CHAPTER TWO : JOURNEY TO THE UNKNOWN

 TESSA

It's been over a year since her arrest and all Tessa could say for herself, if asked, is that she regretted looking and waiting for love.

Since her mate rejected and subjected her to daily torture, lashing and pain all she could do was hold on to life and hope to see her mother and brother again, including her best friend.

For a whole year, he wouldn't visit nor allow anybody to visit her, no good clothes but rags, no good food but smelly and spoiled leftovers. She was chained in her cage and only allowed to come out for her daily dose of whipping.

Ten strokes everyday like it was medication. At first Tessa wanted to give up on life and just allow the darkness to take her away but she remembered her mother's warm and loving smile, Trent's jokes and Cecilia's love and friendship, and she couldn't do it.

She would fight for them at least, just maybe she would be free from here one day and see them again, hot tears glide in fast motion from her puffy and swollen eyes to her chin, she quickly brushed them away and sniffed them in.

All her crying these past months had done nothing but earned her headaches and mocking from her co - prisoners and the guards here.

Her case was really funny, they made fun of her because her own mate did this to her, at least all the prisoners here were hardened criminals, guilty as charged, sentenced to death and life imprisonment.

They couldn't believe she would also share such fate with them, the particular prison she was locked in is meant only for those who had been condemned to death, her only sin was being mated to the Alpha.

She would die without even being a criminal, no offence just because the moon goddess choose her to be a mate to the Alpha of her pack, the spoiled and arrogant Alpha.

Every day after what had happened; her imprisonment, she had wished over and over again that she listened to Cecilia, that she was more careful about expecting too much from love.

After all, her own father betrayed her mother, left them for another woman and never looked back. After some years they knew his whereabouts and heard about his death.

Just like that he went away from their lives, but she didn't allow that one incident shatter her hope for love, even when Cecilia used her own story of how her parents abandoned her in the orphanage when she was a baby.

Still Tessa would always shut her up and implore her best friend to be positive and hopeful, telling her that life would be good to them and they would find their own love.

Cecilia is twenty and hasn't found her mate, they have both dressed up that night for the yearly event which has always been held for that main purpose.

Various wolves from all over the world came

To their pack to have fun and find their mate, Tessa was all chatty and excited even as they dresses up, she couldn't keep still and kept on talking and imagining her first kiss with her mate.

Cecilia was withdrawn and quiet, like she was scared of what would happen to them that night, if she had known she wouldn't have left the house that night, just maybe she would be able to avoid him for some days or even years.

Now she has to miss life, her school, her laughter and happiness, nothing is left for her. Even her family were not allowed to see her since that night, he kept her caged and tired in chains here.

Tessa groaned in frustration, shaking her head off trying to remove all the depressing thoughts from her head, instead she started humming a song just to keep her mind busy.

A guard walked to her cage and whispered to her quietly, the guard name is Kingsley. The only nice person to her here. She wouldn't have survived without him, sometimes he brings her good food and water.

On very few occasions when the other guards weren't looking he allows her to take her bath with warm water, she wasn't even allowed to take bath, it was that serious.

"Your mum came again today, she stayed and cried under the rain all through, begging to see you… But they didn't let her, as usual" he informed her. Tessa shook her head sadly, pursing her dry shaft lips to stop the new set of tears that were threatening to come out again.

Everyday her mother would come to the pack gate, cry and beg to see her but the Alpha wouldn't let her in, "he's just a cruel man…. Very heartless and wicked… I curse the day I met him "Tessa whispered, even as she sobbed.

"Be strong… You have to…'' Kingsley wasn't able to finish his sentence, some guards were walking toward them and as usual he quickly changed the topic.

"You smell like shit! … Your Life is worthless here, just give up! You fool" he spat into her prison, smiling apologetically at her before storming away in pretense anger.

Tessa smiled back at him sadly and watched as he walked past the incoming guards safely, she sighed in relief as they didn't suspect him. Instead they were all marching toward her, eyes fixed on her. she knew something was up at once.

But she was more relieved that Kingsley made it past them without any suspicions, it would have been very painful to lose the nice young man, without him she would have been long dead.

She remembered a scenario where she had just gotten her strokes of Cane and her body refused to heal as usual, that didn't stop the fresh strokes on the next day, she got another fresh whips on her back. The same place where the old wounds were.

For a whole week it kept on like that, the guards didn't bother to stop or wait till the old ones healed, it was only Kingsley who took note of her body changes from the first day and even when Tessa tried to stop him from going to tell Alpha Trevor about it.

He didn't listen, putting his own life at risk. He went to see her wicked mate, to her surprise the pack doctor came to tend to her and gave her some medication.

The wounds had gotten wider and deeper, laced with infection. She was in so much pain and the incoming fever was almost sucking life out of her.

The diagnosis was due to poor lifestyle and lack of good food. Kingsley had held her that day while the doctor applied his treatment, she remembered crying in his arms.

He's just like a God sent and the only hope of goodness left in the world, apart from Kingsley… every other man is a threat to her, wicked monsters.

Tears tricked down Tessa's face and she wiped them immediately, the storming guards had stopped in front of her cage, without saying a word to her, one of the men opened the door and squeezed his face at the smell oozing out of her cage.

It wasn't funny but Tessa almost laughed out in bitterness, they wouldn't let her wash up or clean. What else do they expect. The guard reaches for her arm without entering her smelly cage.

He grabbed her and pushed her out, "let's gets you cleaned up … you are a mess!" He spat at her, his anger evident in his face.

"You should ask your Alpha, I didn't subject my self to this…." Tessa replied back with her own anger, they shouldn't blame her for her condition. She also didn't like it here at all.

"Bitch! You still have that sharp tongue… don't worry we will get rid of you soon … you unlucky haggard whore!" Another guard busted at her angrily.

Tessa's heart began to beat quickly in her heart, she knew they didn't come with good news, but the little bad ones she just heard now… gave her goosebumps and cut all hope for freedom at once.

There's no escape coming soon. In Fact she could smell her end, the only thing she wished for now is to see her family one last time.