You Rejected Me. Remember?

Astrea

I leaned against my mate for comfort since I knew that I would need it. Heaving a deep breath, I started to relive those memories. Leo squeezed me against him. Perhaps he felt my discomfort through our bond.

“Umm… all of it?” I asked, letting out a humourless laughter.

“Yes, all of it,” the Queen nodded her head. I squeezed Leo’s hand and gulped.

“Okay, here goes,” I breathed out.

I was shackled in silver after my attempt to escape their lair failed. It drained my energy and weakened my wolf in addition to burning my skin. It restrained my movements, and I was reluctant to use my energy much because Ash was getting shaky as time passed.

On the third day, they injected their vial saying that it would strengthen my wolf. However, as soon as they injected it, I stopped hearing from Ash and I lost consciousness.

When I woke up, I wasn’t bound by the silver chains. I was glad. However, I was still locked up in a room where I couldn’t see the daylight. I wasn’t aware of how the time passed by. The only means of knowing if it was day or night was when they brought food for me. In the morning, they brought some bread and eggs while in the evening I would get a plate of rice.

After three days, Calvin returned. I dreaded seeing him again, because each time he paid me a visit, he forcefully did something unpleasant. The first time, he forcefully marked me, and the second time his followers held me down while he injected the vial causing me to lose my consciousness.

I was scared that he might have assaulted me while I was oblivious, but when Ash confirmed that the hymen was intact, I was able to breathe in peace.

I huddled in the far corner of the room, glaring at the crazy demon who had entered the compartment. I wasn’t expecting anything good. I knew that Calvin meant trouble.

“Hello, mate,” he snickered.

Scoffing in annoyance, I rolled my eyes. We weren’t fated together, but he kept addressing me as his mate. Even the mark he had forced on me was rejected by my wolf, yet, that didn’t stop him.

When I didn’t respond, he sauntered over to me. After crouching in front of me, he yanked a fistful of hair making me wince.

“Look at me!”

I had no desire to obey his command. Despite my determination to rebel, he grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him.

“Obey my command. I don’t like to force myself on women.”

The stench of his breath made me gag.

“I choose you as my mate. Imagine how powerful you will be after we take over the Lycan kingdom. I’ll be king and you’ll be queen. I’ll shower you with all the wealth in the world. I’ll give you everything you want. Just agree to be my mate,” he offered.

My lips crooked a bit. He must be delusional if he thought that I was like him. He sure had an absurd way of getting consent. Mentally ridiculing him, I sneered. I didn’t utter a word, yet my wolf was throwing insults at him one after the other. My silence seemed to have offended him. Growling, he tightened his grasp on my hair.

“I said. Be. My. Mate! This isn’t a request!”

His threatening demand resounded in the blocked room, but I didn’t care. I was never going to agree to what he had said.

Despite the discomfort he was inflicting by pulling my hair, I sneered at him.

“You can’t force relationships on anyone. You can’t coerce anyone to be with you against their will,” I said.

His face hardened as he let go of me and stood up to pace around the room.

After a few minutes, he halted and glanced in my direction. Narrowing his eyes, “I can and I will!” he asserted.

I gulped. I didn’t like the determination on his face. Nonetheless, when he left without doing anything else I was relieved. I thought it was just an empty threat. But I was wrong.

Later that night, three armed females entered the room. One of them approached me with a white cloth while the other two pointed their guns at me.

“No bright ideas. Those guns have silver bullets in them,” she warned and shoved a dress at me.

“Wear this!” she ordered and I rolled my eyes in response.

“How about a no?” I wasn’t in the mood to do anything. However, she chuckled and took a syringe from her pocket.

“We knew you wouldn’t obey so easily. So,” one of them pointed the needle at me and smirked.

“Would you do it the easy way or the hard way?”

I was scared of what might happen to me if they pushed the contents of the syringe into my bloodstream. So I hastily wore the flimsy dress they brought. It barely covered anything.

“What is this? You call this a dress?” I grumbled.

Snickering, they proceeded to do what they had come for. The female who approached me took a red cloth from her pocket and prepared to blindfold me.

Moving away, “what are you doing?” I asked.

She chuckled as her companion strolled over to me and pressed the barrel of her pistol against my temple. The cold metal of her gun made me shudder.

