Finally, we reached our destination. I watched passively out the window as the City of Toronto came into view. I had expected to be taken to some rural area where the eastern wolves would have privacy to act as they wished, not a city where they would constantly have to hide their true natures from all the humans around them.

I had never seen so many tall buildings in one place before. Winnipeg was the largest city I had entered before this and I had found the bustling noise and traffic intimidating even then. Toronto was many times bigger. The structures overwhelmed me with a feeling of how small and helpless I was. I had the magic of a werewolf, but I was nothing compared to the millions of people bustling around me.

The overwhelming feelings dragged me under and I simply watched, a huddled mess of misery in the middle driver's side seat of the van.

We pulled into an underground parking garage and the vehicle finally stopped. My legs felt cramped and it felt strange to be still after so many hours in near constant motion.

I was given no time to adjust and I was dragged along on my barely functioning legs. Finally, Mark had pity on me and he picked me up and carried me into the building. I was not happy with his care, I did not want to be in the arms of the person who betrayed me and my people.

What I wanted was to escape and get back home, but even if I did struggle and get away I would be recaptured so easily. Mark was not a werewolf, but the other two were.

He hauled me through some doors and out of the parking garage and into the building. My head almost was hit on the side of the door as we rushed through. I was carried up several flights of stairs, and then through wide double doors that lead into an elevator.

I had been in an elevator before, but my head swum when one of my captors chose the twenty-second floor. I had surely been higher in planes travelling to and from the territories, but I had never been in such a tall building in my life. The idea of so much metal and concrete surrounding me was crushing me beneath the weight of the thought. The curse was happy to afflict me along with it.

Mark set me down and I clutched at the corner for stability. There was the odd heavy feeling of the elevator as it lifted us up past numerous floors. Finally it slowed, and the change in perceived gravity informed me that we were stopping. As the doors opened, I wondered what would happen if someone who was not in on the plot to kidnap me would see me, but surely they would simply explain it away again as if there was something wrong with me rather than the machinations of the deep rot of the eastern wolves.

Mark picked me up again and we were uncontested as we stepped out of the doors of the elevator and I was carried down a long modern looking hall as if I were a delivery package. Finally they stopped and the vaguely familiar one opened the door. Mark stepped through first and I was dumped unceremoniously on a leather couch.

James scowled down at me. "I'm not going to restrain you, but you're not to leave this room. You've got no way to escape, but if you cause trouble, your time here will not be made more pleasant.

I nodded. Let them think I had given up.

He seemed satisfied and all three walked out of the room. The door shut firmly behind them and I had the illusion of being alone for the first time since I had been stolen, other than for moments in gas station washrooms.

As always, I could feel the curse wracking me with its punishing waves of ice, but I kept them in the back of my mind as I forced myself to look around my new enclosure. It appeared to be a minimalistic apartment suite, full of beiges and silvers and greys. The lines were harsh and simple.

Life in the north was simple through necessity, but it had a warmth to it. This was something different, it was cold and mathematical, there was nothing to hint that any human warmth resided within these walls.

A shot of pain rushed through me at all I had lost. They would want to try to rescue me, if they could even figure out where I was, but it would be dangerous. Even this building spoke to the power differential between the Trifecta and the eastern wolves.

The shudders of the my muscles threatened to keep me as incapacitated as every time Serge had rushed off to defend in a new battle, but there was one notable difference. When he left it had felt pointless to try to fight the fear that had overwhelmed me, but now I was on my own and I had nothing to gain by entirely giving up. This time there was no guarantee that this agony would be lessened by time and I was not going to sit back and let the curse consume me until there was nothing left if I could help it.

My battle, as always, was against the curse, but it seemed to have merged with the battle with the eastern king. For now I would have to bide my time, but perhaps an auspicious moment would come when I least expected it.

I was alone for a long time. A clock on the wall let me count the minutes as they stretched into hours. I explored the rooms in slow shaking steps. There were two bedrooms and an office, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room. It appeared on the surface that I was in someone's apartment, but upon further inspection I could find none of the personal trappings of everyday life.

There was a television, but I was unsurprised not to find any further technology, or possible methods of modern communication. It appeared I had been deposited into an unoccupied apartment, but to what end?

I went to the window in the living room and peered out. I could see the buildings around me and the street below, so terribly far beneath me. The cars looked like toys, the people were little more than scurrying ants. I felt alone.

It was as cold as ever without Matthias or anyone to lend me their heat, so I went into the smaller bedroom and pulled the grey monstrosity of a quilt off the bed and wrapped it around myself before returning to the couch where I had first been set. I curled up, wishing desperately for Matthias, my leader, my family, or friends. I would be happy with my most passing acquaintance from the territories in that moment. Anything but this void of a city.

