Pawn Among Wolves Ch. 16

They enjoyed that.

Desperately she began to count seats. The auditorium was almost circular, from where she stood there were rows upon rows of plush throne-like chairs dropping down to the central stage; hundreds of them, all occupied, almost all of the pale faces of their occupants turned towards her, eyes gleaming with malice and excitement in the low lighting.

More rustling above her hear drew her eyes up. A second sea of faces were visible above the elaborate moulding fronting the balcony. The faint smiles or sneers on those faces set her breathing racing in short pants.

The smiles grew.

Gemma shut her eyes and reminded herself: twenty-five minutes. All she had to do was prolong this show, keep the Louse and Nick absorbed for less than half-an-hour, so that her wolves could reach their vantage point and set off the diversion. The wolf slaves were never keyed to anyone other than these two.

Her guards turned her back to face the stage.

Disdain!

Slowly, slowly, she was drawn on, paraded down the shallow staircase, precarious on her heels, her breathing accelerating as they approached the stage. The rustling murmur grew, and the scent raked at her as she tried frantically to drag back over herself some stoic aloofness.

She couldn't. Her tremble was continuous now, and she feared she might actually be having a panic attack. Not that she expected any medical assistance around here, if she did.

Her ears were ringing as she fumbled the four short steps up onto the stage, and her guards passed her leashes over to the two ringmasters. Drawn to the centre stage, she was turned to face the audience, the lights thankfully blinding her to the sight of them. However, the scent was worse. And now the audience's lust was augmented by the predatory anticipation of the pair of sharks slowly circling her. She was too vulnerable like this. Nick slipped the tips of two fingers under one of the suspenders which crossed her left buttock, stroking them slowly up and down across the sensitive skin. She couldn't help but tense further.

Twenty minutes left? Gemma thought to herself desperately. Surely it's been five minutes since I entered? Her ears twitched to the sound of bitten-off cry of pain from above the balcony, followed by a murmur of wretched pleading slowly fading as the slave was taken away. Ginger's part was working.

Do your bit. For an instant, Gemma managed to steady herself.

Nick pulled the elasticated line of roses out to its full extent, and then released the band to snap back against her tender skin. Both sharks laughed as she flinched slightly, and Nick stepped closer to her side, facing sideways to her front, trailing his taunting fingers along her trembling hip to the next suspender band, stretched tight across the top of her right thigh. Gemma shut her eyes, reaching desperately for some kind of fortitude.

"You didn't really think that we didn't know, did you, little were?" the Louse's musical voice murmured behind her left shoulder, amused. "You didn't really believe that none of your little wolves would betray you?"

The taunt was ignored as Gemma strained to drag her façade of stoicism over her pitiful shivering. The Louse sashayed around her victim's front, trailing the soft strands of the multi-lash whip in her right hand across the heaving breasts, slithering the soft tongues slowly across the black, embroidered corset framing and barely concealing the taut mounds of the wereem's soft, golden skin.

"You don't believe me?" she drawled softly

Still Gemma ignored the Alfamme, furiously pushing her brain elsewhere, counting the seconds silently, wondering how far her assembled pack of her wolves had got, whether they were now slinking silently down to the second-lowest level, as planned, tiptoeing towards freedom.

A key slid into the Argen collar at the back of her neck, clicking it open. Gemma froze, her brain catapulting back to here-and-now and automatically, damned helpfully, filtering meaning from the last two taunts just as Madam the Louse added, "See for yourself," while she lifted the collar away.

Unbidden, like the elastic Nick snapped to sting against the tender skin of her inner thigh, Gemma's brain snapped to link with her pack. They had reached the second level. All of her Little Gems froze, momentarily distracted by the feel of the Alpha bond flaring awake, just as Gemma caught a faint hint of movement in the shadows to Adam's left. Too late, she shouted a warning. The dark hallways around the small group of rebels suddenly exploded into confused movement, and pain, blood, fiery anger and pungent fear began storming through the bonds from her pack as claws and teeth slashed through the dimly lit corridor.

Betrayal.

Gemma barely heard the chuckle, felt the second soft caress of the leather whip over her skin. Her mind was reeling as she swayed under the battering of images and sensation while her pack was swamped from all sides within a barrage of attackers, despair swirling as they clutched at their Alfamme instinctively.

