Feral Born (Viciously Yours #1)

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Dominant

The pain from the shocks had eventually subsided to a more manageable whole body throb as they dragged me through the halls. Keeping my head hanging low, I pretend to still be in agony by allowing them to drag my body through the halls. After coming to a stop, they dropped their hold on me for a moment to unlock a door and then reached back to pick me up. They took a few steps, pulled me high up between them, and then flung me forward. My side hit a hard edge before a brief loss of gravity overtook me and I went soaring downwards. The sight of shiny bars and red eyes swirled in my vision before I slammed into the ground. These motherfuckers threw me over the side of the stairs!

Groaning, I closed my eyes and rolled onto my back while listening to the footsteps of the Lunar Soldiers coming towards me. The sound of keys entering a lock bounced around the room before I was tossed through a doorway. After the clang of the cell door closing, the soldiers headed back up the stairs without a word. Once the top door was closed, it stayed silent for a few minutes and then little footsteps sounded out. As they stopped beside me, I popped my eyes open to find the little girl from earlier that day staring down at me.

"When I called for help, I didn't mean to come half dead."

Looking past her, I saw around forty Feral Borns of all ages with bound wrists huddled together in small groups towards the back of the cell. They stood tall and proud but kept the weakest of them between their bodies as they stared back at me. A man who looked a lot like the little girl staring down at me, slowly moved away from the group while keeping his eyes locked on mine. Narrowing my own back at him, I watched as he approached us. Once he was close enough, he snatched up the little girl and pulled her behind him.

Tilting his head, he looked me over and raised his chin at my presence, "Who are you?"

"Who's The Dominant?" I rasped as I pushed up into a sitting position.

I received a snarl in response.

Taking a moment, I slowly stood up and rolled my neck. Stretching out my limbs, I pressed on the shoulder I had landed on and deduced that it was dislocated. Snarling a little in annoyance, I went over to the cell bars and wedged it between two of them. Taking a breath, I jerked my body forward and popped it back into place. Pulling it out from the small space, I rolled it around before turning to face the man with a raised chin.

"I'm breaking us all out of here but I need everyone to follow my instructions exactly and that won't happen unless I'm The Dominant." Looking over the crowd of Feral Borns, I asked again, "So, who's in charge?"

What the entire shifter population didn't know was that Feral Borns had a completely different hierarchy then they did. We didn't have packs, we had communities and we didn't have Alphas, we had The Dominant. What The Dominant said was law and anyone who didn't follow those laws could be killed or punished. So in order for all of us to get out of here alive, I needed to take control of the makeshift community they had undoubtedly formed. This was the first step in my plan and one of the main reasons I didn't mention any of this to Ryan in case he had figured it out.

The male I spoke to earlier pushed the little girl farther away and raised his chin before pushing his shoulders back. Copying his movements, I stepped forward and stared right back at him. Red clashed with red as we stared each other down for several long minutes, both of us refusing to back down. Shifting my fangs, I rumbled out a deep growl from within my chest and bared them. His own face scrunched into a menacing snarl before he moved to slowly circle me. The others had left the back of the cell to form a loose ring around us. Crouching low to the ground, they began to scrape their claws against the concrete as me and the man circled each other.

"How do we know we can trust you? You could be working for them!" He snarled.

This was why I needed to become The Dominant, if I didn't they'd never trust me enough to get us out of here. "A feral's allegiance is to the kind first, you know that."