THE AWAKENING

Cassandra struggled to be free, but the grip holding her felt like iron bands clamped around her thighs.
“Let me go!” she screamed like a banshee, rising up to claw at his face with her nails but her efforts were met with steely silence
as they ran through the night.
The cold air burned her face and she began to shiver.
They entered what looked like a cave and were immediately enveloped in inky darkness but her captor navigated the tricky twists
and turns as if they were traveling a lighted path.
They emerged in a large cavern where he finally set her down with little finesse or grace. She landed on her rear with a squeak
of pain but he paid her little heed as he was too busy building a small fire to warm the ice-box interior.
In truth, she was too cold to flee even if, by chance she could find her way out. Her legs felt like frozen stalks of flesh that might
shatter if she tried to run.
The walls were rough hewn by time, dripping large formations from the ceiling like frozen teardrops. The desolate atmosphere
only heightened the chill permeating her bones.
“Hurry, I’m going to die of hypothermia,” she snapped to her captor.
The man shot her a dark look as if annoyed she could speak and pulled a hidden stash of firewood from a hole in the cavern to
toss in a blackened fire pit.
“Vacation home?” she quipped.
“You test me,” he warned.
Clearly, this was some kind of hideout he was familiar with because he was pretty comfortable in the barren surroundings, yet
seemed to have materials he needed to create a small fire.
Within minutes a blaze filled the cavern with dancing light and she reluctantly sought the heat when he gestured impatiently.
“Come, warm yourself, she-wolf.”
“I have a name,” she returned with a jutted jaw. “The least you can do is call me by my name. It’s Cassandra, by the way.”

His blank stare couldn’t have been more dismissive but she was going to freeze if she didn’t get some of that heat. Meeting his
stare with a glare, she scooted over to the fire, grateful for the warmth.
Common sense told her to keep her mouth shut. She’d been kidnapped by a man who was strong enough to best two
werewolves but didn’t smell like a wolf.
She covertly watched her captor as she warmed her hands. He was big, much like Jandin and Koris, but there was something
gracefully dangerous about the lines in his body that suggested sinewy strength and raw masculinity.
His blond hair was cropped short to his skull with military precision, possibly to soften the fact that he was almost too pretty for a
man.
For reasons, she didn’t want to examine, he was breathtaking in a lethal, anti-hero way that she found disturbing.
She also knew he was different from the others. As a test, she lifted her nose and surreptitiously sniffed the air.
“I am not a werewolf,” he said, saving her the trouble. She gasped and recoiled, not quite sure what to think, only fairly certain
she wasn’t safe with him.
“What are you?” she asked. “You don’t smell...human.”
His mouth thinned in a parody of a smile. “That’s because I am not human.” His smile faded. “And neither are you. Otherwise,
two rival werewolf clans wouldn’t be tearing each other to shreds to breed with you.”
“Say it louder for the people in the back,” she muttered, her cheeks flaming at the crass way he framed his statement but she
lifted her chin and met his stare with open challenge. “I didn’t ask for any of this. Yesterday my biggest worry was my mid-term
final. Today, I’m some kind of beast with a magical womb! And for the record, I took a vow of purity!”
“How’d that work out for you?” he asked sardonically.
She glared. “Great. Up until I went into my Breeding Time as Jandin called it. So, if you’re not a werewolf, what are you? And
why do you care what happens between two rival clans?”
“Because there’s a reason there’s not been a Breeding female in sixty years,” he said.
“Which is?” He met her stare with a hard one of his own. She shivered at what she read in his eyes. “You killed them?”
“Some,” he allowed without apology. “Others, we simply let nature take its course.”

“By capturing them and letting them phase out,” she guessed with a frown. “From what Jandin said, it sounds like a horrible
death.”
“So I’ve heard,” he said with a shrug.
“You’re a monster,” Cassandra said with growing horror at what he evidently planned for her. She didn’t want to be consumed by
her own heat to die writhing in pain at his asshole’s feet. “They’ll find me,” she said, hoping it was true. “They can smell my
scent. There is nowhere that you could hide me that they wouldn’t sniff me out.”
“Your confidence is amusing. It’s true the Lycan sense of smell is enhanced, but there is one tried and true method to cloak your
natural scent from their inquisitive noses.”
“Which is?” she asked fearfully.
Again that damnable smile curved his lips and she felt a chill at its appearance. “First, you will strip and wash their foul seed from
your body. I can smell it drying upon your skin as we speak.”
Indeed, the seed from her two wolves had dried to a thin crust along her skin. But she didn’t want to wash it away.
Her reluctance was rewarded with a sharp slap across her face. She gasped and stumbled away, holding her cheek with her
palm.
“I do not ask. I am telling you.”
“Fuck you,” she said, blinking back tears.
“Do not tempt me,” he said, looking away. “I will give you ten minutes to clean yourself. You will find a natural spring pool about
twenty feet away. It is warm but not overly so. Wash yourself. I expect to see you scrubbed clean and ready for me when I
return.” He turned to leave, but then added for good measure, “Do not be so foolish as to try and leave. The cavern is filled with
wrong turns and deadly drop offs. If you would like any chance of leaving this cavern alive...do as you’re told.”