THE AWAKENING

Chapter-9-

Cassandra gave up trying to convince Arja things would be different at the other clan. Truthfully, she didn’t know if what she promised was true.

Although Jandin and Koris had been protective and kind, she didn’t know if that was their true nature when not mating with a Breeding female. Particularly a Prophesied One.

Cassandra accepted the brutal scrubbing of her skin as Arja made sure not a drop of Cristophe’s seed remained on her body, even going so far as to swish her vagina with an efficient sweep of her finger to make sure nothing remained inside her womb, and then Cassandra was dried and dressed in an frumpy brown sack of a dress that looked as if it’d been salvaged from a bag meant for the thrift store.

She lifted the hem of the ugly dress and let it drop.

“It matters little what you wear. Ulster will simply tear it from your body when he mates with you.”

Cassandra stared in open repulsion. “I don’t want to mate with him.”

A small smile lifted Arja’s mouth. “That won’t matter either. A word of advice: Don’t fight. Accept your fate with grace and maybe he won’t mark you for sport. Ulster is a mean bastard with a penchant for inflicting pain on others.”

Fear snaked its way to her heart and her knees had begun to quake as they walked down the dingy hallway to another room.

At one time, the decrepit house may have been grand but time and disrepair, vandals and neglect had aged the classy Victorian to a shell of its former grandeur.

Much like a great courtesan who had fallen on hard times and was forced to service rough patrons in a filthy alleyway to make ends meet, the old house struggled to retain some semblance of what it had once been in its crumbling cornices and creaking maple balustrade.

“Who does this house belong to?” Cassandra asked.

“Someone dead.”

“Oh.” Cassandra took that as a warning not to ask too many questions.

Her gaze darted from one room to the next, looking for an escape but everywhere she looked, pairs of eyes peered at her from darkened alcoves and musty rooms.

Arja led her into a room different from the rest. The room was awash in opulent tones of red and purple and Ulster, the scarred barbarian, lounged in his oversized chair like a king on his throne.

Three large men stood at wary attention, their eyes narrowing and their noses twitching as Cassandra entered the room.

“Ahh, there she is. The lady of the hour. Tell me, did you manage to wash that bloodsucker’s stink from your body?”

Arja bowed. “She is clean, Master.”

“She’d better be or I’ll whip the worthless flesh from your bones,” Ulster promised with a sick smile as if he rather liked the idea of Arja’s failure simply so he could carry out his threat.

He motioned Arja away as if the sight of her filled him with disgust and said, “What do you think of our accommodations?” he asked, almost mockingly, daring her to give him a reason to abuse her.

The mean, hard look in his eyes gave away his hope and Cassandra wasn’t about to play his game. She remained silent, seaming her mouth shut purposefully.

“Oh, a quiet one? No worries, I have ways to make my women say whatever I’d like them to say.”

“I am not your woman,” Cassandra said without flinching, which made her very proud because inside she was shaking like a leaf in a strong wind. “Jandin and Koris will find me. And they will tear you to pieces.”

“What makes you think I won’t tear them to pieces first?” he asked silkily.

“Because if you could, you would’ve already.” She sent a derisive look around the motley group, noting their moth-bitten clothes and the pervasive sense of abject poverty that clung to everything she saw, and said, “You are not their equals in any way. It’s no wonder my mother couldn’t wait to get away from this clan.”

Ulster growled in warning, the sound low and dangerous and sending a riot of raised flesh skittering around her nerve endings, as he leaned forward, baring his teeth. “You dare much, girl. Do not speak of that bitch in my presence if you enjoy breathing. She abandoned her clan — her family — to whelp with the cursed enemy clan.”

Cassandra bit her tongue to keep from snarling a bitter retort in a bid for self-preservation.

She knew nothing of her birth parents, but from what she had gleaned thus far, the star-crossed lovers had defied everything to be together, even a timeless prophecy that had doomed them from the start.

“Why did you bring me here? To make me atone for my mother’s sins? I never knew her. I was adopted. Any revenge you seek against her would be futile. She didn’t raise me and I know nothing about this damn prophecy everyone keeps talking about. What makes you think it’s even real? I mean, it’s the 21st century, people. Not the medieval times.”

Ulster seemed taken aback by her frank statement, so much so that a lengthy pause stretched between them.

“Do not listen to her treachery,” one of his men urged, eyeing Cassandra with open distrust. “She’d say anything to avoid her fate. Hurry up and put your seed in her belly. Your son, our clan, was meant to rule this world.”

“You’re caught in a time warp. There’s no prophecy. Just a bunch of werewolves stuck in the past. I mean, look around…this place could use a little freshening up. You know? Why do you live like this?”

