Ch 10 Defiant

After another morning of doing nothing, Coen's rage made him see red, as his blood smeared the punching bag. Suddenly, the chain holding the bag broke, and it flew into the wall.

"You got quite a punch there, young alpha." One of the Guardians was sitting on a weight bench watching him. Coen snorted derisively.

"Name's Nathaniel, and I get the feeling you aren't too happy with the way things are going," the wolf said.

Coen could feel the alpha power radiating off him, but wasn't intimidated. "My sister and my mate's brother and over a dozen of our children are abducted and may already be sold into goddess only knows what kind of hell and you Guardians sit in my father's office and do nothing," accusing, Coen snarled, "So yes, I am not happy with the way things are going." He effortlessly carried another punching bag over and hung it up. He glanced at his knuckles to see how well they are healing. He realized Trinity's venom must still be in his system because he was healing faster than normal. He wondered how long it would last and made a mental note to ask Metheus.

"So you think we should go out there and get them, is that it, young pup?" Nathaniel question held a tone of contempt.

"I think that if Alpha Commander Langley and the Guardians had done their job and caught this group attacking the smaller packs, clans, and covens. Maybe stopped them from abducting young wolves and walkers over the past six years that you wouldn't be here now, and my sister wouldn't be missing," Coen mocked, and began punching the new bag. "But I am glad my pack warriors could do part of your job and kill fifty-one of them." Sarcasm made him sound hateful.

Unperturbed, Nathaniel eyed him. "Heard you killed nearly a dozen yourself, that your warform got really grumpy. It kept going even after you were hurt pretty bad, and even ran out of the pack hospital to keep fighting." He was fishing and Coen knew it.

The pack had been given an alpha command not to reveal Trinity's ability to heal, but the Guardians were talking to everyone and too much information was getting to them in Coen's opinion.

"I fight hard and heal fast. I do my duty to my pack, their safety and protection are my only priority," Coen grunted, imagining it was Nathaniel's face and not a bag he was punching. He hoped the Guardian would leave, but he just sat there curling weights up and down.

"Your mate's a pretty little thing, unusual coloring, heard she's a hybrid. Is she fae or walker?" Nathaniel asked casually.

Coen paused and looked at his knuckles, as he realized Nathaniel was trying to rattle him, so he snarked back. "Yep, her family's clan was killed, probably by the same rogues and renegades that attacked us. The same ones you Guardians can't seem to catch, but it's only been six years since then, might take a little more time, I guess." He began punching again in three-two combinations. "Or someone's taking bribes to let them run around."

Nathaniel growled at the insult, "You don't like the Guardians to you, pup?"

Coen stopped again and glared openly, challenging the older alpha, "No, no, I do not. And I do not want to spend the next four years of my life doing the bidding of corrupt bureaucrats while my pack needs me to help protect it and the innocent are being abducted and sold like livestock."

"You need to show some respect, pup," Nathaniel growled.

"My grandfather Alpha and Alpha Commander Andrew Rowan taught me respect is earned. Expecting respect for nothing is why there are so many weak packs and weaker leaders," Coen snarled back, ready to fight Nathaniel.

"Coen! Do not take such a tone with another Alpha," Luna Cerese snapped. She stood at the top of the stairs with Trinity by her shoulder. They descended the steps into the basement.

Coen growled but grudgingly responded, "Sorry, Mother."

"Now apologize to Alpha Nathaniel," Luna Cerese ordered.

Coen ground his teeth. "I will, Mother, as soon as Camillia is here to hear it."

Trin stared at him wide-eyed. He had never been rude to his mother like that.

Cerese's eyes narrow, she knew her eldest would not bend, he was more like her than his father. "I think you need to go for a long run. The full territory border... twice. Don't come home till you can be civil to our guest."

Coen trembled with anger at the reprimand, but before he could say anything more, Trin clapped her hand over his mouth, and they vanished in a shimmer of shadows. Nathaniel looked shocked.

Cerese rubbed her forehead, "I apologize for my eldest, Alpha Nathaniel."

"No need, he has a valid point, we are running out of time, and like most young alphas his age he doesn't like the idea of taking orders from others, regardless of how wise those orders are. That's why we have the Alpha Academy training program to help cool the hot heads."

"My son is not a hot head. He just wants his sister and the other captive children returned before harm comes to them," Luna Cerese retorted sharply, "Excuse me, Alpha."

Nathaniel bowed his head slightly, "Luna. I'm glad you and your mate healed so quickly after the attack. Beta Killian believed you and Alpha Blake should have died."

