Akela stirred in her sleep. Her dreams were disjointed and foggy, but in them she was back in the silver cage under Alpha preston's castle.
She was Kira.

Things had changed since she had left. In the corner there was a bed, a real, proper bed. With a duvet and pillows. And in the corner, a child's cot. 

She didn't have to look in it to see the small boy asleep in it. Her brain was sluggish and slow. A sore spot on the right side of her skull told a story of a bruise, but she couldn't remember how she got it. 
Somehow she knew she had pissed Preston off.
Spoken back to him.
Og refused to let hun refresh the bitemark...
Yes.
That's it.
She had stopped him from sinking his teeth into her ...again!

So much for not believing in white marks. He had bitten her so often it could only be because he wanted his mark to be white, for her soul to be his.
Judging by the crust of blood covering the puncture wounds and trail of dry blood running along her protruding collarbone, he had really gone to work on the mark this time. Her fingertips felt weak and faint as they traced the soreness deep into her neck and shoulder.
She felt sore in other areas too, but there weren't enough tears left in her to grieve that part of being Preston's Luna.
More often than she cared to remember, he had gotten off on her disgust. And he certainly wasn't afraid to remind her that she was paying for 20 years of lost time he should have had with Lexi.
As if her mother would have been a willing Luna to this psychopath.

Kira stopped her thoughts of her family.
There was a hole in her mind where her links with them used to be. And a soreness in her heart at the thought that she was alone in this hellish life. The only thing left to live for was her daydreams of one day avenging their deaths. For the first time in her previously happy life, Kira was all alone, her parents taken from her and her twin murdered.
The absence of Akela was still tearing a hole in her soul every time she thought of her. Kira wasn't used to this extreme solitude. There had always been a part of her that stayed in touch with her twin. Where Kira had always been impulsive and hot-tempered, the link with Akela had made her think twice before doing something stupid. And Kira knew that Akela used to be braver when Kira was near. They complemented each other, completed the circle. And without the other half of her, Kira felt herself spiralling down into a dark abyss.
The memory of Preston ordering his deltas to "kill the sister!" the moment he marked her, and Akela's immediate disappearance from Kira's mind was still enough to bring tears to her eyes. She had just pushed his pup out from her body when he crawled into bed with her to claim what he said was his. 
She hated him for it. He had stolen everything precious from her and she had no way of knowing if her own life was safe. Her claws had hovered over his skin a few times, but she was afraid of what would happen if she actually tried to harm him.

At least she had her son. She wasn't all alone. Her baby boy, the pup destined to rule the north. Every day, her baby was the reason she got out of bed in the morning. He was the reason she endured Preston's imprisonment.
Slowly, she sat up.
She had to see if he was still in his cot or if a delta had been to take him from her.
Her head felt foggy and distant. Her mind wasn't fully integrated with her body. The sheets momentarily stuck to her skin and a brief look, revealed more crusted blood had discoloured the bedding.
Most of it was centred around where her shoulder har been, but there was a fair amount along the four parallel red welts running diagonally down her back. Claw marks. Just to make sure she was bled dry. He needed her too weak to fight him. So he kept her constantly bled out or beaten.
Kira dreaded to think how much blood had drawn into the mattress this time.
Her small piece of pride was how she had taken Akela's place. Her sister wouldn't have had the fight in her to endure this life.

From sheer dizziness, she fell back down into the sheets, now revoltingly scratchy from what she knew was her own dried blood. The smell was overwhelmingly metallic and stunk of her own adrenaline-driven sweat.

In the cot, the child whimpered, but she couldn't muster the energy to go to him. Her world swam and her head felt like it was trying to detach from her body. Swaying up to a seated position she swore softly. Her hands were tied. Thin, but strong metal chains were shackled to her hands. Her unfocused eyes struggled to follow the linkwork to the attached wall. She moved. the wall seemed to move with her as her world returned to black fog.

The dream faded again. Akela sat bolt upright in her bed, eyes wide open.

"Kira!" she whispered, unsure if it was a dream or the last remnants of her sister's life projecting in her mind. Softly she felt around the links with other lycans. Her pack, the Alpha, Grange and Hunter... all fast asleep. Up, on the mountain, Abel was stirring in his slumber, some kind of dream making him toss and turn. Zion was halfway to waking, his subconscious reaching for her. Akela sent him a soft, reassuring thought back and felt him settle again. The two of them made her smile. 

