Chapter 148: Assault
The air smelled damp and musty. Her eyes slowly opened.
The room was dark, save a dying candle by the corner.
Someone was sitting on a chair across hers, his head bent low as though in supplication.
Claire could swear that the man before her with his long locks of hair looked familiar, but her befuddled mind dismissed all such possibility.
Draw in a deep and torturous breath, she tried to make out her suroundings.
That’s when she realized that her hands were bounds with chains.
The chains where linked to the stone floor and refused to yield when she tugged at them. The loud jingle of the chain only seemed to ruffle the silence.
She was afraid that the loud sound would attract her captor, which made her heart pound frantically.
But no one came.
Everything remained eeriely silent.
And when she moved her hands within the shackles, she felt a burning sensation. She was too stunned to feel pain at first, but on further observation she became confused.
It was supposed to be cold and...
Her mind drifted to night when she had touched the prison bars at the dungeons in Glenwood.
Her hands had burned as they were doing now.
The smell of charring flesh began filling the air and she immediately stopped struggling.
Whoever had locked her up certainly didn’t want her to escape.
Of course he didn’t.
He had whispered all the nasty and vile things he intended to do to her in front of her lover as soon as he caught her.
She could still feel the scrape on her head from where he had uprooted a few strands of her hair in their struggle.
He would suffer if Yeren could find her.
Yeren.
How she wished he was there with her - he would have known exactly what to do.
As if summoned by some force, the head of the person in front of her snapped up.
Blood dripped down his forehead from what she could see and his hair was matted against his head.
But his eyes...
Even in the dark room, she knew those eyes.
The fire flickered across them and they flashed bronze for a second before it disappeared.
"Yer... Your Grace?"
He blinked.
"Claire?" Hearing him say her name so gently nearly made her forget that she was bound hand and foot to an unmovable chair. Her heart started pounding for an entirely different reason.
"Thank the heavens I found you." He whispered, as if he were afraid someone might overhear.
He tried to move, but realized his hands were shackled. She heard him curse under his breath, followed by the rumble of the chains behind him.
"It’s no use." She muttered.
"Do you know who did this to you?"
She gulped but said nothing. Claire almost felt like captor was hovering around somewhere, waiting for the perfect opportunity to pounce in on them.
He squinted his eyes shut as if deep in concentration but opened them with a sigh a while after.
"I can’t hear my men."
Claire could only gasp.
That meant they were completely at the mercy of their captor.
And it was now clear to her that everything was planned - and the plan began from the rogue attack that happened on the way.
Yeren was injured and much to weak to fight them, and whatever he was poisoned with must have incredibly subdued his Lycan.
Her heart went out to him.
All of this was because of her, not him.
"Of course you can not hear them. We don’t want anyone to intrude on our fun, do we." A silky voice cut through the silence.
Yeren’s head snapped around to glimpse the intruder.
Claire looked as well, though hesitantly. The door was behind Yeren, and their captor remained by the door.
From the glare of the almost extinguished candle, she could see that he was wearing a robe. His bare chest was exposed in the v-line created by the robe and he wore no shoes.
Slowly, he leaned down, produced a new candle, lit it and replaced the one which was just about to die out.
Then, he scooped up the candelabra and walked up to where they were after closing the heavy door with both his hands.
A gush of wind splayed over both of them as the door slipped shut with a loud thud. Even the ground shook slightly.
As he moved with the light, she could see more of the room they were trapped in.
It was completely devoid of furniture or decor, just plain stone walls and an even plainer floor.
But in consecutive spots on the floor, more shackles were buried in the concrete.
It was a kind of... slave dungeon.
Which meant they were in the dungeon of some building.
How would anyone ever find them, she wanted to cry aloud.
Their captor set the candelabra on a table nearby which she hadn’t noticed before and came to stand beside her.
He reached out and stroked a stray strand of hair out of her hair. She jerked her head away from his hands and he let out a low chuckle.
But she barely heard it.
Instead, her ears caught Yeren’s sharp intake of breath as he recognized their captor.
His dark eyes shown with a fury she had never beheld in the months she had known him.
"Don’t you dare lay your filthy fingers on her." His voice was calm and his eyes took on the yellowish glint that made her blood run cold and toes curl.
She felt the man beside her stiffen slightly, but instead of backing away, he grabbed her chin and held her face up to his.
Then, he brought his lips down on hers in front of Yeren.
The action took her by surprise, but she kept her lips sealed firmly. His lips were cold against hers. She closed her eyes and held herself stiffly. All she could do was pray that it would be over soon.
When he finished his assault, he tightened his grip on her chin before he let her go.
"And what would you do?" He finally asked Yeren, his tone smug.
Yeren sat still, so still she was afraid of him. His face was cold and devoid of any emotion.
But his eyes...
They looked like burning coals.
"I will wipe you and your entire generation off the surface of the earth even if it’s the last thing I do."