Chapter 138

Nathan POV

"Free me!" I yelled again.

My throat raw from screaming all night and all day or for several nights and several days---without windows or a clock, I had no idea how much time had passed. Every thought in my head was focused on trying to keep myself human. I couldn't spare any to worry about Rachel.

Being chained in a windowless room in a place I didn't recognize? Right then was the first time I had stopped worrying about Rachel since the day she told me she wasn't mine any longer.

"I am not a danger to you! I am not going to lose control again! I need to reach out to my parents! They're going to be worried!"

I was yelling into a void for all the response I got, but I realized I wasn't lying as soon as I mentioned my parents.

My mother and father had no other child. I was their only son and heir. They'd never been blessed with another babe either male or female.

For a time, I'd thought I would be giving them a daughter. I had introduced Rachel to my parents fully expecting to marry her one day, mate her, bleed her into my pack and take on the House Lewis line as her own.

"Please," I rasped, my voice going out on me, "I just need someone to tell me I'm not going insane in here. Can't you come in to bring me water if nothing else?"

Water was the substance of life and I couldn't remember the last time I'd had any. When I'd been taken into the room by Art Windsor and his witch Justice? I had been chained in moments then my mind wasn't my own for a time.

I knew there was a broken glass within my reach. I thought it might have held water. The stones beside it were darker to my eyes even in the gloom; I associated the darkness with water even if the ground was dry now.

A door opened in front of me and a figure stood silhouetted by light. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust.

While trying to get used to seeing light again, I took in the figure was slender, medium height, and had short hair. I ruled out Art and Justice both in those seconds of study, but I couldn't make the shape become familiar to me no matter how long I stared.

"Hello?" I asked, hesitant to spook them in case they weren't meant to be coming to my aid, "I'm Nathan Lewis of House Lewis. Do you know who I am? Where I am? Can you help me?"

In a bizarre move, the figure skipped through the door, slamming it behind them and came only close enough to drop a thermos on the stones to roll to me. I crouched to catch the thermos, opening the screwtop to drink deeply of the icy water inside.

"Careful. I might not get to bring you more water for a day. I'm only here now because Justice needed to go chase someone or something for that old ex of hers."

I tried to figure out what I was looking at without any luck. The individual was androgynous with a firm jawline yet fine bones, lush lips yet no breasts or hips visible in their loose outfit they wore.

"Who are you?" I asked, "Do you work for the Alpha Council?"

I squinted as I tried to make out who I was speaking to or even where they came from or belonged. I could tell from their scent they weren't wolfen. I could also tell I didn't know anything about whatever they were beyond Not-A-Wolf.

Snorting, the figure said, "Never. I'd rather cut my wings off. I owe three favors to Justice. This? Is one of three."

"This what? Keeping me chained?" I tried, hoping to provoke a response, "What do you mean by wings? Are you saying you have wings? I heard only faeries have wings and those aren't real."

A bright light flashed before my eyes -golden as the sun before turning green as spring grass- and I could see I was in a cellar.

An old cellar.

Stones warped by time made up the floor and the walls of the cellar while the roof was wooden, darkened also with age. I thought some magic must have been used to keep it up because it surely couldn't be holding together on its own.

My captor had brilliant green wings which were insect-like, gauzy and iridescent. I thought he was a boy based on the flat chest and smooth face; the sharp features were distinctly more masculine than feminine in the light of their glowing wings.

"How long are you planning on staring?" the faerie asked me and I laughed, shaking my head.

"I'm sorry. I've never seen a faery before. You are a faery, right?" I asked.

"I am a fae. Your people call us faeries. I am called Windrider. Wind. You are Nathan Lewis of House Lewis of Full Moon Pack and you're an heir to their people to their wolves or something, something, something," the faerie waved his hand at me, "I've been listening to you for a whole day now."

Repeating his words, I said, "Wind. Are you---an heir for your family?"

"Fae don't have heir unless they belong to the court. I'm male if that's what you're asking?"

I could feel myself blush as I nodded, "Yes. I didn't know how to ask exactly. I've never had to guess before."

Wind laughed loudly, rocking back on his heels and fluttering his wings fast enough to send a breeze blowing into my face before saying, "I'm taking that as a compliment. You think I'm beautiful, don't you? What about your Rachel? Am I as beautiful as your Rachel?"

Feeling punched in the chest, all the humor left me at once. How did he know about Rachel? What had he heard of her? Did I talk about her when I was a beast?

"Art tells Justice who talks too much. Justice would have told me even if Art didn't say why you were locked up. You want another's mate. Why? Shouldn't you want your own mate?" Wind asked, head tipped to the side so his hair fell forward to expose the tip of a pointed ear.

Staring at his ear, I muttered, "You're not supposed to say beautiful to a man. You're handsome. Good-looking. Calling a man beautiful is an insult."

Wind shook his head, his expression open as he said, "No. An insult is only an insult if you say it is and I say I am complimented by the heir of House Lewis calling me beautiful. You are here in chains because of a beautiful woman, aren't you? That's a great sacrifice. A great honor."

For the first time, I felt as if I actually had given someone an honor by calling them beautiful. My love for Rachel was pure. I couldn't say how I felt about Lindy because I didn't want her.

The Moon Goddess had given me a mate when I didn't want one, when I had already found one. I supposed I was the most ungrateful wolf in the world because my parents loved me, practically worshipped me, and I didn't lack anything except Rachel who was supposedly never mine from the start.

Wolfen society was built on the mate bond driving us. Fated mates stopped wars, ended fights, and crushed out all the darkness which plagued human relationships.

Or it was supposed to.

"Am I?" Wind asked again, leaning forward as if he wanted to study my face, "Am I ask beauitful as Rachel? Or the mate you don't want? Is that why you don't want her? She's ugly?"

I laughed in surprise, "I'm sorry. No. My fated mate isn't ugly. She's very beautiful. As beautiful as Rachel and you are as beautiful as both of them if I'm being honest."

"Why wouldn't you be? Because you can lie? I would lie all the time if I could," Wind said proudly, sitting back on his heels and drawing his wings close around his body so the light he gave off was much dimmer.

"You can't lie?" I asked.

"No. Fae are prevented from lying. Directly. For example, I'm going to let you go."

Shocked, I said, "You are? Do you have the key for these chains?"

"No," Wind stated, shaking his head as he grinned at me.

"Wait. You don't have the key or you aren't going to let me go?" I asked, trying to keep up.

"Both. I don't have the key and I am not going to let you go. Except one day, I will be told to let you go. Then? I will. So you see, I didn't lie. I will let you go. Just not today," Wind clarified.

A sinking sensation filled me. I could be in this cellar for a long, long time. My family would have no way to track me underground and I would have left no trail being zipped around with magic the way Art and Justice did it.

"Who has the key?" I asked for the sake of asking something.

"No one. These chains are like people. They break when it's time for them to break."

I wondered how long it would take before the chains were ready to break---or if I would break long before the chains were ready?