When we took refuge in the damp, rust-scented depths of the mine, the wind outside wasn't just blowing; it was as if the hungry souls of Alberta were howling. Dominic was far from the woody and oceanic scents I knew him for now. He had transformed into a shield made of mud and sweat. He barricaded the entrance with his broad shoulders, using his body to prevent the wind from freezing us. In the darkness, we could only hear each other's shaky, ragged breaths.
Chloe, with trembling hands, pulled a pack of salty crackers from the bottom of her bag. This was the same high-design, quality-stitched bag that had once hit a vampire lady's head with a "thud." But when I saw Chloe's hands, my breath caught in my throat.
The skin on her hands was stripped from her fingertips to her wrists. The flesh was raw, pink, and bloody. Imagining how much those wounds stung in the cold air made my soul ache. I wanted to cry, to scream, but Chloe only gritted her teeth and opened the pack. The crinkle of the plastic was like a symphony of hope in this silent tomb.
Chloe's hands had been skinned.
Tears were streaming down my eyes.Her skin was pink up to her wrists.
If she hadn't escaped a little further...
I couldn't imagine.
"We share." Chloe said, her voice cracking like shattered glass from the horror she had endured. "It's little, but it'll keep us until morning. My aunt lives in California, Vespera. We'll get on a plane. The wolves... they can't survive in that heat. If we have to, we'll get a visa for Africa! That brute can't find us there."
She distributed the crackers like a ritual. When she handed one to me, the taste of vanilla and metallic blood from my awakening still lingered in my mouth.
My stomach was too full of that "hybrid" power to accept physical food. The fire within me was too great to be extinguished by Varg's ineffective ointment.
"I'm full..." I whispered, my voice echoing like a ruin. "You eat. You need it more."
Dominic and Melanie began to tell their story as they wolfed down the crackers Chloe handed them, as if it were their last meal. The hours spent in the sterile, marble-cold cellars of the vampires... The sadistic tortures hidden behind that elegance.
I looked at Melanie's hands. She had no fingernails. Her nail beds were ten empty craters filled with fresh blood and pus.
They had been ripped out with pliers; each nail torn off one by one for the aristocratic pleasure of those vampires. When Dominic's thin shirt tore, I saw the whip-like burn marks on his back. As they spoke, I wavered between Varg's coarse but at least "living" brutality and the cold, calculated, dead cruelty of the vampires.
It was all because of me.
Tears melted the dried mud on my face, carving deep furrows.
"It's my fault..." I sobbed. "Because of my cursed blood, this happened to you. They were going to kill you!"
Chloe cupped my face with her muddy, skinless hand. She tried to hide the pain, but her fingers were shaking. "No, Vespera, don't say that. We exist for each other. When I saw your message, I lost my mind. I thought you were talking about Kael at first. We thought someone was forcing you to marry. Then we followed your pack! They said 'A mad Alpha kidnapped her.' My heart stopped, Vespera!"
She drew closer to me, and we huddled together for warmth in that freezing mine. When she slightly moved her scarf, the bruises and bite marks on her neck... My heart shattered into a thousand pieces.
They hadn't just imprisoned them; they had battered them like lab rats, like toys.
"Look, morning will come." Chloe said, her voice trembling. "When the storm dies down, we'll leave and go home. Then all the countries will be ours. You don't have to go back to that freakish pack or that brute of a man. You won't go to your father either! We won't let anyone lock you in a room or treat you like a freak. You'll stay with me, and we'll build a new life together. "
She was shaking. "We'll go shopping and forget all those ridiculous wolf traditions."
Chloe's promises were like the dream I had just seen—a city of glass, a shimmering escape. But the warmth of the blood seeping from Varg's wounded chest was still there on my skin.
"Home..." I murmured. It was as if she were talking about another planet. "Can we really go back, Chloe? Will he let us go?"
"We will." Dominic called out from the entrance. "We won't leave you to the mercy of that monster, Vespera. We can live anywhere in the world. If I have to move out of my mom's apartment, I will. As long as there's WiFi! As long as we're away from those claws."
Dominic was shielding us from the cold wind with his entire body. I sighed, looking at his beautiful brown locks. Here was a real man. He didn't care about hierarchy. He didn't grow strong by eating deer liver; he shared cracker crumbs with his friends. He wasn't an Alpha; he was a friend.
The damp darkness of the mine was filled with the old, familiar warmth of my friends. Even though we were covered in mud, we huddled together as if we were at one of those luxury college parties. Dominic, standing like a statue at the mine entrance, turned his head slightly toward us.
"Vespera, look at you..." he said, trying to grin through the cracks in the mud on his face. "You've really embraced the 'swamp girl' aesthetic. In the city, they'd pay a thousand dollars for this hair; we did it for free here. To hide from your crazy husband, we'll dye your hair brown first thing tomorrow; no one will recognize you."
Melanie giggled, but her voice shook with the exhaustion of the terrible pain in her nails. "Really... do you think the flight attendants will let us on the plane tomorrow morning? Our smell will probably knock out the whole cabin. 'Vespera's Escape: Eau de Sludge' perfume."
Chloe squeezed Vespera's hand and laughed as she spilled cracker crumbs on me. "We took you from that mountain bear and the vampires, so what if we're covered in mud? When we get back, I'm locking you in the most luxurious spa. My credit cards will scream louder than Varg's coarse voice."
Tears streamed down my face as I looked at their tragicomic state. They had seen death, yet they were still making jokes for me.
"You're crazy," I whispered. "Did you really get into this filth, this torture for me?"
"You're our family, Vespera." Dominic said, his voice protective. "Of course we've got your back. We're in this game until the last credit is spent!"
At that moment, a sound echoed through the rusty walls of the mine. The air, warmed by the affection of my friends, turned to ice. Dust falling from the ceiling was a harbinger that time had stopped.
This wasn't the sound of the wind. It wasn't the shifting of stones either.
A growl rose from the depths of the mine, from the tunnels that had never seen light. But this growl didn't sound like Varg's; it was hungrier, more primal, and... there were many of them.
Dominic's shoulders tensed. "Shhh!" he warned us. When he turned his flashlight toward the depths of the tunnel, we saw dozens of yellow eyes gleaming in the dark. The mine wasn't just our refuge; it had become the den of outcasts driven mad by hunger, the ghosts cast out from the packs.
"Back up!" Dominic said in a trembling voice. "Vespera, hide ! Don't let them see!"