for the silver cuffs and being chained to the fucking wall.

Now I’m hungry, our dinner from last night in the cave long since worn off.

I pace back and forth, scowling, thinking, trying to find some plan to formulate.

I hear a door down the hallway open and I spin to the front of my cell, staring out through the bars. Are they here to torture us? We have to expect that, and I warned Blake and Finn. They’re morons, young and flaky, and I am sure they will both break under the slightest discomfort and spill everything they know about Xavier. I hope they take me first, I can resist any torture and not say anything. Maybe that will buy Xavier some more time.

Three pack males come walking down the hallway, carrying trays which look and smell like … breakfast. Seriously? One of them stops in front of my cell and says, “Move back away from the bars.”

“Fuck you!” I yell. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing keeping us in here!” The long night of pain and waiting rushes over me, and I am bellowing, shaking the chain, screaming at him to open the door right now!

He rolls his eyes. “Listen, asshole, do you want breakfast or do you want to stand there yelling like an idiot?”

“Argh!” I yell, frustrated and furious, but then I take a couple of steps back. Maybe I can rush him when he opens the door to bring the tray in.

But no, he just bends down, puts the tray on the floor and slides it under the door. It fits just perfectly through a slot under the bars that is far too small to fit anything else.

Blake and Finn aren’t doing any yelling, they obviously just wanted to eat. I can tell they aren’t doing the least thing to try to figure out how to escape. I have to resist the urge to pick up the tray and smash it against the bars. I’m hungry, and if they are foolish enough to feed a rogue, I can at least use it to keep my strength up.

I take the tray over to the bed and sit down. Like the comfortable night I spent, this is the best looking food I have seen in a long time. Hot food. Eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, fruit. Damn I hate this pack. Damn this is delicious.

Ruby

They totally bugged the cave. Corinne must have done it herself. There definitely was not the scent of any pack members in there. Woah. This pack is smart and organized and methodical and terrifying. And weirdly kind. I don’t know what to make of them, or of any of this.

All I do know is that I am going to one hundred percent cooperate with any damn thing they want. They are like a huge army of geniuses, using their technology and enormous resources to out-think Xavier at every turn. There is no way to do anything but go along with them. I have no idea what’s in store for me personally, but I know for absolute certain that Xavier is completely screwed. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

The big Beta, Malcolm, takes me downstairs to the jail. I’m glad that they don’t suggest putting the cuffs back on. I’m kind of surprised, actually, I’m a rogue and I could conceivably try to run off when there’s only the one of them walking with me. Could they already trust me, just from seeing how eager I was to cooperate with them before?

This is so weird.

As we’re walking I still am amazed at the luxury of this place. It is clean, they obviously have everything they need in abundance. The smells coming from wherever the kitchen is located are incredibly appealing, especially that bacon that they provided for breakfast. I haven’t had bacon in forever, and it was the most delicious thing ever. Even the pine-scented cleaner they apparently use smells wonderful. Maybe everyone is so nice simply because they enjoy such a nice life here.

Much better than my pack ever was, before I ran away to avoid a forced mating. The Alpha was going to award me to one of his warriors, and I wasn’t going to allow myself to be anyone’s prize. The irony has never failed to hit me every single day that Xavier has awarded me as a prize to one of his scruffy rogues.

“So,” Malcolm says as we’re going down some stairs into the basement. The dungeon I suppose. “The jail cells are along a hallway, on both sides. The three rogues are along one side, and I can put in you a cell on the same side, a little further along the hallway, so that they can’t see you or bother you. You’ll, uh, want some privacy.” He looks over at me, seeming like he feels a little awkward. “I’m sorry, but there isn’t a private, uh, toilet, it’s just inside the cell with everything else.”

I almost stop walking to stare at him. Seriously? Privacy? I have been literally living in a cave with these men. There isn’t anything they haven’t seen before. He seems to be giving me some kind of choice, asking for input. “I guess I’d rather be where I can see them,” I say, feeling timid talking to a huge Beta like him. He reminds me just a bit of how big my father used to seem to me, last time I saw him when I was little.

“You don’t want privacy? They could see you if you’re across the hall, and probably annoy you,” he says, sounding puzzled.

I have to smile, just a little. “That means I could see them too. And I’d like to enjoy watching them locked up in a cell.”

“Oh!” he says, his eyes wide. “Okay then.”

We get into the jail, and just like he described, it’s a long hallway with rows of cells on both sides. It’s clean down here, but they must not use the same pine-scented cleaner for the jail since I don’t smell it. Before we get up to where Wyatt is, I can hear his voice, bellowing. “Hey! Take off these fucking cuffs! You have no right! Open this door!”

Malcolm ignores him and opens the door in the bars to the cell right across from Wyatt’s. I can tell the second Wyatt sees me, because he is immediately silent, and when I turn around after entering the cell, to watch Malcolm locking the door behind me, I see Wyatt gaping across at me.

“Wait here,” Malcolm tells me, then gives a little glance at the cells across the hallway before leaving me down here, alone with the other rogues.

“Ruby?” I hear Blake say from the next cell over, and glance over there to see him standing next to his bars, staring over at me. “Oh no! They got you too? How?”

The pack leaders asked me not to tell them what’s really going on, and I have no problem keeping the truth from these men. Blake and Finn aren’t bad, really, but they didn’t try to help me and the other she-wolves, either. They went along with anything Xavier said.

Wyatt, though, is a first class asshole. He enjoyed abusing me every chance he got. I’m enjoying seeing him locked behind bars. Even if I am locked behind them too.

I answer Blake, “Yeah, Hugh and I went to pick up supplies, and we went into separate stores. I ran into the pack, and before I knew it here I was.” That’s more or less accurate.

Wyatt has gotten over his shock to see me, and now he looks angry. Which is totally typical. He lifts his bound hands and shakes his chain at me. “What?” he says, “no silver cuffs for you? No chain?” He sounds like he thinks this is terribly unfair. What a butthead.

I shrug. “I guess they figured they weren’t needed to secure a female,” I point out. “These bars look thick enough to hold me, even if I was to shift.” That’s all true too.

“Well what the fuck?” he yells. “This is fucking torture! They can’t just keep us tied up with silver!”

I lose my cool. “Oh, it’s torture, is it?” I hiss furiously at him. “I didn’t hear you complaining when you all had Lynette locked up with silver for weeks!”

Wyatt looks like he’s about to blow a gasket. But Finn says, “She has a point. That was totally a dick move.” He peers at me from his cell down the hallway, the furthest one away from me. “For what it’s worth, I never agreed with that.”

I shrug. It isn’t worth much. I look behind me, at an actual little bed, pillow and everything. I walk over to it, lie down, and sink into the softness. Ahhhhh. Honestly, getting to use an actual bed is worth everything else.

“What are you doing?” Wyatt says. “You can’t just sleep! We have to make a plan to get out of here!”

I open my eyes, lift my head, and look at him. “I’m just a she-wolf, remember? You never thought I was much use for anything before, unless you were stealing my kills or fucking me against my will. Make your own plan.”

Then I roll over, facing the wall, and burrow my head into the soft pillow. I don’t care if he screams himself hoarse over there, I’m taking advantage of this and having a nice nap.