Finally, Nile dropped the whip to the bed and turned away. He walked to the table, and when he faced Lyra again, he was holding a syringe in his hand.
“I tried being nice to you,” he said, inspecting the liquid in the syringe. “It's your fault that things have to be this way.”
Lyra swallowed, her entire body stinging with pain. “What's that?”
“This?” He showed her the syringe, which contained a greenish liquid. “Since you refused to be my partner, I have to keep you in line. This will make sure you cannot get up to any funny business.”
He walked forward and reached for Lyra's arm. Since she was bound, there was nothing Lyra could do to stop him.
“Did the witches give you that?” she mocked as he plunged the needle into her arm. “Aren't you ashamed of being a traitor to your own kind?”
“You are in no position to judge me,” he told her. “Look at yourself. You are willing to die for the same people who made your life a living hell. You are a traitor to yourself. I would call you a slave, but you are worse. A slave has the excuse of not having a choice. You are now stronger than those who treated you like a slave, but you are too stupid to take revenge for yourself.”
“Is that what you are doing?” Lyra asked him. “Taking revenge for yourself? Did some stronger, more powerful Alpha attack your pack and cast you out? Or did you try to steal someone else's pack and get thrown into the jungle? What's your story?”
“I'm nothing like you,” Nile sneered, pulling back the now empty syringe. “I don't need other people’s approval. I do what I want, when I want. And you'll do what I want unless you want Julian to die.”
So he is alive, Lyra thought, feeling relieved.
“Do you understand?” he growled, glaring at her. Lyra said nothing but returned his glare. Nike gripped her jaw tightly, his fingers pressing into her bone painfully. “I said, do you understand?”
“Yes,” she replied through her teeth.
Nile let go of her and threw the empty syringe onto the bedside table. Then, he clapped his hands once loudly. A guard walked into the room, carrying a maid’s uniform.
“Remove her restraints,” Nile instructed the guard.
The guard walked forward and did as told. When Lyra sat up in bed, wondering what Nile was up to, he threw the maid's uniform at her. “Wear that.”
Lyra looked at the uniform in confusion. She could not feel any effect from whatever he had injected her with. What on earth did he want to do?
She climbed down from the bed, taking the uniform with her.
“Where do you think you are going?” Nike demanded when she stepped towards the bathroom.
“To change.”
“You can do it here,” he told her. When she hesitated, he asked, “Do you need help to strip?”
Lyra turned away from him and removed her clothes. Her body hurt with every movement, but she hurried along, trying to ignore the fact that he was watching her. When she put on the uniform, the guard tied her hands together in front of her body.
“It suits you,” Nike said, walking around her and looking her up and down. “Maybe you were meant to be nothing but a slave, after all.”
Why was he doing this? Was he trying to humiliate her? How did humiliating her benefit him, that he would use Julian's life as the bargain? Unless…
He wasn't lying about Julian still being alive, was he?
“Where is Julian?” Lyra asked him. At the same time, she tried using her telepathic powers to infiltrate his mind. She felt nothing. Not that his mind was empty, but that her mind could not do it.
“Where he belongs,” Nile replied.
Lyra tried her mind trick again, this time targeting the guard in the room. This time, too, nothing happened. Had her wolf disappeared again?
“Honey?” a familiar voice interrupted Lyra's line of thought.
Looking up, she saw Crystal walk into the room. Crystal walked up to Nile and entwined their arms. “Why did you start without me?” she asked, looking up at him with a coy expression.
“You were sleeping so peacefully,” Nike said, stroking her chin with his thumb. “I did not dare to wake you up.”
Crystal pouted. “But you know how much I’ve been waiting for this day! I didn't want to miss anything.”
Meanwhile, Lyra was processing the meaning of Crystal appearing like this. Was she in coalition with Nile and the witches? She couldn’t have…of course she could!
Her father had been executed, her family was disgraced, and her pack was under strict scrutiny. Crystal had lost everything she prided herself on. Of course, she would partner with the Rogue King to get revenge.
“You must have thought you had seen the last of me,” Crystal said, separating herself from Nile and approaching Lyra. “Did you think I would disappear into the dark and let you have what's mine?”
Lyra looked her straight in the eyes. “I'm not surprised. Only someone like you is capable of something so despicable.”
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