Aella's dreams made no sense

First, she was in the foyer of the pack house in Logan's pack, walking down the makeshift aisle that was meant for Louve. She looked sideways at the crowd of well-wishers and instead of the faces of Logan's pack members, she saw grins and sneers from the members of the Rogue Pack. She looked down and instead of a white dress, she was putting on a black one: lacy and tattered, like a Bride of Death. Someone was leading her by the arm, and when she looked up, she saw that it was her dad.

Impossible, she had time to think before they got to the makeshift altar, where the Wolf Priest was waiting for the both of them. She heard low chants from the members of the Rogue Pack behind her but she paid little heed. All her attention was focused on her groom who was standing with his back to her, looking very much like Logan. Maybe this dream isn't so bad after all, she thought. But when the groom turned to her, she was staring not at Logan but at the face of the Rogue King.

She screamed, but her voice was lost in the increased chanting from the pack. She felt the floor open up beneath her, and as in the manner of dreams, she suddenly found herself in the woods close to Logan's pack house. She was still in the tattered lacy black dress and she looked around, dazed and perplexed. The packhouse was just within her reach, close enough that only the packhouse lawn separated them.

But as she tried to take a step towards the pack house and its safety, her legs refused to budge. She frowned and looked down, then saw black vines braided around her calves. She grunted and wriggled her feet to shake off the vines but they were as hard as ever.

Then she heard the voices through the trees. They whispered her name, their whispers like the soft rustle of the trees around her. Soon they emerged from the trees, their hands outstretched. She saw Kylie's face and a host of other unrecognizable ones: the faces of the wolves killed by the Rogue Pack.

She struggled even harder and called out the names of her friends, from Logan to Louve to Casper. But none of them emerged from the pack house, until the dead wolves reached her and surrounded her, their hands covering her face, her arms, her head. She let out a terrified scream—

And woke up suddenly, her heart beating erratically. She opened her eyes and looked around. She seemed to be lying down on hard forest ground. Twigs and stones were pricking her bare cheek and arms painfully. She groaned and tried to stand up, but she fell back down ungracefully. She frowned and wriggled her hands and feet. Damn, she'd been tied up.

"Shit." She muttered under her breath and spat out sand from her mouth. Her stomach growled like a hungry wolf and she realised that she hadn't eaten in a while. All she remembered eating was dinner before she followed Logan to the cabin in the woods, and who knew how long she had been knocked out and brought here? Most probably a couple of days.

She tried to cast her mind back and remember the events leading up to her kidnapping, but she could not remember much. After she'd had sex with Logan, she had laid in his arms and fallen asleep almost immediately. Then she had woken up a few hours after dawn to find Logan missing. She hadn't been too worried as she was certain that he had gone back to the pack house.

She had waited, snuggled up in the bed sheets, for him. She had heard someone's footsteps and had opened her eyes, calling out his name. But it hadn't been him. Immediately she had seen the grim-looking man that stood at the door, she had immediately known that he'd been sent by the Rogue King.

She had fought against him, trying to prevent being captured, but her strength had failed her. The man was more than twice her weight and height. He'd hit a large book on her head with so much force that she had been knocked out cold, and then he had carried her here. She couldn't piece together the memories between her time at the cabin and here, only bits and pieces.

Her hands and feet were numb and full of pins and needles. She tried to wriggle a little bit of life back into them, but her manacles were too tight to do much. And so, she lay there, limp as a rag doll and waiting for someone to notice that she was awake. 

Then she heard footsteps coming closer to her and quickly bent her head, grateful for the curtain of hair that fell across her face. Her tattoo burned as the footsteps got closer and she flinched instinctively, praying he hadn't seen the flinch.

He. She was certain it was a he because only the Rogue King himself or anything he influenced could make her tattoo burn so painfully.

"I know you're awake, Aella. Look at me." The voice said.

Aella squeezed her eyes shut, willing the voice and the presence to disappear. No, this can't be, she thought. Perhaps it was one of her nightmares and she would wake up in Logan's little cabin in the woods.

"Look at me, Aella." The voice repeated but she didn't move, hoping that the Goddess would somehow make him go away.

"Look at me." He said for the last time, his voice low and deadly. Then her tattoo burned so painfully that she let out a scream of pain and raised her head to the sky. Her body writhed on the ground and she struggled against her bonds as pure pain coursed through her veins.

Then the pain stopped just as immediately as it had started. She collapsed to the ground, panting and sweating, and opened her eyes. The Rogue King was standing above her, the night sky behind him turning his face to shadows.

"There, there. That wasn't so hard now, was it? You know how much I hate people disobeying my orders." He murmured, but she heard him loud and clear.

Aella hated that face so much that she turned away from him and chose to look around her instead. They were in a clearing in the forest. A large hearth had been set in the middle of the clearing and a spit erected on it. The spit turned slowly with a large wild boar in it. She could see several men walking around. They seemed to be packing up camp.

Rogue warriors. They were going to attack Logan's pack.

She heard movement beside her and turned to look into the Rogue King's face. He had crouched beside her so he was closer to her face. She could see the large familiar crescent tattoo on his face, the smooth baldness of his head, and the cold, watery grey of his eyes. He was a very huge man. Even as an adult, Aella always felt small whenever she stood close to him.

He was putting on a cape of wolfskin around his shoulders. Underneath the cape, he had on a black turtleneck and black pants with large combat boots. His mouth was set in an unforgiving line as the both of them regarded each other.

He raised a hand and caressed her sweaty face, pushing a strand of her hair to the side. "Poor thing. Poor, precious White Wolf." He murmured without any hint of sympathy in his voice. "Too bad you'll die soon. I really did like you."

Aella's ears began to ring as she heard that last sentence. The Rogue King was going to kill her.

She was going to die.

"Wait!" She yelled as the king rose up. “I know you're disappointed. I know that I let you down. I did not perform my duties as a spy and instead got myself mated to the alpha. But please, listen to me."

The Rogue King looked down at her with an expressionless face. "You had one job, White Wolf. One job. I only kept you around because you were a special wolf. Now I regret that. I should have killed you alongside your parents. You're worthless to me."

Fear turned the inside of Aella's stomach into lead, but she pushed on with courage. "If you hadn't kidnapped me, Logan would be dead by now. I had the perfect plan to kill him when we were alone in the cabin, away from his pack members and any sort of protection. but you ruined the plan. Release me. Let me go back to Logan and prove myself to you. I swore allegiance to you. I took the tattoo to my skin. I can't possibly back off now. Let me do this, please." She said, adding a bit of desperation to her voice.

The Rogue King continued to look at her as she lay on the ground. For a moment she thought he would consider her proposal. But then he spoke and all the hope in her chest died.

"You've done enough, White Wolf." He said to her. "There's nothing you can do anymore. I am going to take Logan's pack with or without your help, and I will kill you in his presence, watch the life bleed out of you, and watch him as he looks at you die, helplessly." Then he walked away from Aella. leaving her to her shattered emotions.