~Grace~
My mind is so fuzzy it doesn't occur to me that I am actually waking up until I blink my eyes open. I lift my head and glance down at my body. I am lying on some sort of cot, covered with thin sheets, and I don't feel any pain.
I lift my knee, bending and straightening it. The pain I felt in it is gone. How long has it been for my body to heal itself? Surely wounds that bad would have taken days for a non-Shifter, but I am perfectly fine now.
I fling the sheets back, taking note of the too-big clothes I've been changed into. Better than being naked, at least. I look around and notice for the first time that iron bars form a cage around me, sunk into the floor and bolted to the ceiling. There is a small toilet in my cell, plus the cot, and nothing else. For a moment, all I feel is confusion.
Obviously, Sucre caught me while I was trying to run away, and he thinks it's best I'm locked up out here? In a fucking cage?
Shit.
I can't help but imagine all of the torture he is going to put me through, and that's if I am lucky. It could be worse than torture. There is something very unhinged about him. Whatever the Leo would have done to me suddenly pales in comparison to what I suspect is ahead of me. I have gone straight from one torment to another.
"You sure like talking to yourself," a deep, gravelly male voice says.
I jump, realizing that I am not alone. With bated breath, I turn toward the voice.
Sucre steps out of the shadows, arms crossed over his chest. His handsome face is severe.
His walking stick is right beside him, and for a brief moment, I find myself taking pity on him. I shove that thought far back. Now is not the time, and definitely not the place, to be thinking about how much of his hurt he endures for me, and my perfect payback is to run away with his properties.
"I wasn't running, believe me. I was just confronted by Leo, my pack alpha," I stutter.
"About how many miles away from home? With my stuff? " He raises a brow.
I let a sigh slip before clamping my mouth closed.
I open my mouth but pause. I am not about to start answering his questions without getting some of my own answered first. "You know confining me against your will is kidnapping, right?"
"Hell, I will do the worst thing to make sure you do not leave me." He takes a deep breath, as if trying to control his monster from taking over.
With a slight snap of his finger, the chain holding the cell chatters and the door swings open.
"You can come back in now. Have it in mind that no matter how far you run, I will always find you. About locking you up here, it was a safe space since your pack is turning everywhere around just to find you."
I crawl out of my 'little dungeon' and honorably decline the hand he extends to help me stand. "Did you hurt my relatives? They took care of us, and we shouldn't pay back good with evil."
"That's rich, coming from someone who ditched me after I saved her fucking life." He smirks at that. "I can't answer most of those questions in your mind. Not yet. But I will say... I'm the one who dressed you."
My eyes widen, and my cheeks grow warm imagining those big hands of his all over my naked body. "Good for you; at least you get to feast with your eyes."
"I had them closed. For your privacy. Your Auntie made breakfast. You must be starving." His hands attempt to rest on my shoulder, but I shrug him off and walk hastily inside with rage boiling in me.
My paternal aunt and uncle stand immediately as I come in. "Oh, my poor little child. I heard from him that you didn't want to see anyone. I understand how emotionally painful all this must have been for you." I shoot Sucre a hateful gaze, and he dares to wink.
I recognize one of the elders of the pack standing with them. I am ready to run, but Sucre's hands hold my shoulders firmly. I'm not sure about trusting anyone. If my own sister and mother could betray me, how much more a relative?
"So we talked to Elder James; he's willing to help clear your name. Sucre claimed Natalie Leo's mate, was supposedly your dead sister, and I see the resemblance with that little girl, but we have taken your blood and hers and done the DNA test, but it doesn't match."
I take in a deep breath. Emily must be behind it. Someone who faked her own death for fourteen years wouldn't find it hard to alter a DNA test. Although the fact that she's a complete shifter and I'm human gives her every advantage. And clears every doubt that we might not be related.
I turn to the elder and bow. That is my way of saying thank you, and they seem to understand my helplessness well enough.
"Your father was a good friend of mine. They were in the wrong, and I helped enforce the law impartially, so it doesn't seem biased toward you. I understand you might not have had anything to do with her death—even if she truly died. There was a rogue attack, and you were also a victim of kidnapping. You must forgive your parents; they acted only with their emotions. The pain of losing a child can make you lose your own mind."
I nod, twisting my legs on the wooden floor. Emily was the one who suggested we sneak out and watch the mating ceremony, and even after I told her we weren't of age, she was ready to go alone. I had to go with her, but there was a rogue attack. I instructed her to hide under the oak tree while I acted as bait for the rogue, and it worked. I was taken by them and tortured into an unconscious state. When I woke up, I saw my father sitting at the edge of Emily's bed. He wasn't weeping. He was just holding Emily's hand and rocking it back and forth, and Emily… she was still. Still as... death.
I hadn't realized my face reflected deep exhaustion and despair, and tears were dripping from my eyes until my Auntie's soft hands wiped them off. "We have exhausted all possible solutions, even consulting a lawyer. They all said the charge against you was more than murder—even if the possibility of you being a child when it happened is taken into consideration, the fact that you have no mate... everyone your age already has a mate, and you know how the pack treats non-shifters, especially those without a mate."
My uncle tousles his hair, avoiding eye contact with me for a moment before saying, "Perhaps there is another way. To save you."
After some time, my aunt hesitantly says, "If she doesn't have a mate, are you suggesting we find her a husband? It's not an easy thing. In all my years, I've only heard of rich daughters with influential parents doing that secretly. It would have been possible if your mother was a little bit kind. For someone like us, and considering your current situation, who would be willing to marry you?"