Whispers From the Moon (Complete - Editing)

Chapter 21

Three weeks later...

Nyra

I don't know how or even why I was still alive. It was an endless cycle of agony with only brief respite in those blissful moments of unconsciousness. I was unrecognisable from the strong, young female I once was. My once relatively tight clothes hung off my skeletal form and my usual bright green eyes were dull and almost lifeless. My skin had a pale, sickly pallor and my eyes were sunken into my skull with dark black bags underneath them. My ribs showed prominently and my spine jutted out like a mountain range along my back. Every movement made my entire body scream in red-hot agony and every bone in my body had this dull, throbbing ache akin to that of a really bad headache, only fifty times worse. I had long ago lost the ability to speak, my throat couldn't be called a throat anymore, it was raw and bloody and I'm pretty certain I had all but obliterated my vocal cords. My wrists and ankles were chafed from where I thrashed against my constraints every 'session' – as Blake called them – and they had at one point shaved all my hair off. In short, I looked worse than the monsters Blake had taken me to visit in his underground facility at some point long ago in the endless cycle; I was a creature of nightmares.

The large iron door swung open and the familiar thud of two pairs of boots made my head protest loudly, throbbing so painfully it felt like my skull would crack. Two pairs of hands grabbed my arms where they met my shoulders and lifted me up – they no longer bothered with chains due to my pitiful state. I didn't bother moving, I let my head hang and my feet drag along the ground, the slight pain barely registering. It was only when we turned off to another corridor, away from the torture chamber that had basically become my home, and along a more rough hewn stone corridor, that I looked up... and came face to face with Chris.

Chris

Keith had proven himself to be trustworthy over the two weeks and I had finally listened to him. It ended up taking us three days with our best wolves to reach Blake's pack-lands. We set up camp just beyond his borders and sent out regular patrols to scout his borders. It was on our third day there that we came across a scout group turned rebels: a small, tan coloured wolf named Piper, a sleek silver named Serena and a large brown wolf who called himself Red. They began to help us, feeding us intel on the pack and Nyra's location. Slowly but surely, we built up a plan of action and a way to get Nyra out of this hellhole.

It was only two days before we launched the attack that the rebels dropped the bombshell on me.

When they arrived in camp, they had another wolf with them, a large, sleek black. He was in a pitiful state compared to when I last saw him, but there was no mistaking Alpha Thorn. The scar on the back of my neck burned slightly at the memory of him as I snarled menacingly. He snarled back, his hackles raised and silver eyes flashing dangerously. Before things could escalate, Serena stepped between us growling, and I whimpered internally at the memory of Nyra doing almost the exact same thing all those months ago.
"We were hoping you would be able to help us with him. He hasn't shifted once since we found him and I don't think he trusts us." Serena explained, glancing at Thorn.
"He's my Alpha." I replied coldly, glaring at the wolf behind her. She just stared at me in shock.
"That wolf behind you is Alpha Thorn of the Blue Moon Pack, my Alpha and the most powerful Alpha in the region."

***

It was the day of the rescue. Thorn still hadn't shifted, but watched me with cold eyes and a hard, unblinking gaze. I had made sure he heard that it would be me and Serena carrying out the actual rescue of Nyra whilst he stayed and guarded the camp. This earned me a low growl from him, but nothing more. Instead he trained with Red and the other wolves whilst Serena, Piper, Keith and I mapped out our rescue of Nyra. And now, finally, the day had come.