Their Thief

Fourteen

Luca King

Once Vincent and Charles told us that our mate's scent led to a girl, my mind started racing and a sense of dread overcame me at the possible conclusion I came too.

What if...

I reached for the door to the dungeon and ripped it open, not caring that I just destroyed the locks. I raced down the stairs, headed straight for our mate's cell with my abnormal speed. As I approached, the amazing vanilla lavender scent that belongs to him overtakes my senses, getting stronger as I near. It's been so long since I've smelt it uncontaminated by the scent of blood, that in any other situation that didn't involve him suffering would drive me crazy with the desire to taste, and bodily fluids.

I come to a stop outside the cell that the scent is strongest in, my heart pounding in my chest. The sight that greets me makes me clench my jaw and causes my breath to be caught in my throat as my heart stops and blood runs cold. I clench my fists so tight that I feel the wetness of my blood as it escapes through the skin my extending claws pierced.

My mate. The source of the scent that drives my wolf and I mad with desire. The one that lights a flame of hope in the twisted abyss of darkness that occupies my mind. The one who was able to make me feel things that I never have in my entire existence, that I never thought I would feel. She was lying on the disgusting floor of the small, dark cell.

She.

Her small, delicate body is lying on her side, facing the door of the cell. Her beautiful, curly, dark hair is spread out on the floor behind her. Her light brown, tanned skin looks beautiful, clear of all imperfection with the exception of the odd faint acne scar here or there, but it did nothing to take away from her breathtaking, exotic beauty. Her plump lips are tinted red, inviting me to kiss them until they turn a darker shade and swell from all the attention I wish to give them. She has high cheekbones that are sticking out due to how underweight she is but they are less sharp and defined compared to the last time I saw her, when she was a he, and a nose that's just right, not too small like those that women strive to achieve with surgery, but not too big either, it's just right and fits her features perfectly.

Perfection. She's nothing less than perfection.

The sleeves of the grey shirt she's wearing are too long and extend far past her fingertips. The shirt is too big for her and engulfs her small, malnourished frame, but I could still make out the small swells on her chest that are her breasts. The black sweats she's wearing are also too big, the bottoms rolled up to expose her bare, small feet.

A surge of anger courses through me as I catch the whiff of another male on her, on her clothes. I let out a low growl as I realize the clothes that cover her beautiful body belong to another male, but stop as different emotions replace the anger when my eyes catch the marks on her skin where her shirt is slightly raised, exposing part of her hip.

Guilt, remorse, sadness, and devastation. That's what I feel as I look upon the exposed skin. The skin is stretched taut over her protruding hip bone and is covered in stretch marks from the rapid weight loss that starvation caused, they're visible through the dark bruises and what appears to be recent wounds caused by a whip along with older healed scars. The sight shook me out of the trance that I didn't realize her beauty captivated me in, bringing me back to the cold, hard reality of the situation.

She's a girl. Our mate that we tortured and tormented is a small, fragile, little girl. The one that we are supposed to love, cherish, and protect, but instead we resented, neglected, and harmed. I already hated myself for allowing Alec to do what he was doing to her when I thought she was male, what we were doing to her, but now I felt as though the world around me was crumbling as my wolf howled in anguish and despair.