“No questions. Just do it, or else…”

Her colleague tied the blindfold and they started to lead me out of the room.

I smirked internally, thinking that I would finally be able to find a way to escape. It was the first time they were taking me out of the room I was confined in. However, if I wanted to succeed, I knew I had to be creative.

“Ash, be ready,” I called my wolf who responded at once. I used my sense of smell and hearing to evaluate my surroundings. Besides the three sets of footsteps excluding mine, which I assumed to belong to the three female rogues, I heard nothing. No one spoke, not even in the distance.

Our footsteps echoed, indicating that we were inside the building. Their distinctive smell of burning rubber was central. I was in their lair, so it was rational. I tried to catch a whiff of fresh air, trying to grasp an opening like a window, but there was nothing.

The atmosphere was still, much to my disappointment.

A door creaked. I knew we walked inside another room. Not knowing what to expect, I remained silent. I shuddered when they pressed the metal of their gun against my temple once again.

“Don’t you dare move,” the female growled out her warning and started to tie my hands using some cloth.

Frowning, “what are you doing?” I asked. I received a sharp whack to my face in response. I felt a warm liquid trickle down my cheek, but soon the wound healed – thanks to my accelerated healing power. Anyway, the blow wasn’t bad enough to knock me out.

“No questions!” she pressed her gun under my chin.

I grimaced. I hated being held hostage. Especially by a bunch of absurd rogues.

From the sound of their footsteps and the door closing I knew they had left after tying me up.

“Now is our chance!” I linked my wolf and started to yank the cloth that tied my wrists when the door opened again.

I froze. From the heaviness of the footsteps, I knew that it was him. My heart raced as Ash paced in my mind uncomfortably.

“Calvin is up to no good,” she warned.

Our instincts were right. He untied my blindfold. Grinning like a maniac, he eyed my curves, his lecherous gaze burning into me. I felt corrupted because he was staring at me like a piece of meat. I hated being put on display. Although I was a werewolf and nudity wasn’t new to us, I chose to live a respectable life. The moments we shifted from wolf to human were brief and no one dared to look at me like Calvin did.

And I loathed every moment of it.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, cupping my cheeks. His hands started to move towards my chest when I kicked his abdomen, making him stagger backward. Too bad, they didn’t tie my legs.

Coughing, he stood up. As soon as he managed to catch his breath, he dashed towards me and grabbed my hair.

“My mark… it’s not healing,” he mumbled. I supposed that he noticed it. My eyes widened when I saw his canines elongate. My heart raced as my breathing caught in my throat.

I wasn’t going to let him do that again.

My claws extended and a loud growl erupted from my throat as I pulled at the cloth they tied my hands with. Being an alpha, destroying a fragile piece of fabric was nothing to me, especially since I was fueled with rage.

I grabbed his collar and bent my knees, landing a mean blow to his groin. He hollered in pain and crouched as he held his crotch.

“Finish him!” Ash howled in my mind. I would have gladly finished him off if his pathetic guards didn’t barge in and shot a tranquilizer dart at me.

Despite my efforts to stay awake, I couldn’t. I lost my consciousness and this time, when I woke up, I was lying face up, my limbs stretched out and tied to four poles. Soon, I realised that I was lying on a hard surface, like a tabletop.

I looked around and saw nothing but darkness. I tried to break free, yet it was ineffective. This time they had used something stronger than cloth. Something like stainless steel. I knew that it definitely wasn’t silver because it didn’t burn my skin. I tried to destroy the chains but they were strong and from the position I was bound, I could only make minimal movements.

I grunted, frustrated at my helplessness. Suddenly the lights turned on, making me squeeze my eyes shut.

The sound of him clicking his tongue made me freeze. I sneered. Of course, he would be around. Why wouldn’t he be here to taunt me or try to take advantage of me?

I suddenly recalled that I was wearing next to nothing. Gasping, I looked at my body. Someone had changed my clothes. It irked me that someone had seen me naked without my knowledge and part of me hoped that it was one of the females. The thought of being touched by anyone without my consent was unsettling. Anyway, I wasn’t barely dressed anymore and that was a relief… I guess.

I looked at him and was relieved to see that he wasn’t alone. His pathetic followers surrounded him.

“I tried to make you mine before your next dose, but I guess we don’t have a choice. Darling, it’s time for your medicine,” he told me, making me frown.

