I can't believe you're awake.

Woken up by a loud sound, reminding something in between shattering glass and breaking wood, Seth fell out of bed.

She gasped as if she had been choked for hours before finally escaping her captor. Trying to whisper hurt - her throat burned, even the taste in her mouth reminded painful, disgusting blisters forming on her tongue whenever she drank way too hot coffee.

Her eyes filled with tears as she tried to place a hand on her neck, instantly slapping it away with her other hand as soon as the sting of pain attacked the area.

What on Earth happened to her? Why was she in such intense pain?

Her eyes scanned the room, trying to catch on to details to understand where she was. Seth noticed many interior elements that seemed somewhat familiar, but she couldn't recall where exactly she had seen those.

The bedroom was oddly familiar, one she should remember under any circumstances, but at the same time, it was distant and as cold as never. Not a nerve in her body had a reaction towards the unknown bedroom.

Seth tried her best to stay calm, suppressing the attack of terrifying thoughts and theories.

Someone took her here, for whatever reasons, and obviously held her here until she woke up. Shouldn't there be someone near to make sure that she was still asleep?

Getting back on her feet hurt, she had to support her weight against the bed. If there was such a thing as millions of nerves upon any nerve in her body - all of them hurt.

Seth had never felt that exhausted and weak before, even when she was a kid or caught a dangerous illness. Seth's eyes focused on the bedroom door as soon as the sound of shattering and breaking objects stopped.

Should she be worried? What if some creep kidnapped her? Perhaps this was the moment when Seth searched the room to find a weapon? If she felt this bad, the person had to have given her something to make her weak. Her senses wouldn't help much, same as psychical strength - she needed that weapon.

‘Hey! Are you there?’ Seth tried to call out to her puma, intentionally acting as if her name wouldn't matter.

Well, partly intentionally. A part of her knew that the puma would be annoyed if Seth didn't use her name. The other part of her forgot the name of her beast. Had that ever happened to a shifter before?

‘Please, don't be angry at me; I can't remember your name. Something happened, pretty bad, I would guess. The last thing I remember is driving to the Council territory and nearly losing the job because of my gender. They suggested I could dress up as a man, yeah, so I got the job. How long has it been since that? Where are we? Do you have any idea what happened to us? And why the hell is my head hurting this bad? Holy hell,’ Seth kept ranting as if the puma could hear her.

Deep down, she knew that she wouldn't find an answer in the painful silence, but even the acknowledgment didn't hold her back from the hope.

Sometimes, Seth thought of how funny ones' hope could be, how far the mere feeling could push the person to keep on fighting. She had nothing but the feeling that by the end of the day, everything would be alright.

She had never crawled on her knees, in front of a higher individual, her father, or a person she had massive respect for. Now, it wouldn't be the day when that could change, no matter how big of trouble she got herself into - there had to be a way out of everything.

Strangely, Seth couldn't feel even a weak presence of her puma, growing a bit worried as time went by. Her heart pounded against her ribcage, threatening to escape her body.

Taking another look at the strange room, Seth noticed a door - that might be a bathroom. She tried to imagine how many steps she would have to walk until she reached the door; after that, she would find some support to keep on going.

Since the bedroom had only the bed in the middle of it and no other furniture, Seth could hope that some razors were in the bathroom cabinet. The possibility was weak, but if she found any - at least she would have a weapon to defend herself until she became stronger and got out of the unknown place.

‘Come on, woman, you can do that. Sometimes you won't have anyone to rely on but yourself. Have you got the guts to take your life in your damn hands, huh? Just take the step; you can do it. Gather some strength while you can use the bed for support, then take slow steps towards that door. You are an Alpha, a born leader; you can do it. If anyone, you're the only one who can. Believe in yourself.’

Seth breathed heavily as she gave herself a pep talk, struggling to push her body away from the bed.

