One had huge bright yellow eyes with black slits down the middle like a cat.
She glanced at me for an instant before her eyes returned to the floor.
It’d been a single flash, but I recognized the look on her face.
I wasn’t the only one with a morsel of hope.
But how many other fated mates had thought the same thing over the eons?
A string of figures entered the room from the side.
They were draped in cloth so dark it could have been made from the shadows themselves.
Their heads were bowed beneath their wide hoods.
They came to a stop before us.
I didn’t know about the other cursed mates but I was terrified.
They looked like something from a satanic ritual.
“Welcome to the Citadel,” the middle figure said. “We are the Elders.”
A long snout protruded out the end of his deep hood and his black nose never stopped quivering.
His feet were small, with black claws and long shins tucked beneath his robe.
“You are here to fulfill a holy and exalted purpose. You have the honor of breeding the next generation of Shadows, making the holy Shadow empire ever stronger and more powerful.”
“No!”
One of the other captured mates broke rank and collapsed to her knees.
I wish I had her courage.
But I was glad I didn’t have her stupidity.
The Elder calmly crossed to the outspoken female almost seeming to float.
His thick tail waved side to side like a powerful snake.
It curled excitedly as he approached the captured mate.
Her Shadow mate dragged her up onto her feet.
“Forgive me, sire,” he said, bowing his head.
The Elder peered down at the mate.
She whimpered and shied back from him.
I could barely see her around Iav’s large frame.
He tensed his hand even tighter around my neck.
“I am betrothed!” the outspoken mate said, struggling to breathe around the hand clasped tight about her throat. “I am to marry my partner!”
“All prior relationships no longer exist,” the Elder said. “You have been given a great gift. You no longer have to toil in an office or work another day in your life. Your responsibility will be to breed. That’s all.”
“I don’t want to be a breeder!”
“Since when did what you want have anything to do with it? You will learn obedience with time. And much punishment, I should wager.”
He snickered and the other Elders chuckled along with him like a backing group.
The Elder turned and floated along the line in my direction.
Please ignore me, I prayed. Please don’t notice me.
I stared at the floor before me, too afraid to make eye contact.
The Elder’s sharp claws came to a stop before me.
“Ah,” he said.
He raised his arm and his sleeve slipped down his thin forearm.
It was hairy and dark with tufted fur.
He took my chin in his claw and turned my face one way and then the other.
Still, I refused to look him in the eye.
“A new species,” he said. “Tell me, brave Claimer. What is she?”
“She is a human, sire,” Iav said. “The first to be brought to the Citadel.”
“Yes. I believe I have heard of them. Small, voluptuous. With good working hands and small brains. Timid too, by the look of it.”
He raised my chin so I had no choice but to look him in the eye.
I peered past his long snout to the inner darkness within his hood.
His eyes glinted like onyx at the bottom of a deep well.
They shimmered dangerously.
His tongue ran over the sharp ratty teeth of his bottom jaw.
“I shall ensure to make good use of her,” he said. “It’s important she is impregnated with strong seed.”
He gave Iav a sly smile.
“After you claim your right, of course,” he said.
Iav nodded his head respectfully.
“It would be my honor to share her, sire.”
Share.
Honor.
I’m going to be sick…
Now the Elders were picking out which of the mates they would fuck first.
As the Elder continued along the line, I couldn’t help but notice the other Elders peer at me, their own eyes glinting from beneath their dark cowls.
I recognized their expressions immediately.
They were filled with hunger.
As if things couldn’t get any worse.
“To the cells!” the Elder screeched.
Iav turned me on the spot and frog marched me out of the room.
The captured mates were forced down multiple flights of stairs, one after the other, so many I lost count.
It didn’t matter.
I just needed to reach the stairs and head up.
Escape lay at the top.
If I could reach it, I could escape.
Could.
We came to a long corridor with smelly water inching down the moss-covered walls.
Each of the fated mates was shoved into an individual cell, and the thick wooden doors slammed behind them, their locks clicking into place.
Finally, my turn came.
And so did my first chance to escape.
Iav thrust me forward and I reached out with my hands to snatch the doorframe.
I missed it on both sides.
I hit the floor and skinned my knees.
The strong smell of damp and decay assaulted my senses.
I turned my head in time to catch a fleeting glance of Iav, a broad grin on his face, looking forward to our next meeting.
The meeting would prove to be my last as anything resembling a human.
He would fuck me and plant his seed inside me.
Then another would join him.
And another.
And another.
Each would take a piece of my soul until there was nothing left of me.
I curled up in the corner and wept.
Vai
“One moment please,” the secretary said.
After discovering the truth about my bond and the “phantom” pulses I felt were real and not fake I began to wonder how this could have happened.
In his commercials, the Surgeon always boasted of his one hundred percent efficiency rate.
It had to be with people’s lives on the line.
Within twenty-four hours of the Procedure, the bond was always terminated.
I paced the medical bay, waiting for the Surgeon to answer my call.
If the bond was still active, did it mean Emma was still able to feel the bond too?
And if that was true, did it mean Iav could still lock onto her position?
Could he still locate her?
And