A low rumbling sounded in warning and Cassandra swallowed nervously. Perhaps she’d taken it a bit far.

Forty-eight hours ago if someone had said to her that she was a werewolf, let alone a Prophesied Breeder of Epic Proportions, she would’ve directed them to the nearest mental hospital.

But there was no denying the changes in her body, ones she couldn’t possibly explain away logically — not to mention the whole losing her virginity during some feverish Phasing to two different strange men and then the subsequent wild sex with a vampire — but she’d say or do anything to dissuade the scarred bastard staring her down from sticking anything of his inside her.

She could only hope she didn’t phase again soon.

She had a feeling that if she did, she’d screw anything with a cock in her fevered state. She ran her tongue across her lips, dehydrated from everything that had transpired. “Can I get something to drink,” she asked, hating to show even an ounce of weakness but she was truly parched and beginning to feel a little weak.

Ulster snapped his fingers and another woman scuttled inside. “Yes, Master?” she asked, her head bowed.

“Get the Breeder some water and be quick about it.”

The woman nearly tripped in her haste to obey and it was everything Cassandra could do to hide her disgust at Ulster’s treatment of his women.

But Ulster’s quick gaze lost nothing. “Your mother used to bow at my feet,” he said, watching her reaction. “She used to suck my cock, too.”

Cassandra smothered the grimace she felt on her lips and shrugged. “Unless you’re talking about my adoptive mother, which I highly doubt, the woman who gave birth to me was a stranger. I could care less whose cock she sucked.”

Not entirely true, but she didn’t dare back down in front of Ulster. If he scented fear, he’d overrun her. She sensed there was a dangerous game afoot.

She had to remain on her toes if she wanted to escape unscathed. She held onto the hope that Jandin and Koris would find her and if not them, Cristophe.

The woman returned with a glass of water and handed it to Cassandra. There were faint things floating in the water and if Cassandra hadn’t been desperately thirsty, she would’ve declined.

But as it was, she squeezed her eyes shut and downed the glass. The woman quietly took the empty glass and melted from the room.

“Better?” Ulster asked, raising one sardonic brow. She nodded and his gaze narrowed. “Take off your clothes. I wish to see what a Prophesied One’s cunt looks like.”

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t stutter and I don’t ask twice.”

Cassandra’s gaze shot around the room, gauging her chances for escape. The hulking men flanking Ulster wore the same flinty expressions as their Alpha and their bulging muscles strained the leather jackets they wore.

Cassandra sensed a change in the air around them, something snapped and sparked in the room with faint charges of electricity.

A familiar heat began to coil in her belly and her heart rate fluttered with dismay. She lifted her nose and caught a coyly tantalizing smell beneath the rot and decay from the house.

Cassandra closed her eyes and willed her hormones to relax. Being surrounded by all this testosterone was revving up her internal clock.

And if she could sense it, the other wolves could surely sense it as well. She took a faltering step back. “I don’t feel well,” she started, panic beginning to curl the edges of her thoughts. They wanted to mate with her. And the idea was beginning to appeal to her on some sick level. Damn this Phasing bullshit! “I think I’ll just-“

“Grab her,” Ulster shouted just as Cassandra turned on her heel and tried to book it out of there but multiple sets of strong hands gripped her tightly and brutishly forced her to her knees.

Ulster rose from his chair and stared down at her with a cruel twist of his lips. His scarred face was frightening but there was something about him that emanated strength and power.

She felt a mental tugging inside her, drawing her eyes to the muscular planes of his body. “Bring Arja,” he said, still watching her.

Arja was brought in and she quickly knelt at Ulster’s feet. “How may I serve you, Master?”

“Sweet, obedient Arja,” he said, patting the top of her head absently while still commanding Cassandra’s defiant stare. “The Breeder needs a little help in reaching her Phase. She’s fighting her nature. We must teach her her place within the clan.”

“Anything, Master,” she whispered, casting a fearful gaze at Cassandra. “How may I be of service?”

“Don’t do this,” Cassandra said tightly, hating how frightened Arja was. She could see the fear rolling off her in shimmers of sickly yellow heat.

“I do this for you, Breeder,” Ulster said.

“Stop calling me that, you prick. I have a name.”

“I do this for you, Cassandra,” he amended with a sardonic smile that sickened her.

“Bullshit. You’re a bully and you’re doing it for yourself. Have the balls to be honest at the very least.”

“Very well.” He pushed Arja away from him and she stumbled with a cry to the floor before scrambling away. “I want you to suck my cock like your mother used to.”

Cassandra swallowed her disgust. “Will you leave Arja alone?” Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

“Why do you care?”

“Because I do. Leave her be and I’ll…do as you ask.”