Collecting Misery

Chapter 1

A/N: Song, "Youth," by Daughter. 

"For the last time! I'm not a fucking rogue, you wankers!"

The Mountain Oasis Pack soldiers ignored my screams as the tallest one of them slammed the door of the cell shut. They walked away chuckling and chattering. This must have been a walk in the park for them.

At least they had been nice enough to not damage my cochlear implant--not that there was much to hear here, besides the dripping of the water and the squeaks of the rats. I shuddered. This wasn't going as I had expected.

The stench was overwhelming. I fell down my knees on the cold damp floor and closed my eyes. I sighed and shifted my weight, resting my forehead on my knees and hugging my legs. Why did these things always happened to me?

My wolf was getting uneasy. We hadn't been in contact for so long. She had refused to talk to me after he had rejected me. As if that had been my fault. Who wouldn't get uneasy in this situation, though?

I blocked her out. It had been over ten years since the last time I shifted. I wasn't a werewolf anymore. I was a human.

I ran my hands through my hair. Sweat had started dripping from my forehead. My jeans and white t-shirt were ruined and I had lost my shoes long ago in the struggle. How was I supposed to know that I was meeting another werewolf? These idiots didn't listen to reason.

I had traveled all the way here to interview someone for my new book. As usual, I had ended up being locked up for trespassing pack boundaries without authorization--no, usually I was warned of which places to avoid beforehand. This time had been an oddity. 

All my senses were of a human now! How could I have known that this was a werewolf town? Put a sign or something for fuck's sake.

Welcome to Mountain Oasis. By the way, everyone here is a werewolf! Rogues beware. "Pfft."

Okay, maybe that would be way too on the nose. I burst into laughter, because why not? I wasn't getting water soon, so why wasting tears? I leaned down on my back, still laughing. At least my special cell in the Blood River pack used to have a bed--a very comfortable one.

"Hahaha... Thanks, Moon Goddess for all the blessings... You bitch!"

"You know, of all the hallucinations and delusions I've had, this is by far the cruelest."

I gasped and sat up. You had to be kidding me. The voice had come from a cell many cells down the hall. I could have recognized it anywhere.

My wolf was fighting to take control. For the first time in years, her voice was clear in my mind. Mate, she repeated like a chant. Maybe, I was hallucinating.

"Felicity?"

Alexander... My stomach twisted in knots. Hearing him say that dreaded name once again was almost too painful to bear. That was the last thing he had ever said to me. "Goodbye, Felicity." I couldn't live with that name after he had tainted it like that.

"Shut up. That's not my name anymore."

"Are you real?"

Real? Of course I was real. What was it with him? Wait...

"What are you doing in a dungeon? You're supposed to be leading a pack."

He laughed. "What do you think that happened?"

How could I know? After he had kicked me out of the pack, I had given up being a werewolf. I had taken wolfsbane for years so that I could appease my wolf side. I cut off all ties with the werewolf community and even left the country.