I missed the warmth of the forest, the sounds of nature surrounding me. I missed my home. I tried not to cry as I pulled my knees up to my chest and wished that I had somehow managed to fight off my abductors when I was still home.

I drifted off to sleep with thoughts of Matthias in my mind, his constant loyalty and his protective strength. The memories comforted me and at the same time highlighted the yawning hole that his absence left inside me.

* * * * * * * * *

I was woken by the sound of someone opening the door. I half expected to see Mark or my other abductors, but instead it was a young woman with dark blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a slightly square face. She looked jittery as she pushed into the room and looked over at me. She smelled like a regular human.

"Hi," she said tentatively.

"H-hi," I agreed.

"I'm Pauline. I came to check if you needed anything," she informed me.

I needed my freedom, but telling her that might go against the whole completely helpless victim thing I was trying to maintain. Not that it was hard. My hands were shaking in my lap.

I tried to think of an answer, but before I could she suggested, "Are you hungry?"

My stomach had no interest in food. I had been bullied into eating a few times along my forced journey, but I had no appetite. Food had resumed its complete lack of flavour and I felt no hunger. My stomach was filled with crawling anxiety.

But if I did not eat I would waste away and worse, I would have no energy when the time finally came for me to make my move.

"Yes," I said untruthfully. The refrigerator was empty of everything except a few bottles of water and I just did not care.

She smiled and pulled out her phone.

I tried not to look at it with too much interest. I did not want them to get even a hint of my desire to attempt an escape. I wanted them to see a pathetic, beaten thrall when they looked at me, even if that were almost the truth.

If I did manage to get my hands on some form of communication, what would I do?

I could call Matthias or my father, but if I did my people would certainly throw themselves into danger in an attempt to save me, if only I could let them know where I was. I did not want that, but there was little hope of me escaping on my own.

I could call nine-one-one, but if I did it would risk exposing our werewolf magic to uninvolved regular humans and that felt like something I could not do. And what could they do anyway, but be fodder for the eastern king? No doubt he would not be living in the midst of regular humans without a contingency plan.

I needed a plan, too, but I had to come up with something good before I acted, because I would only get one chance catching them off guard.

"Do you like pizza?" my jailor asked, bringing me out of my well justified plotting.

Puppet that I was, I nodded again. Food was all the same.

Then I let my head loll. It would have been nice if it were a mere demonstration of my stellar acting abilities, but my exhaustion kept creeping up and trying to overwhelm me, whether it was a side effect of the drugs they had injected me with, or the curse terror wearing away at me for such a long time. I had been away from my master for a day and a half at least when before it had been mere hours.

"Meat lovers?" she asked me.

I nodded again without properly even picking up my head off the back of the couch.

I listened idly as she spoke on the phone to some pizza restaurant, but she did not give them any information that was useful to me, not even an address that I could pass on to my people.

I just wanted to go back to sleep, but I needed food. I forced myself to sit forward although everything in me rebelled at the notion. I had done little more than sleep since I had been taken and now there was this seemingly nice human girl sitting in another chair near me. Perhaps I could find out more information from her, if I only paid attention.

"How're you coping?" she asked in what sounded like a genuinely sympathetic tone.

"Not great," I admitted.

"I'm sorry you have to go through this," she said.

I waited to see if she would add more.

"I know the curse is hard when you're not near your master."

Her words caught my attention and took me away from thoughts of gleaning information to use in the future. This human girl knew of the curse and moreover seemed familiar with it. Although it had been obvious from the start, this confirmed that she was one of the humans of a pack. I met her eyes.

"What do you know of i-it?" I stammered.

She looked a bit sympathetic. "My brother is a thrall."

I asked the question burning in my mind. "What did he do?"

She shook her head. "I can't talk about it, sorry. I probably already said too much."

She got up from her seat and made her way across the room to the kitchen. She passed me a bottle of water and cracked the top for me. It seemed she truly was used to dealing with thralls.

I lifted the bottle to my lips and almost choked at her next words.

"So, what did you do to get cursed?"

I glanced at her. I was so used to everyone already knowing what had happened it seemed odd to have to explain it. "I tried to help with one of the attacks and h-he bit me thinking I was the enemy."

"The enemy," she mused. She looked almost intrigued. "Your people are our enemy, the ruthless fighters of the north."

I could not let it stand uncontested. "We weren't the ones who came and began the attacking."

She shrugged. "I don't know why, that all happened in the former king's time. We serve his son now."

"Wolves should be free. Humans should be free."

"No one is free," she corrected with a light note of bitterness in her voice.