The Alpha's Saviour

Chapter 22 - An Understanding

Jaycees POV:

When my senses awaken I can hear the familiar sound of a leaky pipe and smell the mould growing off the stone walls. The exact one in my cell surrounded by rats feces. When my eyes opened I was disappointed to confirm my suspicions, immediately missing the feel of the heavenly bed that belonged to the mystery room.
"Are you okay?" Black asks kneeling over me.

"I will be in a minute." I say sitting in an upright position and engulfing her in a tight embrace.
"Wow easy there Jaycee you're meant to be still recovering." I frown remembering clear as day what happened earlier. Viren caught me and my wolf being present.
"Did he.. what did he tell Jeff?" I ask hesitantly.
"From what I could hear he told Jeff he healed you when you woke up, and that he rended you unconscious for the trip back to our cell. Oh.. and there was some hushed mumbling that sounded more like a few threats. I could only make out four words before he left."

My heart fluttered at the thought of Viren covering for me. Why wouldn't he tell Jeff about my wolf and inject me with wolfsbane like everyone else? "He covered for me." I mumble so quietly I wondered if Layla heard me. The look on her face when I glanced back up said she had. I ignore the questions swirling in her emerald eyes asking the questions swirly behind mine. "What were they?"

"Hurt again... blisters...tomorrow."

My breathing catches and my heart misses a beat. What annoys me most is that my body's reaction wasn't because of his obvious threat towards Jeff, but at the thought of Possibly seeing him tomorrow.
"Don't you girls think you should be a little more careful talking down here? You're lucky it was me who came down to check on you." Stuart's voice filters through the cell as he takes his place against the stone wall on the outside our cell.
what surprises me next isn't the state of his shirt and the strong smell of sex lingering in the air, but Layla's words.

"Haha.. is little Stuart trying to be nice because he is worried about tomorrow. Worries abo it all the pleasure I will bring you?" I chock on my saliva bursting into a fit of panicked coughing. I look at Layla like she had grown three heads and then at Stuart's nurvouse expression.
"You.. can't be serious!" I hiss looking between them both more confused than ever. "He has a mate and you're... we're.."

"We're going to trade places with the guards tomorrow. It's a punishment for their lack of honesty when they hid what happened yesterday between you and Rachel. It all happened just after you passed out." She mumbled searching my face again as if to reassure herself that I was okay. "They disrespected Jeff and went against his order to not hurt you, so Viren suggested we give them a taste of their own medicine. Stuart and one other guard of our choosing gets to play bed warmer tomorrow as a punishment to Rachel, and all the other guards get to cook, clean and serve us for a day." Layla finishes looking back at Stuart with a smirk on her face.
"Oh leave him alone Layla, I can tell you're just tantalising him." She lets out a giggle at the relief that spreads along Stuart's face.
"Now Jaycee, why did you have to ruin my fun? And how did you know?"

"I don't need all my memories to recognise your body language and expression." I realise the mistake I just made when Stuart's sharp intake of breath sounds from beside me.
He approaches the bars from his sitting position."You.. knew eachother. How did they make that mistake? It's why you have been remembering everything so rapidly that even-"

"No, that's not why, I was already remembering things before she came along, she only triggered some memories that related to her." I approach the bars looking Stuart straight in the eye. "Exactly the same thing happens when I look at you."

"What do you remember about.. me?" His question was hesitant, as he gulped realising how the tables had turned. I could see the guilt in his eyes but it was a fraction in comparison to the pain I feel sometimes when I close my eyes. "I pull down my shirt to reveal the top of my cleavage. "I remember how you got a hot metal skewer one day that had been sitting in the spit outside. It was covered in charcoal. I had forgotten to put out the coals with water that's day. I remember the way you pierced my skin and muscle just above my heart. I remember the pain, the smell of burning flesh, I even remember my screams and how I couldn't talk for days."

I refused to look at Layla, my eyes glued on Stuart's emotions before continuing. "I remember the time we were in the garden gathering honey, and you told us all to come inside. I turned back taking one last look at the beautiful flowers. You claimed that I was disobeying your direct command so you clawed through my maid uniform leaving me completely exposed in front of all the guards. Then you kicked one of the hives to the ground and commanded me to stand still as you all wondered inside watching me through the windows. I remember how they stung me, and how I screamed. I remember chocking on bees that flew into my mouth and the horrid endless buzzing that haunted my dreams for months."
Stuart's jaw clenched and I was surprised to find both guilt and a whisper of anger leaking below the surface.
"How about a few weeks ago when you grabbed that shard of glass-"

"Enough!" Sturt yelled his voice holding anger and remorse. His voice was a whisper with his next words. "I know. I remember it all, my memory is still intact. I never wanted this job I did it to be with Rachel." He said with defeat. "Jeff commanded we keep you all weak and abused, especially you Blue."

Layna was at her feet grabbing Stuart by his throat through the silver bars. The smell of her flesh blistering was what had me pulling her back and urging her to release him. She stood eyes cast to the floor and hands balled into her fists drawing blood with her claws as her wolf began to emerge. "Calm, I am fine now. He hasn't been the same man for a while now." I whisper rubbing soothing circle along her back while hiding her hands from his stare behind the bars.

Her wolf wanted to show its self, I could see it in the way her eyes flicked between green and black. Her wolf held so much rage but as she looked up at me all I felt was her guilt and her pain. It was like a suffocating thick fog, all consuming taking the air out of my lungs.

"Dont.." I chocked out feeing her overwhelming desire to protect and avenge me. "Don't look at me like that... please." I begged her.

Immediately her eyes move to Stuart and her lungs take large gulps of air until her heart rate and breathing returns to normal. Her claws have receded leaving her human nails and her palms are already healed. She wipes the evidence of her blood onto her already dirty uniform.
"They deserve to pay for what they did to you, and to all the girls in here." Layla says, her gaze fixed on Stuart's unmoving form.

"If we were to make them all suffer the way we have, does that not make us monsters also?" I grab her arm looking into her compassionate eyes. "We are better than this Lay, better than them." She smiled

"That's the beautiful soul I remember, I can't believe this place hasn't dimmed your light. I don't think I could have survived what you have and still come out.. like you." Laylas words fill the air like a calming melody chasing away the thick tension that previously suffocated me.
"I can't.." Stuart's eyes flickered around the room as if he was looking for something we couldn't see. His posture relaxed when he realised there was nothing in here. "This is the only cell without cameras as it wasn't initially intended to be a cell. Even so, I don't think keep this secret, if Jeff found out.."

"He will what? Take Rachel who always seems so willing to play with your mate bond?" Layla says.

"Stuart.. you're better than this life." I say. "I don't think I would want my mate if it meant loosing myself in the process. I never noticed it before as most of the time I always looked at the floor, but these last few weeks I have seen a change in you. You play your part well but you don't enjoy what you do, you simply take your frustration and anger out on us letting the puppet masters play with your strings."

"I know, but it's not that easy when a mate bond is involved. You don't know what it's like. The other person is responsible for all your happiness, your reason for living."

"Stuart does Rachel give you more happiness than pain? I've seen the way she flirts with the other guards. I've seen the way you writhe on the floor in agony until you can't breath and blackout, only for her to walk in the next day acting like nothing has happened." I state my thoughts for the first time in as long as I can remember.
"If you keep our secret of knowing eachother and promise to go easy on us when you can, I will try help you tomorrow. I'll limit your discomfort and emotional agony somehow." I say before heading towards our makeshift bed on the floor.
Layla follows lying down beside me. I hear Stuart's hushed words before my eyes close for the night. "If you can somehow help me through tomorrow, you have a deal."