Air raced over Gemma's skin, sucked away to the harsh whistle of the whip drawn back at full speed. The whipcrack was cut off to the accompaniment of a muffled shriek, but Gemma was barely aware of what was happening to her body. Eyes wide but blind, she was drowning in the pounding, powerful waves of happening smashing into her pack from all sides, sinking, struggling valiantly, desperately to hold them together, afloat.

And then she steadied, her links with her pack stabilising, strengthening, her self-control slamming securely back into place, and she braced against a stable rock that seemed to rise within her, holding firm the maelstrom of frantic thoughts. Her mind still reeled, but expanded, steadied. Gemma began to get a wider sense of the pattern of the battering attacks on her wolves - where the successive waves were exploding from, retreating to, where to stand strong.

And where the attackers were weak.

A surge of swift thought, and she felt her small pack responding instantly, hurling themselves together against one single, tight-packed rank of the enemy, crashing in an all-out fight: teeth, claws, a slammed shoulder, twisting, elbows jabbing - and through.

They burst as one unit into the empty corridor beyond; Gemma's pulsing awareness simultaneously flickering to where they were now, where was best to go, and where the enemy were following. She spun the rear guard to crash into the first followers, destabilising the solid line, distantly only semi- aware of the feel of blood splattering warm across her own naked skin, a firm arm around her waist holding her fast as air whistled through her hair.

The pack were running to a dancing reel in her head; front ranks poised in guard positions at vantage points while the remainder ran past, followed by the clash of the defence at their heels, breaking the spearpoint of followers, then turning to run at the rear as they hurtled through the familiar, hated corridors.

The enemies seemed disjointed, slow, fumbling in the dark beside each other.

Her pack were one unit, bursting in fluid movement through her screaming brain.

Gemma's nerve-endings were shredding in pain, tearing apart with the ripping of thoughts from all directions, but she ignored the agony and held on desperately, held together as her wolves burst clear into the lab, splitting instantly for half to race across to secure the other door, the second half wrenching the iron guttering from the wall to slam it as a lever underneath one of the heavy, concrete-lined furnaces. They all heaved together, and the massive box juddered in a screech of protesting concrete and metal across to the main doorway, all but the last six inches of the opening blocked just before the heavy weight of attackers slammed against the opposite side and smashed the door back into the oven.

Someone was missing.

ALAN! she cursed.

The damn wolf. He had shut up and shrunk quietly on the wrong side of the door so as not to be noticed by his Alfamme, pulling hard against the meld. So he was now in position to defend the entrance, gain them the extra moments needed to manoeuver the oven into place and thoroughly seal their refuge. Alan was jubilant: defending his pack.

Fury exploded in Gemma - she would not lose Alan - and under her sharp call the pack were back together again in the familiar confines of the lab, leaping in practiced grace into the wolf pyramid. Opal raced up to the peak and burst through into the tiny metal vent, ignoring the claustrophobic fear as a second, stronger feeling pushed her to wriggle along to above the other side of the wall and cut a new opening above the heads of the furious melee of wolves struggling to overcome Alan in the tight confines of the corridor.

What?!

Opal wiped the blood from the fur over her eyes with her forearm. Gemma felt as though her brain was melting in bafflement and pain, and blinked. She was looking down, through Opal's eyes, at two large, blood-drenched wolves attacking the enemies now. No, three. A second large warrior was slashing his way through to where Alan was fighting with his back to the door, barrelling attackers aside faster than they could pile onto him, despite being slightly hampered by having to defend the small figure he held clamped to his side, and deflecting several slashes aimed at the spinning shadow of Ginger fighting at his side. Abruptly the tawny-haired newcomer spun and flung his burden up toward where Opal was staring out of the new opening in the metal ducting above their heads.

Gemma blinked again, disorientated by a nauseating double vision as her own eyes met Opal's while she was still looking through Opal's, seconds before their hands locked wrist-to-wrist and she was yanked painfully up half-into the duct. Reeling, wincing at the backlash as her flabbergasted mind just dropped the pack meld, she was suddenly starkly aware of where she was bodily, as well as mentally - how the hell did she get here?!? But despite the disorientating pain of the searing piquant slashing in her head, she knew damn well how she had gotten here. The firm imprint of that arm about her waist was too damn familiar to mistake.

