Chapter Twenty-Five
Elle's POV

It was cold in the cell made of stone. 

I'd always thought Hell was engulfed with flames. A place where anger and rage ran rampant, where sinners felt uncontrollable pain and wished death upon themselves over and over, deserved the connotation that came with unbearable heat.

I didn't think it was hot in Hell anymore. A cold sinner's sentence where those who did wrong lived in eternal silence, emotionless to their surroundings. That's what Hell had to be like. Emotions are the core of human functionality. Without them, we were merely atoms forced together with no purpose or reason for living.

It was cold in the cell made of stone.

The silence clenched the air, a suffocating quiet that saturated the cell, and I'd long since stopped screaming for Kendra, my voice hoarse and crackling.

A rodent had scurried across the stone pathway, but that had been the only sign of life since I'd arrived, and only the sharp pangs of hunger could tell me that time had passed.

At first, there had been fear, the consuming kind that froze in my bloodstream as an icy hand pumped my heart faster and faster. 

Then I'd been angry, so angry that I'd shaken the bars between my fists. I could still feel the cold metal's angry welts on my hands. 

After the anger had wilted away, I'd been stuck thinking the same words again and again, 'why me', looping until I'd screamed in agony, clutching my head in my hands. 

Until finally, I sat in the corner of the cell, close to where I'd woken up, where Kendra's bag was filled with minimal supplies, the thoughts from my mind were slowly drowned by a numbness that took hold of me. 

The scattered bones of the dead slept at my feet, and the chains which once held them captive creaked hauntingly upon the walls.

It was cold in the cell made of stone, where time had no meaning, and the darkness held no truths.

It was cold.

***

My eyelids drooped, and exhaustion claimed the last of my energy. My limbs felt heavy, and my throat was dry. The last drops of water had been spilled hours ago. My eyes felt scratched raw, and my head fell to my chest. 

I jerked upright, peeling my eyes open to see a room of white.

My head rested upon the goddess's lap from my dreams, and she caressed my hair, threading her fingers through the matted tangles. She leaned closer to my face, and her warm breath, like honey, melted over my skin. 'My sweet child, you will be okay.'

She had not aged or wanned since I'd last seen her, like a picture frozen in time to see out the years in her immortal state. Her hair was white as the snow that tipped the mountains behind Aucteraden, and she'd pinned some of her tendrils back to show the sharp features of her face while the rest tumbled down her back, kissing the sand where she sat. Her skin was dark, caressed by the sun's flames, and her white satin dress shimmered like rippling water. 

She was just as I remembered her, except she was transparent like she struggled to be here in this form.

'What is happening?'

I felt groggy, my head was tight, and the room's white was too bright.

Her hands slowed, stopping atop my head, and she sighed. 'You have been caught in the silent war between packs and hunters. He is looking for you but will not find you like this. It would be best if you did not give up hope. Only you and your determination will free you from this servitude.'

'How will I get out?'

She shook her head, hair falling over her shoulders to brush against my skin. 'I have only one answer for you, and that is not the question for which it belongs.'

I looked away, heat flushing over my skin. 'What question should I ask?'

'I am Selene, daughter of Hyperion and Theia, Goddess of the Moon and the Werewolves, I cannot share the future with you, nor can I change the fates by aiding your escape. My duty is to the wolves and the bonding of soulmates. Only those are the things I can help you with.'

I blinked too quickly and too many times. I couldn't stop shifting, uncomfortable all of a sudden. It was one of the furthest things from my mind, but she'd brought it up. 'Who is my soulmate.'

She smoothed the hair away from my forehead and helped me sit up. 'That is not the question for the answer I have.'

My chest hummed as my heart twitched, and my tongue felt glued to the roof of my mouth, swelling until it was hard to breathe. 'Is he my soulmate?'

'He is a subjective term, I could answer that question, but you would always doubt who I meant. I can sense your fear, child. The fear that you are wrong and another has lied to you, but you need to know, and I cannot answer an unasked question.'

I took in a shaky breath, bracing my hands against the sand. 'Is Kaden Delossa my soulmate.'

She smiled a soft, pitying smile, fluttering her fingers over my shoulder, brushing away grains of sand stuck to my clammy skin. 'Just under eighteen years ago, I watched as a soul-line was forged in the dark of night. White and gold, threaded together to make one line – human and a werewolf from the elites.