Carefully Akela reached into the darker areas, Kira's mindlink, which had stayed silent and dead for all this time, pulsated with the faintest of connections. The faintest feeling of happiness flickered in her heart, making her eyes water. The emptiness in her soul, the piece of her that belonged exclusively to her twin was warming up. It felt like a slow sunrise after the darkest night, but it was fragile, and Akela sensed more than she knew that the connection could be cut off again at any moment. Carefully, Akela lay down, tentatively letting her mind drift into the link with her twin. It was faint. As if Kira was barely alive. Just like Lexi's link had felt the last night she was alive, the moment before she felt her father's world shatter into fragments. With her eyes closed tightly, Akela willed the mindlink open, not daring to hope. It could mean a final good-bye, and Akela was not ready to feel her sister give in. She willed her own strength into the darkness, passing along all her love, hoping beyond hope that Kira would feel it too. Hoping, that her own life force would infuse the strength to survive into Kira.

And she felt herself drifting into a new dream.

Kira's eyes opened again at the sound of the door to the dungeon opening. Her eyes burned with fear. Her body coiled for the next attack. The next humiliation. Her mind was on the sleeping pup in his cot. He was asleep again, and something told her it was perhaps the last time she would see him.

He was old enough for solid food. Her service as the breeding stock was done.
Preston had made that much clear last night.

Bootclad feet stepped along the damp dungeon floor and stopped in front of her cage, where a voice hissed out a quiet "Shit! Kira!".

Her eyes opened, her limbs relaxed a bit from their incessant shaking.

"He really did you in this time!" Felix continued as his keys rattled in the lock.

His footsteps entered the cage and his keys found the cuffs that kept her shackled to the wall.

"Rhody is on guard duty over by the latrines. This is your only chance," Felix's voice insisted as he hauled her bruised body up from the bed.

A backpack stood in the gap of the silver cage door, holding it open. 

"You have to go!" he continued as he gently lifted the tiny pup out of the cot and strapped him to her body, using a long strip of cloth.

"Come with me!" her voice sounded distant and strange as if her head was full of cotton.

Felix shook his head.

"You know I can't!" he said.

"He'll kill you!" she told him. 

Felix shot a look at her beaten body and the way she held herself. She had trouble standing up under her own weight, and with the added burden of a sleeping pup and a backpack filled with food scraps, she would be caught and hauled back here before the guards even had a chance to figure out she was missing.

"Fine. I'll get you past Rhody!" Felix sighed and supported her out of the cage towards the door.

The fresh nighttime air seeping through smelled of freedom, and somewhere in the back of her mind, the presence of her twin sister stirred.

"Akela," Kira whispered.

Felix simply nodded.

"I feel Akela! She's alive!" Kira sobbed, tears filling her eyes.

Felix nodded again.

"She wants me to come to her," Kira whispered again. The distance seemed so far. And her feet were so heavy.

"Come with me," she told Felix.

He chuckled darkly and hoisted the backpack onto his shoulders before supporting her out.

"As you wish, Luna," he grinned and hauled her up the stairs into the nighttime air.

Akela sat up in a cold sweat in bed. her mind worked frantically pushing every mindlink.

Kira.

She had seen Kira!

A previously torn connection opened up and Akela didn't know if her voice or her mind shouted loudest.

"Kira!" She mindlinked with all her might.

It was faint, but it was there. Akela felt Kira's she had been in the dream. She was weak and scared and most likely concussed. But she was alive.

A weak, disbelief returned to Akela.

"I dreamt of you, Kira. I dreamt you got out," Akela thought, a wide smile on her face.

"Akela! Alive!" The tired twin replied. Akela could tell she was moving. But it was slow. And laboured, as if every step took all her focus.

Akela lay back in bed and felt tears of relief and fear mix. She had Kira back, but Kira was weak and frightened. There was no way she was strong enough to make the journey Akela had.
The door to Akelas room was opened and Grange entered with a cautious look.

"Did you have another nightmare, sweetheart?" The older woman asked.

Akela shook her head. And then nodded before sitting up again.

"Kira! I dreamt about Kira. And now my mindlink with her is back. And she's running away... But she's so weak, granny! She won't make it!" Akela ranted, not even sure if she was scared or happy.

Behind Grange, a tall golden-eyed man appeared. his hair dishevelled from sleep.

"Where is she?" he asked.

Akela looked up at her Alpha, the uncle she had learned to love and felt the desperate tears burn as they mad their way past her lashes.

"She's leaving him! She's running, but she won't make it," Akela sobbed until a strong set of arms wrapped around her, shushing her gently.

"We'll find a way. I'll... think of something..." Ezekiel whispered.

Without hesitation, Akela allowed herself to trust him. Just like she had once trusted her dad.

"My dad would have liked being your Delta," she smiled.

Ezekiel smiled back at her and nodded.

"I have a pack meeting to organise," he mumbled and stood up. Stretching his arms over his head, cracking his back, he looked at the clock on the wall.

"5 am? No worse than a dead-mans-shift at the firehouse. How do you feel about an early breakfast?" he asked and strode off towards the main house like a man with a purpose.