How did HE get here?

But he smelt wrong, felt wrong.

Fear hit her like a blow. What the hell was he doing here in this death-trap?

The fight was raging more fiercely below them as Gemma snapped a series of painful mental orders and wriggled furiously into the duct, following Opal at speed back to the lab. The dusky wolf dropped hurriedly to the floor and Mo flung a bag of hackdust up to his Alfamme, while Gemma, mind bleeding pain, shrieked again, Get Them OUT of there.

She spun on a swift, practiced motion, hanging with alternate hands off the opening, then torpedoed back through the short length of tube propelling the dust-bale ahead of her. In seconds she had ripped the bag open with a claw above the new opening, and showered it over the majority of the Faulk wolves crammed into the corridor fighting to get within range of her mate, packmate and her koiru. Forewarned, Ginger, Mac and Alan held their breath where they were fighting with their backs to the door, the slight sjeste wedged between the two breathtakingly deadly Alpha warriors.

Within the lab, at her command, half of her pack had levered the heavy weight of the oven to teeter on one edge, skidding sideways slightly, leaving just enough room for the three exiles to scrape through the door while the majority of their adversaries were doubled over, coughing and shaking themselves desperately to rid their fur of the debilitating dust. Then the rest of Gemma's wolves slammed into the furnace from the opposite side and it smashed back onto all four feet just as she dropped from the opening above their heads. Cables snapped as the oven screeched across to slam the heavy metal door fully closed with an echoing clang of finality while their enemies hurled themselves again into the opposite side.

The faint green glow of the emergency exit sign above the door shone on the panting group of stationary figures, eyes shining black and feral in the dull light.

They all just stood, shellshocked.

Gemma stared at him across the group. He was leaner, more compact, explosive-looking. But for all the tension of his frame, this was a pale, faint copy of her mate. He looked drained, empty, as though all that was Mac had been leached from him: a mirror image, not the real, live version.

Her heart was beating frantically- she still couldn't feel him there. His fighting - it had been superior, skilful; but slow, for Mac. He was - dimmed. What had happened to him?

And he smelled human . Maybe her nose was confused by the colouring of sweat and blood in the air, the fiery scent of anger mingling with the sharp scent of fear, but no - Mac did smell human. As she sniffed, her nose was swamped by a heavy jolt of despair that suddenly pulsed from Gemma's right.

"We are trapped," whined Ellen, her breath short and fast. She inhaled a humourless gulp of laughter, "Lab rats caught in a trap."

"Who is this?" hissed Rupert aggressively, and the swirl of anger, distrust, and fear thickened the air between the small group of wolves .

Something was wrong with him. And now he was caught here with them. Anguish clenched around Gemma's heart, and a half-bitten off howl escaped her throat as she launched herself at the dimly seen figure, grabbing his arms to shake him, voice keening higher to disappear into a screech: "You shouldn't be here. This is hell. No. You should've stayed AWAY,"

This close, she caught a faint whiff of her Mac exuding from him, and the tears began rolling down her cheeks as she slapped her palms onto his chest and pushed, hard, trying to push him away. He didn't move. His hands came to settle over hers, but all he did was hold them gently.

"Someone betrayed us," growled Andrea on a wavering note, and the suspicion thickened in all nostrils, wrenching already tense hackles higher.

"We can't get out!" wailed Ellen again, while Rupert burst out with a furious counterpoint, pointing an accusing finger. "Is he the one who betrayed us?"

"NO!" snapped Gemma, spinning to glare at her koiru.

The emergency light flickered out, and the sprinklers snapped on, lashing freezing cold water on the small, dismal group. There was a collective harsh intake of breath.

A pause for a heartbeat, two.

Then suddenly the dark vault of the room was echoing with a chaotic, rising maelstrom of howls and bitter accusations, despair and fury and fear egging each wolf to higher, louder cries while voices rose and claws and teeth began to slash in the air. The deafening chorus was rising, their hacking, slashing, wailing voices beating off the walls, doubling back at them, when a deep, menacing growl cut across the cacophony, the low, admonitory note curling up each wolf's spine and snapping his or her mouth shut instinctively.

