The Stolen by Alexx Andria Page B

crumbling cornices and creaking maple balustrade.
    “Who does this house belong to?” Cassandra
asked.
    “Someone dead.”
    “Oh.” Cassandra took that as a warning not to
ask too many questions. Her gaze darted from one room to the next,
looking for an escape but everywhere she looked, pairs of eyes
peered at her from darkened alcoves and musty rooms. Arja led her
into a room different from the rest. The room was awash in opulent
tones of red and purple and Ulster, the scarred barbarian, lounged
in his oversized chair like a king on his throne. Three large men
stood at wary attention, their eyes narrowing and their noses
twitching as Cassandra entered the room.
    “Ahh, there she is. The lady of the hour.
Tell me, did you manage to wash that bloodsucker’s stink from your
body?”
    Arja bowed. “She is clean, Master.”
    “She’d better be or I’ll whip the worthless
flesh from your bones,” Ulster promised with a sick smile as if he
rather liked the idea of Arja’s failure simply so he could carry
out his threat. He motioned Arja away as if the sight of her filled
him with disgust and said, “What do you think of our
accommodations?” he asked, almost mockingly, daring her to give him
a reason to abuse her. The mean, hard look in his eyes gave away
his hope and Cassandra wasn’t about to play his game. She remained
silent, seaming her mouth shut purposefully. “Oh, a quiet one? No
worries, I have ways to make my women say whatever I’d like them to
say.”
    “I am not your woman,” Cassandra said without
flinching, which made her very proud because inside she was shaking
like a leaf in a strong wind. “Jandin and Koris will find me. And
they will tear you to pieces.”
    “What makes you think I won’t tear them to
pieces first?” he asked silkily.
    “Because if you could, you would’ve already.”
She sent a derisive look around the motley group, noting their
moth-bitten clothes and the pervasive sense of abject poverty that
clung to everything she saw, and said, “You are not their equals in
any way. It’s no wonder my mother couldn’t wait to get away from
this clan.”
    Ulster growled in warning, the sound low and
dangerous and sending a riot of raised flesh skittering around her
nerve endings, as he leaned forward, baring his teeth. “You dare
much, girl. Do not speak of that bitch in my presence if you enjoy
breathing. She abandoned her clan — her family — to whelp with the cursed enemy clan.”
    Cassandra bit her tongue to keep from
snarling a bitter retort in a bid for self-preservation. She knew
nothing of her birth parents, but from what she had gleaned thus
far, the star-crossed lovers had defied everything to be together,
even a timeless prophecy that had doomed them from the start.
    “Why did you bring me here? To make me atone
for my mother’s sins? I never knew her. I was adopted. Any revenge
you seek against her would be futile. She didn’t raise me and I
know nothing about this damn prophecy everyone keeps talking about.
What makes you think it’s even real? I mean, it’s the
21 st century, people. Not the medieval times.”
    Ulster seemed taken aback by her frank
statement, so much so that a lengthy pause stretched between
them.
    “Do not listen to her treachery,” one of his
men urged, eyeing Cassandra with open distrust. “She’d say anything
to avoid her fate. Hurry up and put your seed in her belly. Your
son, our clan, was meant to rule this world.”
    “You’re caught in a time warp. There’s no
prophecy. Just a bunch of werewolves stuck in the past. I mean,
look around…this place could use a little freshening up. You know?
Why do you live like this?”
    A low rumbling sounded in warning and
Cassandra swallowed nervously. Perhaps she’d taken it a bit far.
Forty-eight hours ago if someone had said to her that she was a
werewolf, let alone a Prophesied Breeder of Epic Proportions, she
would’ve directed them to the nearest mental hospital. But there
was