Luna of Rogues

Part 43 - Out of the Frying Pan

This should have been up yesterday evening, I know, but I was having a Supernatural marathon with my little sister, who is actually one of the masterminds behind this story so #sorrynotsorry. This chapter (and kinda the whole book) is dedicated to her for deciding we all needed a rogue named Skye in our lives.

"Hold still — I'm nearly done."

I tried my best not to flinch as the woman scrubbed at my forehead. After we'd all got nicely acquainted with the remnants of Ember Pack, one of the women had, albeit grudgingly, offered to tend our injuries. She had done Leo first, who'd been struggling to breathe, then Tally because I'd insisted. Now my skin was clean of blood and the minor cuts were healing.

"Those ribs will be a few more hours," she told me reproachfully, then took her leave. Leo nudged me, and I muttered a thank you. Among rogues the medic would thank me just for sitting still and letting them do their job, but pack customs were different, to say the least.

At some point the day had turned and soon, Lewis told me, we could expect the cell to be lit by the dawn. Until then, we were resigned to sitting in darkness to talk. Leo and I leaned against each other, our backs at the bars, and Tally wasn't far off, trying to grab an hour's rest.

Sleeping hadn't even occurred to Lewis, who sat opposite me with his hands braced on his knees and a restless energy which was the sole provenance of pups. He was asking an endless stream of questions about who we were and where we came from, and it was becoming tricky to avoid them.

"Have you ever raided us?" finally ended my patience.

"Oh, yes," I found myself growling. "The first time, I was fourteen and I helped kill one of your fighters. Keep probing, kid, and you might not like what you hear."

He didn't heed the warning. Quite the opposite, actually. "Four or five years ago, then? I remember that! He was one of my father's friends, the teeth marks on his body were so small, I remember everyone wondering about it... But —"

I swore softly to myself.

"But that raid was one of Rhodric's," Lewis continued excitedly, surer of himself with every word. "You know him?"

"Know him," Leo repeated with a snort. I flicked the link to silence him, because an affiliation with Rhodric Llewellyn was almost always a death sentence.

"What?" asked Lewis. Now he knew he didn't know something, I doubted he would give up, so I changed the subject.

"How do they control you all? You're not chained or anything. They're not armed. What's to stop you fighting back?"

He went quiet for a moment. "Wait a few hours, and you can see for yourself."

Not an answer, but I wasn't in the mood for pushing any more than I was in a mood to be pushed. "Fine. How many of you have they turned?"

"Um. I don't know an exact number, but it's about a third of the fighters. Fifteen?"

"So few?" I twisted around, trying to squint at the individual cells near us, which never went silent. The constant backdrop of snarling and clanging seemed to wear on the prisoners more than imprisonment itself. Many of them sat with their hands covering their ears.

"Not enough cells," Lewis said, shrugging. "They need to keep them confined for days afterwards, by the looks of it."

Conversations like that kept us occupied until the first rays of the morning sun penetrated the darkness, hours later. I was trying to probe for weaknesses, to understand how the ferals operated, and Lewis was trying to be helpful. I even got an estimate on the numbers of ferals — three hundred in the bulk of the army, of which only a score had stayed.