Marked By Him

Prologue

I wake up with every muscle in my body screaming in pain, my head throbbing, and not sure where I am. My throat is parched and sore. I open my eyes, only to be met with utter darkness.

The air here, wherever here is, is pungent with the unpleasant smell of urine, vomit, and blood. I fight the urge to vomit. My wrists and ankles burn. Painful. My eyes dart around in a futile attempt to see in the dark.

Next, I try to get up, but movement sends waves of throbbing pain all over my body. I bite my lower lip to keep from screaming. I close my eyes tightly and breathe in to try to block out the searing pain. I try to remember what happened, where I am, and how I ended up here, but my mind conjures up no memory.

Lower lip between my teeth, bracing myself and ready to push through the pain, I try to get up again, but I fall face-first on the bitterly cold cemented floor. I wince, and tears sting my eyes. I grit my teeth from the pain. f**k, that hurt. I want to lie here, on the cold floor, and let the pain consume me, but I must get out of here, escape. As they say, the third time’s a charm, so for the third time, I try to get up with a grunt, but I freeze when the sound of rattling chains coming from… me pierces the silence of the room. Chains? My wrists and ankles are bound in chains like I am a prisoner held in a prison cell. Wait, is that what this is, a prison? Considering the chains, dark room, and putrid smell, it feels like a prison to me.

With my hands, I feel the wall with my fingers. The walls are made of stone. Cold. Rugged. Just then, my stomach grumbles, which can only mean that, for hours, I haven’t had food in my stomach.

“Help!” I cry out. “Somebody help me! Help!”

“No one can hear you,” a hoarse voice says.

I scream.

Panic seizes me, my heart pounding hard in my chest. My eyes dart around the dark prison, frantically searching for the source of the voice, but I still can’t see s**t – it’s dark as hell.

“Who – who are you?”

“Someone like you,” the man answers, and then I hear chains. Not from me.

“Like me?”

“Yes.”

“Why are we here?”

“They brought us here.”

I frown, thinking. I try to remember again. My mind is blank; it can’t remember anything. Nothing. At all. “Who’s ‘they’?”

“Werewolves.”