When the cat shifter was younger, she used to watch horror movies about people getting imprisoned by some weird psychopaths. Back then, she laughed at how easy the answers were and how fast those people could escape even before getting hurt in one way or another. It was funny how her life started to resemble a scenario from one of those movies, except she woke up in a somewhat decent-looking room rather than a locked basement.

And after all those hours she wasted researching the behavior of psychopaths, kidnappers, serial killers, and others, Seth still didn't think of an escape. Since she was alone, she couldn't guess if she was around someone who tried to keep her safe or quite the opposite - hurt her in an imaginable way.

The sound of footsteps echoing against the walls, coming from what she assumed was the staircase nearby, startled Seth. Someone moved up to the second floor; she had to think of something quickly.

The only problem was that she was unaware of how far the staircase was from the room and how much time she had to escape. There was no way she would get to the bathroom on time now.

Besides, if she tried it in front of the person - her action might anger the possible kidnapper.

Seth took a weak, shaking breath and squeezed her eyes, patiently waiting for the door to open.

The lock clicked, the door opened slowly, following with the most annoying sound that only an old piece of furniture could make. Whoever entered the room gasped and stopped on the spot.

She could feel the person's intense stare, unable to take it anymore; Seth forced her eyes open and met the stranger's golden green orbs.

“I can't believe you're awake. Finally,” the man, standing in the door frame, gasped, eyeing her as if the biggest miracle in the world had happened before his eyes.

The possible kidnapper was a handsome man, she couldn't deny it, but at the same time, Seth wouldn't allow herself to admit it also. She wouldn't want to become someone who was experiencing Stockholm syndrome.

There was no way she would feel attracted to her abuser - yes, an abuser. Even someone who took her away from home can be called an abuser.

She never gave her consent, not that she could remember giving any, but that was beyond the point.

The male cleared his throat and brought his hand to the back of his neck, scratching it nervously as he chewed on his inner cheek. “So, how are you feeling? Are you in pain? Wait, should I call for a doctor?”

First, as he questioned Seth, the man seemed calm and collected. Then, his eyes scanned her posture, and his voice suddenly grew frantic. Why would someone she didn't know worry about how she felt?

Seth shook her head, attempting to show the man that nothing was wrong. Everything was wrong - mentally, physically, and emotionally. She was scared, in pain, doubting what was real or fake. No person alive should ever experience such mixed feelings.

Seth couldn't wish her worst enemies to go through the same emotional rollercoaster as she did in front of a stranger.

“Alright then. Are you in pain? Anywhere?” The man kept questioning Seth, eyeing her with suspicion.

Obviously, he wasn't quite the most ignorant asshole since the man noticed her body language. Raising an eyebrow, he seemed to challenge Seth to lie.

A brilliant idea appeared in her mind - she could befriend him and get out of there before any worse damage happens. Seth brought up her hand to point at her neck, showing the man where the primary source of her pain was.

His eyes widened a little, but besides that, he showed no emotion. The man nodded his head as if he could understand what she tried to explain, and most importantly - he knew why the pain was there.

His large frame leaned against the closer wall, eyes glued to his feet. His posture reminded her of a person that was about to confess to committing sin or crime. Once again, he cleared his throat and let out a deep breath, respectfully keeping a distance between them.

“Listen, this will be extremely difficult to explain, and for you, it will be even harder to accept. Things happened, most of those were unexpected, and please believe me when I say - we had no idea about the effect that might leave on you,” the man started.

For some reason, when he said “we” not “I” something in Seth stirred. As if she understood who those “we” were.

She gulped, nearly hissing out in pain as soon as the saliva went down her throbbing throat.

“Should I start from the beginning? The doctors told us that you might lose some memories, but even the memory loss would be short-term. You will get them all back, I promise.” He still didn't try to get any closer to Seth - that was the only thing she enjoyed in this situation.

Based on the look on his face, the man didn't arrive with good news.

Seth quickly nodded her head as eagerly as she could without causing any more pain. Hopefully, he didn't lie about her memories coming back; she would love to remember everything.