Cerese narrowed her eyes at him, "Beta Killian tends to exaggerate things in the heat of battle; the Darkwood alphas are strong. Perhaps his ambitions to become the next alpha while the boys are away for their mandatory tour of duty with your organization fueled his error."

"And you approve of your son having a hybrid mate, especially a walker? Not many Lunas would," Nathaniel watched her reaction carefully.

Cerese smiled at him instead of scowling at his insinuation. "I am not most Lunas and I love Trin as my own. She and her wolf have made us all proud many times, we look forward to her being our Luna." Then she turned on her heel and glided up the stairs.

Alpha Nathaniel nodded after her because her sons were exactly what the Guardians needed.

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:::content warning – Abuse, violence, sex trafficking:::

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Twice a day for the last two days, Camillia was taken from her cell for breakfast and dinner with the Alpha, but she was beaten, tortured, and hurt in ways she didn't want to even think about. She surprised Sigmund when she refused to call him Alpha or Fang as he preferred. He thought he was breaking her by forcing their mating and marking her the second evening, but then she broke his nose and her wolf was at his throat before he subdued her again. This morning, he choked her out after she flung the plates and everything else she could get her hands on at him and then smashed her chair across his side.

When she woke tied to the last remaining chair, he demanded, "Why won't you submit?"

She spat her blood at him and growled out, "Why?! Your friend Malak turned my little brother into a shadow walker. His vampires almost killed my friends after your mangy mongrels raped them, and then they took the children I vowed to protect away to sell as vampire hors dourves. You have nothing left to threaten me with now."

He lunged forward grabbing her forearms, "I am an Alpha of Icemaw. I marked you. Your wolf must accept me."

"Alpha, schmalpha! I am a Luna of the Darkwood. My wolf and I will never accept you, Sigmund Fangless." Shouting, she twisted her wrists and sank her claws into his arms until he flung her away from him. The chair held together, but he stormed out to confront his ally, cursing in a language she did not know. Two wolves came in and dragged her, chair and all, to the dungeon.

Her whole body hurt as she was thrown onto the floor of her cell. Gabe stirred on the cot, but he was still asleep. Camillia laid down next to him and closed her eyes. She needed to sleep to be strong, she had to save him somehow. Tears came to Camillia's eyes, and hatred filled her heart. It wasn't fair, none of it. After all that happened to him in his short life, now a demented shadow walker master forced him to feed in a way that would ruin his life forever. She plotted their escape and get the remaining two Darkwood wolves to safety, but it was complicated by the fact that the shadow walkers turned Gabe into one of them and now her enemies weren't just the rogues and renegades who held them, but sunlight as well.

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Camillia gasped herself awake from a nightmare. Beside her, Gabe shivered and felt clammy. Gabe's body was changing, his skin growing paler as he turned from a sun-walker to a shadow walker. He wouldn't wake up for three days after he started changing, if she remembered her walker physiology correctly. That meant tonight or tomorrow night, they would have to escape, but it broke her heart that never again would they play in the morning sunlight of her grandmum's garden or bask in the afternoon warmth after swimming. She wiped her tears, and kissed his forehead, noticing his blond locks were already fading to white. She heard steps and sat up quickly.

"Hello, Luna, how's your pet?" It was one of Fang's wolves. They had started calling her Luna, but it was more to mock her than show her respect. He held a tray of real food and not just bread. "The Alpha wants you fed so you will heal before tonight." He sneered at her, but she held her head up, and stared at him coldly. He couldn't keep his gaze up and looked away. She was a Luna of the Darkwood, an alpha female of an ancient lineage, and he was a mongrel and he knew it. He sat the tray down, cursing and stormed out.

Carefully Camillia took part of the food and pushed the rest into the next cell. "Hey, wake up. It's lunch time. Lindie, Polly."

"Cami?" Lindie woke and ate. "You're back."

"Fangless and I had another fight. I won't submit!" Shouting the last, Cami smirked bravely, then whispered, "Make Polly eat. We need to get out of here as soon as Gabe wakes up."

Lindie forced her younger cousin to eat as she and Cami whispered about how to get outside. They vowed they would escape or die trying.

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The sun was setting. Cami hoped Gabe would wake up soon because he hadn't last night. Lindie was ready, but Polly laid on her side in an almost catatonic state, as she had every night since the night the vampire enthralled her. Camillia wasn't taken back to Fang's quarters last night, so she guessed the broken ribs and bruises she gave him needed to heal. But this morning some of Fang's wolves took Camillia to Fang's quarters, where she destroyed half the furnishings again and fought him until she was beaten into unconsciousness. When she awoke, naked and battered, she attacked him again. Her ferociousness surprised him. Her wolf wanted him dead and together they were determined to make it happen. Fang managed to knock her unconscious again and she woke up on the floor of her cell.

