The Alpha King Call Boy
Chapter 228

Third

person

The metal cuffs on Lucas's wrists were clasped so tight that they dug into his bones. His skin was raw all around them, red and swollen and scabbing in some places and freshly bleeding in others.

"Try to shift and you'll regret it," Donovan had said the first time he clamped the heavy chains onto the young man's limbs, looking dreadfully happy as he did so.

Lucas knew the vampire was right. His wolf's legs were definitely thicker than his wrists. And his ankles, too; they were also cuffed to chains. If he shifted, he'd still be stuck. And his legs would also be gouged very deep by the steel cuffs. His bones might even break, and then he'd wind up crippled. "Whatcha thinking 'bout?" came a soft voice from his right.

The voice belonged to a young female prisoner that Lucas had begun talking with daily. She was chained up in the space right beside him.

"Nothing," he rasped. "Just... pain. Same as always."

The woman was a commoner. She was nineteen years old, or so she said; she looked younger, Lucas thought, but maybe that was just because she was small-framed. Petite. She hadn't been here as long as some of the others.

She guessed it'd been just a few days between her own capture and the night that Lucas arrived in this desolate prison.

Her name, strangely enough, was Tuesday. When Lucas learned that fact, he'd had a funny thought.

He'd wondered if today, this day she introduced herself to him, happened to be a Tuesday. He had no way of actually knowing what day of the week it was at any given time.

Tuesday's accent and the way she spoke, blending lots of her words together, continuously reminded the prince of her lack of education and low social status. But it bothered him less and less every time they talked, until suddenly he found he actually kind of liked the way she said things. Because the things she said were smart and interesting, and her wording was often really quite clever, and so unique.

And she was kind to him. Unlike the other prisoners who called him a traitor and acted as though the war and all the killings were his fault.

Tuesday talked to him like he was just another person, even though she knew who he was and what he had done. It was no secret. There'd been a lot of yelling about it down here by now.

And Lucas had started believing and internalizing all that stuff the other prisoners were saying.

They were right, he'd decided. He just didn't know it before. Before they'd screamed the truth in his face and he couldn't run away or get high or get any other relief from thinking about it. He had to face it.

And the more he thought it over, the more sense it made.

Lucas might not have started this mess, but yes, he could have stopped it. He didn't know his mother had gotten involved with vampires, but he did know she'd been plotting treason. Planning to kill both the Alpha King and Alexander. He hadn't really believed she could pull it off, and he hadn't really cared if she tried.

If he had cared, he could have stopped her. He could have done something.

He got it now. And he felt he deserved the other prisoners' fury. He deserved every ill word they lashed at him when they returned, bloody, from yet another feeding and wanted to throw their pain in someone else's face. He was an easy target. But he deserved to

be.

So he really didn't understand why Tuesday was so nice to him.

But he was also desperately grateful that she was.

Every word out of her mouth was a relief. She distracted Lucas from his loneliness, from his guilt, from the dread of death, from the pain of t*****e and sobriety, and even from the maddening dripping sound... drip, drip, drip, drip-

"You ever break a bone before?" Tuesday asked, as if she knew Lucas had been thinking about bones breaking while he stared and stared at his wrist cuffs. "Yeah," he answered. "My nose."

"Turn a lil, lemme look. Oh, yeah, I see it. How'd that happen?" Lucas hesitated, and even thought about lying. But why? Pride? What pride did he have left in this place, in this state?

"Lost a fight," he confessed vaguely. Before Tuesday could ask any follow-up questions he quickly asked, "How about you?"

"Oh, yeah. I broke my leg when I was a kid."

"Ouch. How?"

She laughed. It kind of made her choke, since her throat was so dry. When she finished coughing and was able to speak again, she said, "I fell out of a tree."

"That must have hurt."

"Oh, yeah. Like a frigging bitch."

Now it was Lucas's turn to choke on a laugh.

"Lucas," Tuesday whispered even more quietly than she'd already been doing. "C'mere."

She started shuffling toward him, dragging her chains noisily.

The two of them were already sitting just a few feet apart, but they could get a little closer. Lucas shifted his weight and slid across the cold, hard stone,stopping just short of touching his companion, something he hadn't done, but could... "I'm gonna ask you something and it's gonna sound crazy," Tuesday warned, leaning close and breathing right into his ear.

"Okay," he whispered hoarsely. His pulse quickened with the excitement of being this close to her for the first time.

"I-I got an idea, for escaping this place. I don't want everyone to hear me talk about it, cuz I did that before already and they got scared and mad, told me to shut up and stuff. Before you got here, you know. But I got a good plan. Only I can't do it alone. The others don't wanna try cuz they think it won't work and they'll get in trouble. They're so scared it's making them stupid. Me, I'm more scared of staying, of doing nothing and knowing this is just gonna go on and on. I wanna get out of here more than I've ever wanted anything in my life, Lucas, and I'll die trying if I gotta. So what do you say, will you do it with me? I can get us both out, I swear, but only if you help me. I promise you, I got a good plan."

Lucas was not afraid of attempting to escape. He just had no idea how to do it. So he was fucking thrilled to hear that Tuesday had a plan. She might just break him free from this place at last. They might just get away with it and escape this nightmare for good. And if not if the vampires caught them -maybe they'd finally just kill him. Either way, this agony would be over.

"I'm in," he whispered into her ear. "What's the plan?"

Tuesday pulled back an inch to look Lucas in the eye. Her mouth slipped into a smile. Her lips were dry and cracked, and her teeth were a bit crooked.

But still it was the most beautiful smile Lucas had ever seen in his life, because it was full of hope.

"Oh," she breathed, "you just made me so frigging happy. Lucas, we're gonna get out. You and me, we're gonna get outta here."

He didn't even think about it.

He just kissed her.