Chapter 6

As much as I didn’t like the idea of abandoning my mates and not even having the opportunity to warn them of their imminent death, I could see that Brianna’s offer made sense. I didn’t want to die or lose my baby either.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to annoy you,” I apologized to her. “I’ll go to the Highlands.”
“Good,” she said with a pleased smile. She looked at Zayne and said, “Take her with you. You know what to do.”
He nodded and looked at me. “Let’s go,” he said.
I felt a sense of unease instead of relief and it bothered me. Nevertheless, I decided to follow Zayne.
“Thank you, Brianna,” I said to my cousin as I passed her. “I will never forget this.”
“I’m sure you won’t,” she said with a rather smug smile. “Enjoy your new life.”
I don’t know why but something about her behaviour troubled me deeply. Was she truly helping me or was she setting me up?
As I continued to follow Zayne through some narrow passages between rows of pack houses, someone hit me on the back of my head with something hard and I fainted.

******************

When I woke up, the sun was shining on my face while I lay on a hard surface that made my back hurt badly.
I was swaying from side to side and the shaky movements troubled my stomach badly, making me want to vomit. I turned to my lefthand side and vomited my breakfast into a body of water.
It was then that I finally realized that I was in a boat surrounded by women of different ages and features. Their ankles were tied with chains attached to a pole in the middle of the boat. I looked down and saw that my ankles were also tied.
“What are these?” I gasped in horror.
“Are you blind?” A woman asked flippantly beside me. She was middle-aged and dressed in worn-out but neat clothes.
“They’re chains,” she continued. “Or do they look like a string of pearls to you?”
Some of the women laughed. My face turned red but it wasn’t from embarrassment, it was from anger. How dare anyone chain my ankles like this, as if I was some kind of animal that could be tied down?
I leapt up from where I was sitting and willed myself to shapeshift into my wolf form. The chains broke off my ankles as soon as I transformed, setting me free.
A man I hadn’t noticed before, ran toward me from the front of the boat and swung a spiked chain at me. It wrapped around my neck tight, cutting through my fur and digging into my skin. Within seconds, my fur was soaked with blood dripping from my neck.
“You’ll either sit down quietly with your fellow slaves or die a painful death right now,” the heavily-muscled man threatened me angrily.
“I didn’t pay thirty gold coins to that rough Gamma to have you running off without letting me make my money back first," he shouted.
"Now, are you going to be a good girl and sit down quietly with your friends here, or should I just kill you now and count my losses?”
He sounded like he meant what he was saying and my heart pounded with fear. I couldn’t die now because my baby’s life was at stake too.
Plus, I needed to understand what was going on here – how did I end up in this boat and what was this man saying about paying thirty gold coins to Zayne? None of it made sense to me.
I slowly sat down like an obedient wolf and the man released the grip of the chain, dragging it off my neck slowly to avoid cutting into my skin again.
“That’s more like it,” he cooed as if he was speaking to a child. “Get back to your position. Lattie, tie the chains around her ankles and make sure it’s tight.”
I shifted becak to my human form and sat down where I had been assigned to. The woman nearest to me who had spoken earlier picked up the chains and tied them around my ankles.
A feeling of hopelessness washed over me as I sat back and tried to make sense of my current situation.
The man returned to the front of the boat where he’d come from, dragging the spiked chain with him as if to warn the others not to attempt the kind of stunt that I had just tried.
Silence descended on the boat and the sound of water hitting the sides of the boat was the only noise that interrupted our quiet journey across the sea.
“I have something I can apply on your neck to stop the bleeding and ease the pain,” said Lattie softly. I could hear the sympathy in her voice and it made me sad.
I touched my neck and felt the stickiness of my blood. “That would be nice,” I said to her.
She dug into the pocket of her skirt and brought out a small pouch which she opened up and brought out a small tin.
Then, she removed a handkerchief stuck on her waistband and dipped it into the water before using it to wipe away the blood on my neck gently. She opened the tin and scooped a generous amount of ointment with her finger and proceeded to rub it on my neck.
“Thank you,” I said when she was done.
“You’re welcome,” she replied with a smile.
“Who are you?” A woman sitting beside Lattie asked me. “Why would Scout pay thirty gold coins for you? Are you some sort of royalty?”
I shook my head. “I don’t even understand why I’m here,” I said. “What is going on? Where are they taking us to and why are we chained down like this?”
Lattie gave me a surprised look. “Well, Princess, this is a slave ship. We are going to the Highlands to either pay our debts or escape punishment for our crimes at home. What did you do? Who sold you?”
My brain buzzed with so many questions but I didn’t even know where to start. A slave ship? How? Why?
“I – I don’t know…” I stuttered. “I don’t understand any of this.”
Lattie shrugged. “Well, I got into trouble gambling away all of my money and then I started borrowing from friends and neighbours, hoping to hit the jackpot one day and pay everyone back. But alas, my luck ran out along with all the money and when my creditors came calling.
"I fled to the mountains to escape from them but one of them eventually found me and sold me to Scout for fifteen silver coins. That’s all I’m worth.”
“But I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. “My cousin was helping me get away from her father who was trying to kill me because of this necklace.”
I showed her my necklace and her eyes widened. “This looks precious. Why don’t you give it to Scout in exchange for your freedom?”
“No,” I said quickly. “It was a gift from my mates. I mean, mate.”
“Where is he?”
“In the mountains, waiting for me to return home,” I said sadly, wishing I had gotten a chance to say goodbye to my mates before being whisked away into slavery.
I couldn’t believe that Brianna could do this to me. Wouldn’t it have been better if she’d let Antonio kill me instead of this?
Why would she sell me into slavery knowing that I was pregnant and my mates were about to be killed as well? Why did she hate me this much?
Tears ran down my face as I wept silently, mourning my mates who were probably still unaware of the danger they were in. What possessed me to return to Apex Woods? Why didn’t I just go to Nana’s cottage as Dominic had suggested?
“It’s ok, dear,” said Lattie sympathetically while rubbing my back.
“Everything is going to be fine eventually. If you’re lucky, you may be bought by someone who needs a temporary slave and that means you’d regain your freedom within a few years, give and take. It’s usually not a lifetime thing, trust me. I know people who were slaves recently and now they’re walking around and living freely after regaining their freedom.”
Her words were supposed to console me but they made me even more miserable. I had to find a way to escape from this horrid nightmare before we reached the shores of the Highlands.
There was no way I was going to let myself be enslaved if I could help it. I glanced in the direction that the boat was going and I could see that we were fast approaching land. If I wanted to escape, it had to be now or never!