Her guard brought her lunch, and when she demanded some for the others and he complied, making the comment that he'd never thought a female could hold out against the Alpha. Camillia growled that he wasn't her alpha and he never would be.

She knew he would send for her tonight, but she had a plan. The door clicked and both she and Lindie stuck their fingers down their throats and started retching miserably.

"What the...?" Fang snarled as he stood beyond the bars.

Camillia glared at him, wiping the vomit from her mouth, before she accused, "You couldn't break me, Fangless, so you poison me?" She stood up swaying, holding on to the bars while Lindie continued to gag like she was about to puke again. "Well, I will happily vomit on you all night."

Fang made a face at the smell and turned on the guard, "What did you feed them? Get the doctor."

"But Alpha Fang, you killed the doctor last month when the luna girl we took from Briarrose pack killed herself so she wouldn't have your pup," the guard stammered. Fang roared and knocked the man into the bars of her cell.

Cami turned, dropped to her knees in front of the toilet and pretended to vomit again. The tears which flooded her eyes were from grief because her and Trin's dear friend Hana was the only luna from the Briarrose pack after her mother died. They hadn't seen her since camp last summer, and neither of them thought much when she didn't write because it wasn't unusual to not hear from Hana till winter break. This monster had taken her and tried to force a mate bond, but Hana suicided, escaping him and taking his offspring with her. However, Camillia couldn't die, no matter how despairing she became, she had to rescue Gabe and the Bartlett cousins. She clutched the bars as she stood up again and turned to glare at Fang. He seemed surprised at the hatred in her eyes. Her alpha wolf challenged his, longing to stain her teeth with his blood. She showed her teeth in an enraged grimace, and for a moment he hesitated, then he blinked and growled.

"I hate you."

"Enjoy your night off, my luna, you won't get another one," Fang snarled.

"Then you better have new furniture and dishes delivered, mongrel, I'll need something to throw at you," she hissed.

He believed she was sick and yet she defied him, she wanted to kill him. He trembled for a moment because his wolf was suddenly focus on this vicious female, and she could feel his rage, but it was nothing compared to hers. His wolf looked away first. For a moment, she feared he might kill her because of that, but instead he turned and stomped up the stairs. She went over to where the guard was still laying on the ground.

"Rodney?" she murmured in a gentle tone. "I'm sorry we're sick." She patted his back and rubbed where his shoulder hit the bars. "Are you hurt?"

"Nah, Luna, he's hit me harder before." He leaned against the bars for a moment then struggled to stand. "Look, my sister works in the kitchen, I'll get you girls some toast and lemon soda, then I'm gonna kick the cook's arse." He half smiled at her, so she reached through the bars and squeezed his shoulder.

"You're a good wolf, Rodney. I'm sorry you're here." She tried to look as kindly as she could, then she pretended to gag, slapping her hand over her mouth. "Uhck, excuse me," and she rushed back to the little toilet in the corner of the cell.

She heard him leave and Lindie giggled. "Dang you're a good actress, Luna Camillia."

Camillia grinned at her, answering in a light, fluffy voice, "All part of luna training, always be believably kind to those you want to kill." Then her tone dropped, "Just keep being miserable. Nobody is going to want a date or dinner tonight if they all think we have food poisoning."

Lindie nodded. "I'm worried about Polly, I don't know how much more she can handle. I'm afraid she might to what that whatever-rose girl did."

Camillia swallowed against the lump in her throat. "Hana, her name was Luna Hana Thorne of Briarrose, and she was my friend."

Lindie squeezed her hand through the bars then made a show of being sick when Rodney returned with three cups, some seltzer tablets, saltine crackers, and three cans of soda. He shouted at two wolves starting down the stairs that the girls were sick. Crawling back to the door, Camillia made a show of being weak, tearfully thanking him for his kindness.

"What about the little vampire? Does he need anything?" Rodney asked, and Camillia realized he was being sincere.

"No, he won't wake up for a few more days. The change takes time, then he'll need someone to feed off of, so I'll feed him, but thank you again for being so kind to us. I know you don't have to." Camillia meant it this time. She gave her best smile to him, and he nodded like a lovesick puppy before he left.

"How do you do that?" Lindie asked surprised.

Camillia smirked. "The same way I did this." She held up the key to the cell doors. "Magic!"