Mate Mysteries

Chapter 55

Then Krey spotted the rusted door at the back of the cave, hiding in the shadows. He pointed to it immediately. "Where does that lead?"

"To the North," mumbled a guy with greasy hair and hollow sunken eyes, earning him dirty looks from other Rogues.

"Pip has been here, hasn't he?" Krey shouted, eyes wide and mad.

The guy nervously glanced to Saphine's Beta. She stood with arms crossed and a hard glare, waiting for his answer. The guy shrugged and scurried through the Omegas with his head down.

Krey sniffed the air. He only smelt, fish, salt, body odour and musty unhygienic wolves. Some clearly washed in the sea, but they were still greasy and malnourished. He couldn't smell Pip, though his heart still thumped for him. "Where's Pippor?" he suddenly bellowed. His booming voice echoed around the cave. Rogues pinned their backs the walls as though he had breathed fire through the middle of their hideout. "Right, that's it," Krey grumbled, rolling up the sleeves of his long-sleeved top. The black material was covered in sandy dirt from the route into the cave.

Omegas watched as Krey stormed to Rogue after Rogue, trying to intimidate them into answering. His Omega's followed his example and moved through the crowd of Rogues with no luck. Nobody answered them, and Krey soon started to doubt his feelings that Pip was close. If it wasn't for the vast sea clouding scents, he might have been able to-

"Alpha, I smell Pip on these chains!" his Omega yelled.

Krey snatched the rusted chain and sniffed it. Faint, but the sweet scent of Pip lingered. "Where is he?" he asked through gritted teeth, glaring at the nearest wolves. He slammed the chains down. Rogues flinched at the noise of metal on hard stone. "Where has Debra taken him?"

* * * * *

In the darkness, Pip scurried on his elbows until he reached a wall. He pinned his back to it and brought his knees to his chest. He couldn't see anything; he could only hear Debra's weak breathing close by. I'm in a nightmare. This can't be real. Pip scratched the cold cave wall, wet and slimy. He scanned the uneven floor from years of water wearing it thin.

Pip needed a rock, or a stick. He wanted something in his hands that could protect him. His fists were not enough. Countless times, Krey had tried to drag his mate to his rigorous training sessions. Pip always made excuses.

Now Pip wished he had a bit of muscle and some skill to bring Debra down.

Sudden light from a flame hurt his eyes. Pip hid behind his hands until the light softened. Slowly, he peeked through his fingers and to Debra a few metres away. She slotted a metal tube into a metal holder screwed to the cave wall. The fire was controlled, but the flickering light sent shivers through Pip's crouching body.

The cave was narrow with low curved ceilings, like it had been made by the Rogues themselves. Though Pip was small in the wolf world and his hair skimmed the ceiling after making himself stand. He didn't want to look like a coward, despite his brain screeching to find a dark corner and cry until his head hurt.

Debra lit another torch and marched down the tunnel. "Follow," she demanded, stopping when Pip was too scared to peel himself from the wall. "Now."

Pip gulped and did as he was told. The tunnel went deeper than he expected, and Debra moved quicker than she had when they ventured from the North to the South. Pip tripped and slipped in the cracks and on the seaweed. A dull dripping sound protruded from the darkness, but the floor was dry, and Pip tried not to think about whether the sea entered the cave on a high tide.

Debra stopped abruptly by a round hole in the wall. Light flared from it, and Pip peered inside out of curiosity, and because Debra grabbed the back of his t-shirt to make him look. The room beyond the hall was large and taller than the passage they stood in. Multiple torches latched onto every wall, flickering and warming the room in a soft orange light.

On the left wall, three people were chained by the floor. The positioning of the torches cast them in gloomy shadows, but they looked like Rogues, skinny and dirty and sad.

Debra shoved Pip through the hole and some of the chained people peered through greasy hair to see what was going on. Rogues emerged from dark corners of the room, three in wolf forms and two as humans.

Pip was chained opposite the three captors, who all had moved a little, acknowledging his presence.

Debra crouched by him with an odd smile. Her tired eyes gleamed in the flickering light. "You'll never be found here," she said softly, but that creeped Pip out even more.

"I will," he dared to whisper back. "He will find me."

"No." Debra's smile turned into a toothy grin. Her eyes didn't smile with her, they only widened with madness. "Not if he thinks you're dead."

"T-Thinks?"

Debra ran a finger down one of the chains he was tied too, chuckling as though she was playing a game. "You know what I discovered by accident? Well, what Jordan discovered by accident?"

Pip really didn't want to know. He tried to scurry away from her. The chains were long enough that he could still wrap arms around himself, but not escape Debra's company.

"Well, Jordan and I discovered that if a wolf is killed and brought back to life further enough away from their mate, the bond won't reform."

Pip's heart stumbled in his chest. An icy trickle of nervous sweat ran down his temple. Suddenly, Pip felt as though he would vomit. His stomach churned painfully, and his bottom lip quivered. He caught onto what Debra meant rather quickly, and she knew that, but she still wanted to tell him aloud.

"So, all we have to do," she whispered, scooting close enough to touch him. "All we have to do is wait for Krey to go back to the North, and then I'll kill you."

Pip covered his mouth with a hand, not wanting to whimper with dread. He trembled from head to toe, and Debra found his crumbling stability amusing.

"But don't worry," she reassured, "I'll bring you back to life. Well, if you're strong enough to wake up... you know, after I pretend you were eaten by wolves."