Kidnapped

Ash

Ash came to as hands roughly dragged him off a horse. The last thing he remembered was being yanked onto the horse and a needle sinking into his arm, then nothing. He blinked and tried to find his feet as a second man grabbed him.

The half-moon hung overhead. Night had come while he'd been unconscious.

He thrashed, but dizziness overtook him and his legs tangled together. He almost fell, but the two men holding his arms kept him from going down. They dragged him to a tree, forced him to sit, then tied his hands behind the tree so tightly they nearly wrenched his shoulders. The tree's bark dug into his arms. The two men who had tied him to the tree stepped back to admire their handiwork. Both of them were the right age to be guards, but Ash didn't recognize either of them from Refuge.

Two more men stood farther back, speaking to each other. Ash squinted, trying to see enough to identify them. One of them looked his way. The scant moonlight gave Ash enough illumination to see the face.

"Nelgen!" Ash spat.

Nelgen strode toward Ash and squatted in front of him. "I see Sleeping Beauty finally awakened."

Ash glared. "Why are you doing this?"

Nelgen ruffled Ash's hair. "I got paid well. Shame we didn't get your sister too. That would've been more fun."

Ash tensed at Nelgen's touch. He itched to hit Nelgen. He'd never felt more helpless. At least they hadn't caught Fern.

The fourth man, the one Nelgen had been talking to, approached, a small bag in his left hand.

"Coal, where are you?"

A huge black werewolf trotted from the trees. "Scouting, like you asked," he said, his voice a low growl.

Ash's heart pounded. As much as he hated Nelgen's touch, the sight of the werewolf stalking toward him sent a new wave of fear rushing him. He was a rabbit staked down waiting for the wolf to eat him.

Ash closed his eyes and looked away. The sight of this werewolf brought back memories of Mitch's bullet-ridden body and Violet's torn flesh.

The wolf's warm breath blew against his face. "What do we do without the cat?"

"I'll inject the saliva into him," the fourth man, probably the leader, said. "No biting. It needs to be an exact amount for this experiment."

The wolf stepped back. Ash opened his eyes. The leader of the group squatted in front of Ash. He reached out and felt Ash's hair, then ran a hand along the tip of Ash's ear. "You're certainly the real deal," he said, his voice low. "Not some skinny kid who gets treated as being part elf, but a real halfbreed." He looked at the moon, then dug into his bag and extracted a pair of syringes. "Here I have werecat and werewolf saliva." He held them in front of Ash's face. "Elves only turn if they're bitten by a werecat. Humans only turn if they're bitten by a werewolf, so what do you think your kind would do if both species bit you?"

Ash stared at the syringes, his mind flashing back to what Thorne had said about Fort Roland. They were going to experiment on him.

The leader chuckled. "You're a smart one, aren't you?" He stood and walked behind the tree.

Nelgen and the black werewolf watched Ash.

Ash heard the leader kneel behind him. Needles sank into both of Ash's arms.

Ash clenched his jaw. With his bindings so tight, he couldn't pull away.

Finally, the needles withdrew. The leader stepped around the tree and stared down at Ash.

"How long before he turns?" Nelgen asked.

"Most of the time, when someone's bitten like I was, they're not likely to turn until near the full moon," the leader said. "However, if we wait for a full moon, this half-breed will likely turn werewolf. We want to see what happens if he turns now, at the half-moon." He dug through his bag. "We'll have to force the shift now."

Even though the night had a chill to it, sweat trickling down Ash's back and stuck his shirt to the tree.

"How do we force him?" Nelgen asked. "Beat him up? I can do that." Nelgen shook a fist at Ash.

The leader pulled another syringe from his bag. "That won't be necessary, I've got wolfsbane." He bent and injected it into Ash's neck.

The stuff burned. Ash gritted his teeth but couldn't help but grunt as the fire spread through his body. He felt two ropes loop over his head and around his throat.

The leader cut him loose. Ash fell forward, his arms too numb to catch him. He lay on the leafy ground, the pain making his skin burn.

He tried to stand, but the pain overwhelmed him. His fingernails began to lengthen, growing into sharp claws, while silver fur sprouted across his body. His clothes ripped as his size increased. He closed his eyes and tried to stop the transformation, tried to control his body, but the bones kept shifting, his jaw lengthening, his ears moving.

Something slipped over his face. Ash opened his eyes and lashed out at the leader, his claws missing the man by inches. He sprang at the man, only to be jerked back by the ropes around his throat.

He tried to bite at the ropes, but a muzzle kept his jaws firmly closed. Fear and rage, rawer than anything he'd experienced, lent him energy. He thrashed, clawing and twisting, the movements tightening the ropes around his throat. That only added to the raw terror and rage.

The black wolf slammed into him, grabbed him by the scuff, and pinned him to the ground. "That's enough," the werewolf snarled.

Ash snarled back and tried to roll over, but the wolf held him firm. "You'll learn to obey me, cub."

"Can you train a cat?" a man asked. Ash glared at the man, feeling a pulse of rage. The man had done something to him, but his mind was a fog of rage and fear. Didn't the man have a name? Ash had known him before the nightmare began.

"Remember who you are?" the wolf asked.

"Ash," Ash growled, the muzzle muffling his words.

"Give him some more. If I'm going to train him, I can't have his human side surfacing," the wolf snarled.

Ash felt another needle prick and more burning, then the last bit of rationality fled him as the animal instinct consumed his mind.