Gemma's spine tingled in recognition. This was Mac.

Into the sudden, deafening silence, her mate's voice, pitched low and brittle with feeling, was barely audible, "What I most loathed as the Grey's captive -," he began. And stopped, his breath hissing in the air. The chaos in the scents was suddenly charged with a different electricity, each wolf reeling him or herself in to listen fiercely, barely breathing.

Gemma could feel her Alpha trembling behind her, and his voice was low, hoarse when he continued, "- is that captivity teaches one to accept this life, teaches you that you are worthless."

The conveyance cut into them all. Heart creasing, Gemma swayed, wanting to turn, but not sure, not wanting to break this. She was frozen by the quiet wave of loathing, anger, knowledge, tingling between her pack and her mate.

"There is no way out of this place; it is inside us all," agreed Ellen bitterly, her voice tight with tears in the darkness.

A wave of awe rose inside Gemma, awe crested with sadness as she understood what her mate was doing. An Alpha led my example, but she couldn't lead her wolves out of this. She was trying to lead them out, but she had never really been in.

"I have got out once: all the way out," contradicted the Alpha firmly, his soft growl again silencing the hissing chorus of murmurs around them. "I will do so again," he stated implacably. Gemma felt a wisp of longing exude from her Little Gems, mixed with cynical disbelief. But some hope. The hope lifted her heart.

A hand closed around her wrist, tugging her around to face Mac. "And take you with me," he promised the pack while he pulled his mate towards him, unerring in the darkness.

Suddenly she was in the air, her legs closing around his waist as his arms plastered her to his chest and palms found her cheeks. Then his lips were over hers, so sure, so soft, the trembling in his limbs bringing tears to her eyes and her arms around his neck as he explored her lips with aching, gentle longing, tracing every contour, every nook over and over.

A flickering spark, and a small jumble of dim lights came on, sheltered from the drenching downpour in one of the fume cupboards, highlighting Ginger calmly taping firm the electrodes attached to wires and bulbs that she had just dipped into two large beakers of liquid. The pale light shone across to where tawny fur remained wrapped around brown, water beating down on the pair, their lips glued together, impervious to the light or the audience who watched silently, with increasing amusement or indignation. Then Rupert finally growled for a second time, his voice resigned, "Who is this?"

Gemma sighed, and wriggled to get free.

Mac sighed, and lifted his head reluctantly.

The deluge abruptly dropped to a trickle, then mere drips. Gemma landed back on her own feet and she grinned at Mo as she spun to face her pack. The old wolf was twisting tight a clamp to crush closed one of the exposed water pipes running floor to ceiling on the far wall.

This is my mate, she conveyed to them all proudly, wincing against the scrape of pain through her mind at the simple phrase. Stating the obvious.

"Save your shiele," growled Jorgen. All of the wolves hovering some paces back were frowning in pain at their own headaches. None of them were used to melding.

"Where is Ben?" Andrea suddenly asked, quietly. A frisson ran through the small group. They all straightened, and looked around.

"I don't remember sensing him in the meld," growled Mo, striding back towards them.

The eyes all focussed on Gemma, and she was instantly aware - Ben had not been with them. No. The taste of betrayal was sour in her mouth, brain echoing in shock, hurt.

"Oh, what does it matter?" snapped Ellen on a wavering note. "We're all deadwolves now anyway. There's no way we can get out of here. Even with the Mackeld."

"That might matter," Alan responded quietly. "How did he get in? Find us? Her? The Alfamme said that they no longer shared a link."

The glowing eyes turned to the Alpha, who was standing quietly, holding closed a rip in his upper arm as it knitted.

"Explain," gritted Rupert. The suspicion in his voice had lightened, but it was still tainting the words

The quiet green eyes lifted.

"Please," the wolf chemist found himself adding automatically as he met that cool gaze.

Mac sighed. "The mental link was broken," he agreed quietly, his sombre eyes turning briefly to his mate's. "But love doesn't break that way, so I was bound to try to follow her. Or avenge her." The words of the explanation were quiet, matter-of-fact, but Gemma found herself suddenly biting her bottom lip to keep it steady, eyes glistening as she dropped her head so that she could listen without being overwhelmed by the loss behind those bleak, echoing eyes.