'You were fated to be together before you were born, but he was too young to be burdened with that knowledge and the fear of protecting a soulmate. I imposed my power, and those of the gods, to force a delay to your bond, and when those five years were up, I visited him with a warning of what could happen. He listened, and that, my child, is why he never told you, why he spent thirteen years scared into silence. It was not because he did not love you or because he did not care, it was because he loved you too much to risk your harm. Kaden Delossa is your soulmate, and he has done all that he knew how, as a ten-year-old wolf, to protect you.'

'He's not lying to me?'

'I came to you once before, child, when you were being lied to because he begged me to protect you from something he could not. Now I am here because you are falling into another lie, but this time one of your own, one you will fabricate to protect the fragility of your heart. Trust him, child, because he is not lying to you.'

***

Darkness shrieked away under the brightness of a lamp that floated down the end of the passageway. It was suspended like a Min Min light, throwing unforgiving shadows across the stone walls. It flickered for a long time, growing bigger, and then the voices followed.

'I don't know what you were thinking!'

I couldn't find the energy to move. Exhaustion railed my limbs, weighing them down with the leaden blood that dripped in my veins. I did not want to show fear or rage, so I remained motionless, watching the light moving up the passageway.

'I needed to do something. He would have never left us alone.'

I held my breath, listening as I recognised the voice.

'He had shown no signs of suspicion until you had confronted him. He had no grounds to launch an attack. He couldn't have done anything!'

'Well, what would you have done if he tried to kill you?'

The voice belonged to Tim.

The voice of the man he was talking with was low and gruff, filled with anger, which rolled on his tongue like coarse gravel. 'I never would have put myself in the way of his warpath, to begin with.'

Tim sighed, and I pictured his hooked nose as his mouth pressed into a tight line. 'He needed to see that her scent wasn't on any of us before I came down and talked to her.'

'And that couldn't have waited?'

I could feel the power emitting from him, the anger that bubbled under the surface. 'We are not trying to hurt her, Shaun.'

I watched, waiting, my eyes trained on the bars of my cell so that when they saw me, they noticed my steely glare first. I pushed aside the erratic drumming beat that echoed in my ears.

Tim flinched when the light from his lamp lit up my cell, gulping as his skin turned a clammy shade of white. He held his hands up, offering up his empty palms for forgiveness. 'We're not here to hurt you.'

'I heard.' I pressed my lips together, scowling as I picked at the torn edge of my jeans, trying to remain indifferent despite the sweat that licked my hands.

He looked apologetic, but I'd long since learned that people had a way of fooling you into thinking what you wanted to believe. I wanted him to be sorry. I wanted him to admit remorse but wouldn't fall for his words as quickly as I had with Lachlan. 'I'm sorry this had to happen, Elle.'

I snorted, the hair on my nape rising as I flicked my eyes up, pinning him with a flinty stare. 'Have you any particular reason for kidnapping me, or are you just a psychopath?'

He raked a hand over the top of his head, sharing a look with the man he'd called Shaun. 'I needed to talk to you.'

This time I laughed, but it was rotten and bitter in my ears. I rose to my feet, stepping closer and glaring at them. 'The school hallways were too crowded for you? Couldn't you remember my address? You forgot where I work?' I banged my hand against the metal bars, causing them both to jolt. 'Why was kidnapping your first choice?'

Tim shook back the fright, his chest rising and falling quickly as he threw his hands up. 'You got a restraining order against my brother!'

'But kidnapping? Tim! Seriously?'

Shaun snarled, and a growl rumbled in his throat as he took a threatening step towards my cell. 'You should never address an Alpha in such a tone.'

Tim held a restraining hand up, 'Do not talk to her like that. She is here as a friend.'

I cackled, exhaustion wearing me over. 'I think you've confused yourself. It's pronounced prisoner.'

Shaun's body rippled, and the whites of his eyes flashed amber. Tim calmly lifted his index finger to the man's throat and held it there. Shaun's nostrils flared, but he controlled himself. 'I told you it was a bad idea for you to be the point of contact.'

Tim ignored his comment, stepping up to the bars, just close enough that I couldn't reach him if I tried. The thought of doing so, and thoughts worse still, cropped up in my mind, dark and vicious as I imagined ways of getting free. He sighed. 'Elliot. I will explain why I have done what I have done, and I need you to listen because your choices no longer affect just you and him, it affects all of us.'

I didn't want to listen to him. He was only eighteen years old and trying to turn the world around him into putty he could play with. I would not be toyed with again. 'Are you going to let me go?'

'That will depend on you.'