NOVEL WEB Chapter 7: MINE!!
The sound of the steel gate to my cell woke me up. I stared at the big, blurry figure walking in. His scent was like that of pines and something spicy, and it made me nauseated as bile threatened to rise in my throat.
I did not know what time it was, or how many seconds, minutes, hours, days—or worst of all, weeks—I had been chained down here. I had no way of telling the time. It was pitch black down here, with no light seeping through.
And my dumb system, Anel—she had called herself—had not come back to me since then. I didn't even know how to summon her, if that's what I was supposed to do.
My body felt absolutely weak—I had never gone without food or even a drop of water for so long. It was a surprise I was still alive.
"Are they letting me go?" I asked him, my voice sounding hoarse and croaked more than I expected. My throat felt parched and dry, and I swallowed a gulp of spit to at least give some relief, but it did little to nothing to help.
He ignored me—more like turned and looked me in the eye, then turned back to continue his work of unclasping the cuffs from my hands—pretending like I had said nothing.
One of the chains finally came off, and I let out a loud hiss, bringing my hands close to my face to look at the burnt flesh on my wrist.
The place looked raw, almost like my hands had been placed in fire and left to burn. Some parts were burnt, while others had the skin peeling off.
He unlocked the others, including my legs, without warning. Given the height I was in the air and my weak limbs, I fell ungracefully to the hard ground.
Groaning in pain, I forced myself to stand up when I saw the beast-man didn't make a move to help me.
He moved toward me, clamping my wrists together. I knew what he was about to do next when I saw those chain cuffs in his gloved hands, and I struggled weakly in his grip.
I definitely looked like a fly fighting a lion because he just swatted my hands away like he barely used any strength, then purposely held tightly onto the raw flesh of my wrist, making me shout in pain as tears welled up in my eyes. The place he held started bleeding as he locked my wrists back in those burning cuffs and dragged me out of the cell.
"The Alpha's prisoner is here. She has been called up for trial," the beast-man spoke after a long silence.
We stopped at a large door that looked like it led to a ballroom straight out of the 18th century.
The guards in front of the door nodded as they looked toward me and growled. They actually growled like animals, and my eyes widened in shock as I shrank back in fear. I could smell their emotions clearly. They smelled of anger and hatred, making my mind reel with thoughts of whatever Lana—the girl whose body I now inhabited had done to ignite such emotions in them.
I didn't have time to dwell on that, because they opened the door almost immediately after eyeing me with disgust.
The room was large, and it was not what I expected—a throne room or a meeting room of some sort. Rather, it was a bedroom.
It had ornate designs, looking like a room made for a king.
The bed was large, huge, and properly spread with thick bed materials that definitely must have cost a fortune. It had some kind of stand at its side with what looked like curtains, but they hung loosely at the sides. I had seen it once before in a Chinese historical drama, and seeing it now face to face—it looked beautiful. It's a shame bedrooms styled like this were no longer used in the twenty-first century.
When I find my way out of whatever this place is and get back home, I am definitely going to redecorate my room.
Everything in the room spoke volumes of wealth.
But then, as if snapping back to reality, I turned behind me to see the door locked—and the beast-man was no longer there.
Shit.
Wait—why was I here? Whose room is this?
I walked toward the door to open it, only to pause in my steps when the sweetest smell assaulted my nose. It smelled like cinnamon, roses, and a strong masculine hormone that made me take a deep breath. It smelled like everything I loved, and it made my skin itch—no, not itch, that was too light. It made my skin burn with a weird kind of hunger to have the scent close to me, to touch it, to rub myself all over it. My heart rate escalated with the need to get close to whatever that beautiful scent was, and my hands crawled, fingers tingling with the urge to hold it.
"Lana," a smooth masculine voice called behind me, making me moan under my breath at how magnificent it sounded. I turned to see the owner of that glorious and beautiful voice, only to be met with the most breathtaking pair of green eyes.
His eyes swirled like a pool, with flecks of gold swirling in his irises. They seemed to light up like candles as he stared at me.
His hair looked blonde, but even that felt too simple to describe him. His hair was more like gold, and it shone brightly to match his beautiful eyes, scattered in disarray on his head like he had run his hands through it.
He was tall—he looked more like six foot three—and I had to tilt my head to look at his magnificent and beautiful face.
How can a man be this beautiful?
He walked toward me almost in haste and swept me into his arms, burying his face in my neck as he breathed me in, trailing kisses down my shoulders. He growled one word over and over again.
"MINE."
"Eryx," I said. The unfamiliar name rolled off my tongue smoothly as I settled into his hold, melting into his warmth, and soaking in the strange comfort he brought. Memories of him—of us—assaulted my mind.
My vision grew blurry, everything felt hazy, and I felt myself going limp in his arms as he shouted my name again and again, fear thick in his voice—
And everything became quiet as the world grew dark.