What was he talking about?

My unasked question was answered within a matter of moments. A rogue stepped forward with a familiar syringe in his hand. I gasped in a breath.

No! Not again!

“No! I don’t want this!” I screamed, but my cries fell on deaf ears. None of them cared. Four rogues held my limbs when I started to thrash while the fifth one plunged the needle into my vein.

It burnt. Slowly, the burning sensation spread throughout my system. My breathing had laboured and I was drenched in sweat by the time they were done. My eyelids started to get heavy and I felt like I was being pulled into exhaustion. I had to fight to stay awake.

I knew Calvin moved towards me. The sound of his chuckles sounded faraway, but I knew that it was me who was drifting away.

“Ash,” I called my wolf after gathering all the strength I could muster, tears stinging my eyes. “Please… don’t leave me,” I was scared to lose her.

To my dismay, she didn’t respond. All I heard in my head was an eerie silence.

They didn’t release me since that day. I had to do all my business on that tabletop. They didn’t even let me use the lavatory. Calvin didn’t trust me. His followers cleaned me whenever and however they pleased. The only time they cleaned me well was when Calvin wanted to approach me… alone.

Over the next three weeks, he tried to assault me a couple of times. However, thankfully his stupid followers interrupted him. Sometimes because they needed to use the laboratory and sometimes because it was time for my next ‘dose’.

Every three days, they injected the vial, and each time I passed out. This continued well into the fourth week until finally Ash completely stopped responding to me.

“Ash!” I screamed, trying to hear from her, but she didn’t respond. Heck, I didn’t even sense her presence in my head. I was scared. I thought I had lost her and cried my eyes out.

“Now, now, my darling. Don’t cry. Are you crying because your wolf isn’t responding?” Calvin spoke, making me stare at him in disbelief. So he knew that it would happen.

“You monster!” I shrieked, but he simply chuckled.

“Not really. And your wolf will be back. She is just resting until her transformation is completed.”

My anger was at its peak. I wanted to believe that she would come back, but at the same time, I didn’t want to show even an ounce of adherence to him.

“f**k you!” I screeched.

Laughing, “I would love to, but only if you would let me,” he winked, making me shudder in disgust.

They removed the chains that bound me. I lunged at him as soon as they did, but without my wolf, I couldn’t do much damage. His female followers restrained me while I struggled to break free.

“Ah, ah, ah, my love. Let us complete the transformation, shall we?” He snickered.

He snapped his fingers and the rogues lit the whole place up.

I felt myself soften as I scanned the exquisite equipment. Apparatus that only a well developed laboratory would have was all over the place. There were solvents of various colours, some of them boiling in the flasks.

“So, dear. I want to show you my little secret before anything else. After all, since you are becoming the Queen, you should see this.”

He walked forward and halted in front of a large transparent round bottom flask. A violet liquid was inside it.

“This is my laboratory. We have conducted several groundbreaking experiments and made numerous discoveries. We develop solvents… new solvents…” he glanced at me and flashed a broad grin that made him look like a lunatic.

“The vial is one of them. It will change a wolf,” he mumbled.

I thrashed in anger, but it was useless.

“Now, time for my friend to do his charm on you, while your wolf takes her time to return,” he gestured to a rogue.

All I could do was stare helplessly while a stranger dressed in all black walked inside. He drew a circle and a star on the cement floor and sat down. When he started to chant bizarre words, the females forced me to sit in front of him.

“No! Let me go!” I screamed. I dreaded looking into the gloomy eyes of the weird magician, but the rogues forced me to do it. After much resistance, our gazes met and that was the last thing I remember.

By the time I was done narrating everything, they were gaping at me, flabbergasted.

“That’s all. I remember being in another dimension. I met Ash there. She had changed but it was her. I was stuck there until I woke up to see that I was surrounded by everyone… in Zoro’s arms,” I ended my story.

Leo wrapped his arms around me and kissed my temple. My parents looked miserable and so did my friends.

“That… that is… I don’t know what to say…” the Queen trailed off.

Just then, an urgent shout made us glance at the frantic healer who was rushing towards the cubicle Arnold was kept in.

“What happened?” Sir Elliot asked a healer who was rushing past us.

“The boy, Arnold… he is going into shock.”