I had been dismissed from the presence of the odious king as if he had some right to order me around. "Take her to the other thralls," he had ordered.

I considered what his order meant

As I was walking out I spotted his letterhead on the desk. I did not have much time to look, but I saw a street name. It was not clear to me, but it was something, the first proper clue I had to my specific location.

I stopped fighting and let the curse have me for a moment to help hide my excitement. I faltered and almost fell as the fear rushed through me.

One of my unpleasant guards grabbed me by the arm roughly and dragged me forward, but at least it seemed to have worked. I was being observed, but the expressions were of curiosity rather than suspicion.

I was taken through the halls and back to the elevator. I watched and remembered the number for the elevator as we passed it, and then we went down several floors.

I was pulled out into another hall and down to near the end, where the doors were pushed open.

Inside were dozens of people moving around doing various tasks. I glanced around feeling very unsure of why I had been brought there.

"These are all thralls?" I asked. They did not look as jumpy as I imagined I looked although they all did seem quite miserable I noted as I scanned the room.

Instead of answering properly, the guard grunted. I gritted my teeth at his expression and inhaled.

Maybe love was not the antidote to my curse, because my anger at the injustice that the king was inflicting on these people was making my blood boil. Surely these were not all criminals.

A short, slightly plump woman was making her way over to us. Her face was rigid and her eyebrows were a bit too square for her face. I met her eyes steadily as she approached.

She looked me over as if inspecting a museum piece. "She really is odd, isn't she?"

"Yeah," agreed one guard.

"Well, I suppose you should just make yourself comfortable by the exit then. I'll take her from here."

The guards nodded and walked away, leaving me and the woman.

"I'm Sally, and my king told me to introduce you to some of our thralls. He thought you might be interested."

More likely it was some sort of sick mind game he thought would scare me. I nodded anyway.

"Come along now, Elise."

It annoyed me enough when she used my name as if I were familiar to her rather than being held hostage that it overcame the curse for a moment.

We began to walk through the beehive of misery. She introduced me to several thralls. They all had downcast eyes and nearly identical expressions of despair on their faces. Although she explained their backgrounds and they had external differences, they all seemed to be the same to me. One girl was supposedly a traitor, another was a rebellious son of the Rocky Mountain Wolves, another had been plotting treason, although it sounded more like simply having an opinion to me, another had nearly revealed her magic to normal humans without permission.

I had fared far better under Serge than these people did under the eastern king. If I had not already known, this alone would have convinced me of what sort of ruler he was. We could never give in to him, no matter what the cost.

Maybe he had intended this little tour to make me feel afraid, but it was having rather the opposite effect. It spawned a new feeling, sweet determination brush away the curse for a long moment.

It was after I met several more of the poor souls that I got a real shock.

I knew the face before me, although we had never actually met.

"Bobby?" I whispered.

His face turned up and he met my eyes for a moment. Recognition slid across his features before it faded back into his misery.

"I don't think T-Tabitha has given up on you," I whispered again.

Sally was watching our interaction and had clearly heard me, but I neither cared nor was surprised since she was a werewolf.

He shook his head. "I don't deserve her. I failed everyone."

I scowled. "No, you didn't. You need to fight the guilt, Bobby, because the c-curse lies. It's all perception. It can't touch the truth."

It did not look like my words had any effect on him at all and I sighed and looked around the room at all the guilt ridden wretches surrounding me.

I gained a visceral understanding of why Matthias had wanted to kill Serge, because I would be pleased to see the death of the so-called king merely to free these people from their chains.

I endured the rest of the tour quietly, my anger at what was before me building the seething rage and the new sense of purpose inside me. I released the curse a bit to cover my emotions and wore it like a mask of fear, because that was what I wanted them to see.

Sally took me to her office and sat me down. I listened to a long rambling explanation of what they did here with their slave thrall workers. How devilishly practical to steal the will from people and turn them into cheap labour. Perhaps this was meant to be my slave worker orientation.

Then there was a loud crash from outside the office, and Sally leapt to their feet.

It seemed too good to be true. It felt like a trap and even more so when I spotted her office phone just sitting there on the desk.

My heart began to slam at my chest and my fingers were like ice as I reached across the desk and pulled the phone towards me.

The curse stabbed me and through me at my actions. "Damn it, you want me to get back to my master. This is what you want, don't try to stop me," I hissed at it as I brought the receiver to my face.

It ignored me and I ignored it.

The line sounded dead, but I threw caution to the wind and hit nine, hoping it would get me to an outgoing line like it had when we had stayed in hotels when we travelled. I almost cried at the sound of the dial tone.

I did not know Serge's number nor my dad's sat phone number. I could not even remember my own. But I did know dad's office number from calling it so many times growing up.

It rang and I prayed for someone to pick up quickly.

There was no answer, but then the answering machine kicked in. When I heard my dad's recorded voice, moisture threatened my eyes.

Then the precious beep.

I stumbled over my words as I quickly assured them that I was alive, what little information I had, and pleaded with them not to get hurt. I swallowed and added one last thing. "No matter what happens to me, don't give up. He's evil."

Slipping the phone back on the receiver, I pushed the phone back into place. Sally's desk was rather disorganized and I hoped she would not notice any slight changes.

I sat back in my chair and let the curse cover me again. It was easy because I really was terrified that they would figure out what I had done.

After Sally returned and finished her droning introduction of the gloriously productive life of a thrall under her odious king, I was returned to my little apartment cage and left in the care of Pauline again.

I immediately slipped back into my wolf form and curled up on the couch to regain my warmth. Although it was not much, I did feel better than I had since I had been abducted. I believed I had accomplished something.

I wished that I had the ability to break out of this place on my own and I still felt sharp terror that my people might be hurt, but I now knew that it was necessary after all the thralls I saw. He was a man who abused his power. Bobby was just one example. My people never turned enemy fighters into thralls because they respected the power of the magic.

Then there were so many more. While I had felt stunned at the time, my mind now wound through their stories. None of them should have been struck with the magic any more than I should have been.

They were hostages of good behaviour just as much as I was.

The king had to be stopped, no matter what, and likely his son, too.

I had rebelled against him as much as any of those poor people had, but it had seemed I had gotten away with it for now.

I smiled through my accursed fear and resumed my wait.