Page 9 of Bewitching the Wolf

“Where?”

“In the stomach… now they’re yanking my arms behind my back, tying my wrists…”

I jolt as I’m thrown onto a hard surface. “I’m in the back of a truck, or the trunk of a vehicle…”

I feel the impact of being tossed around as the vehicle picks up speed.

The images slide away and my current surroundings come back in focus. I stir restlessly and moan, not wanting to go under again. Traggar mutters some more words in wolfen. I hear the snap of his wand over my head, then inhale the heady scent of the hypnotic incense and I’m back in the past again.

The vehicle stops abruptly, and in seconds I am jostled out by rough hands and made to stand. Something cold and hard is forced into my back, the nozzle of a gun, I think. I’m pushed along, stumbling. “They’re taking me somewhere…” A door clangs. “A building. Down steps.”

It’s still dark. The sack is over my head, the gag tight and cutting into my mouth.

And then… Bright lights suddenly.

I recoil.

A face. Cruel, steel-gray eyes. Red lips that shape into a twisted parody of a smile.

Squinting, I mumble, “A female…”

“Human?” Traggar’s voice questions.

“I think… looks human. But nasty. Cruel.”

And then she speaks, and the words spill out of my mouth unbidden as if grafted on my soul, guttural and harsh. “Ah, Jax Summers. Tell me boy, do you want to die today?”

Fear grips me like ice.

“The penalty for drilling through the dome wall is vaporization. What do you say, Jax Summers, shall we vaporize you?”

I struggle, trying to escape those eyes, that voice. But I’m bound tightly by ropes that tether me to a plinth.

The woman’s face looms closer. Her smell is perfumed, but so sickening I want to vomit. “You’re a bad boy, Jax—you have bad blood in you. Always in trouble. Always breaking the rules. But the fight in you, the determination, I like that. We can harness that. You’ll make a good little worker, once we’ve brought you to your knees.”

She laughs, the sound like a whip cracking.

“I—I can’t—do—this—” I gasp.

“Try to stay with it, Jax. Try to recall what happens next,” Traggar says gently.

“I’m on a plinth. There is an implement—a drill. Coming for my neck.”

Terror blocks my throat. I fall silent.

Traggar urges, “Now what?”

“Nothing… Nothing… darkness. I don’t remember, I don’t remember.”

I start to shake uncontrollably. My wolf is running in crazy circles inside me. I feel Traggar’s energy pulling me back, back to his den, to the here and now.

I’m hyperventilating, and I hear Traggar say, “Okay, breathe, Jax. Breathe. You’re safe. You’re here.” Then he says some wolfen words and my wolf quietens.

“You’re back here now. In my den. On the couch right here. You’re safe. Sit up, drink this.”

He hands me an earthenware mug full of a warm aromatic drink, and as I sip it, I feel my body and mind clicking back into the present.

“That woman, can you recall her face?”