Living in the dark, unaware of your past, might be one of the worst things that could happen to a person.

“I don't know if I can say this, but we are in kind of a complicated relationship. We never discussed or decided to go official, but whatever we shared could be more or less a relationship. My name is Luciano. Besides me, you had three more men you lead, let's say the same relationship with - Dominic, Ryder, and Vlad. They are downstairs, fighting over something. I couldn't spend more time with them, those three nutjobs purposely kill my brain cells, and I will need those in the future. I don't want to get into more details, so I will try to cover the most important ones, alright?”

Without waiting for a nod or any sound of agreement from Seth, the male kept talking.

“So, we got into an argument, I have no idea what I did, but you left. It wasn't only your fault; in between, some elder Council officials decided that taking you away from me would make me focus on the competition. I still believe that the majority of the fault should be mine - you obviously agreed to leave because I did something. Well, as soon as you regain your memory, I might find out what it was. Until then, it remains a mystery. After you left, I did my best to look for you - to no avail. Men who were part of your life found you before I did, all thanks to the genius idea of leaving the Alpha games. I still remember that phone call when you told me that you needed time and I shouldn't look for you. It broke my heart. After a while, I met another one of your so-called toys. We decided to develop a plan to get you back, but even that didn't work out as we planned at first. However, we did find out that you were away with two other men. I know, it sounds kind of weird, but it is what it is - you have always seemed to be the woman who knows what she wants and wouldn't miss an opportunity to have a taste of anything life presents you. Well, then we come closer to what happened. The Alpha games had to be rushed since the King was about to die, and the Council needed the new King faster than planned. I won. After I won, I had the chance to choose my Queen, and obviously, I chose you. Then, there was the problem - other men. I ordered Dominic and Ryder to get you here to me. You wouldn't come willingly, so they drugged you and took you here while you were supposedly asleep. Honestly, if your best friend wouldn't appear at the right moment, we might have lost you.” His voice broke as if the man was about to cry his eyes out.

The sadness in his eyes and emotion of pure regret flashing over his face couldn't stay unnoticed.

Seth knew that he spoke from the bottom of his heart - truth and the truth only. But, it still didn't change the fact that all of them had done something terrible.

Whatever they did - Seth ended up in the room in pain with short-term memory loss. She would encourage Luciano to talk if she could, but all she could do was keep on waiting until he was ready.

Another sharp intake of breath, and he spoke again, bringing his eyes down, focusing on his feet. “He saved your life. You could have died in my arms if he didn't point out what we had done. You see, there is this drug - on us, wolves, it works like a sleeping pill. Technically, we could feel weak, sleepy, and out of energy, but even for that, we would need quite a concentrated dosage. It wouldn't kiss us; just leave those couple of side effects for a couple of hours or so. On you, however, it turned out to leave a more significant impact. The drug was supposed to make you sleep throughout the car ride, but it started killing your body in reality. What seems to be harmless to a wolf is nearly deadly for a cat depends on how long it stays in your system. You were dying, Seth; you were dying because of us. The doctors barely managed to save you, doing multiple blood transfusions to get that shit out, but the damage was done. The pain, the memories, and any other side effect - it's because of us. Mainly because of me. I am so damn sorry if only I'd known…” Luciano's eyes shot up, meeting Seth's watery ones.

The King extended his arm, stepping closer to her. Seeing her in so much pain, all he wanted to do was embrace her and hold Seth until the pain was gone.

He had to be strong for both of them. Perhaps Luciano thought that Seth would understand that he didn't have the wrong intentions, but his hope died on the spot.

Seth pointed a finger at the door and screamed: “OUT!”

Luciano didn't try to object; he turned around and left the room, closing the door behind him. Instead of leaving, the King sat by the door, listening to Seth crying both in pain and despair at the same time.

That was when he finally understood what all of them had done - the Alphas broke her.