A headache pounded against my skull as I came to consciousness. Blinking my eyes open, I was met with more darkness, except for the little circle of yellow an undetermined distance in front of me. The light was just enough that as my eyes adjusted, I could make out tall rods of some kind of metal between the light source and where I laid.

With a grunt, I placed my palm flat on the ground and pushed myself into a sitting position, leaning on my left arm. The surface where my hand was was rough, gritty almost. And it was cold. In fact, the whole room I was in felt damp and icy, and it possessed a stagnant smell. There was a hollow feel to the area, empty like, but my nose could detect the signs of others. I definitely wasn't alone in there.

The pounding in my head hadn't settled, but I decided to test my voice. "Heh," I cleared my throat, not sounding like myself at all, "hello?"

The only response that came was the shuffle against the concrete and a small whimper.

Someone coughed.

My throat closed tight, the threat of tears along my lashes. Where am I? How did I get here?

Mustering some strength, I scooted back until my spine collided with a wall. There wasn't enough energy to stand yet. It was like someone had sucked all the life out of me and hadn't returned it. My limbs were heavy, and my eyelids couldn't stay all the way open, no matter how hard I stretched. I must have been drugged, which would explain the headache, too.

Suddenly a section of the wall below the circle of light swung open, bathing the entire room in the harsh yellow. My head screamed at me to make it stop. After blinking into focus, I realized it was a door, and the light from before was coming through a tiny window above it.

A person stood in the doorway, blocking some of the light and making it incredibly hard to see their face. The figure was tall, nearly reaching the top of the door, and their muscles were silhouetted against the flooding light. But I was more interested in discovering my surroundings.

It was horrific.

The bars I could barely see before were now in plain display, caging me in on three sides. They repeated to the sides, boxing sections of the room into little cells. I was able to count ten sections caged in by bars. The majority of the spaces looked empty at first glance, but the slightest shift allowed me to focus in on the tiny bodies hidden in the shadows the light couldn't get to.

There were only two I could actually see: girls that occupied a cell on either side of me, where the light illuminated them and left nowhere to hide. The girl on the left of me looked to be about my age or so, but she was so small I could've just been looking at a skeleton dressed in grimy clothes. Her short dark hair had a slight, unkempt wave amidst the tangles. Her skin was pale, but very well could have once been olive-toned, and her hazel eyes shown from the light, enhancing her sunken cheeks and button nose. She stared straight at the newcomer, a fire of defiance burning around her.

To the right, a tiny human lay curled in a ball against the wall. I couldn't see her face, but the skin of her limbs were paper white, contrasting the fire-red curls that surrounded her head like a mane. She was shaking uncontrollably and hadn't even looked up at the person in the doorway.

When I turned back to the newcomer, I noticed he had been surveying the room almost like I had. When his eyes met mine, a shiver of absolute disgust coursed through me. He smirked.

"Welcome to the Black Mountain Pack."

I had never heard of this pack. Granted, I wasn't from around here, but still. Everything about him and the pack made me uneasy, and more than just the fact I was literally trapped behind bars.

"Aralia," he said confidently looking directly at me. "You're newly sprouted; let's go." He stepped towards me, taking a key from his pocket to unlock the padlock on the gate to the cell.

Aralia? Newly sprouted?

I stared as he stepped inside and roughly wrapped a hand around my wrist, pulling me up and dragging me with him towards the light. I glanced back as we went, and my eyes met with the red-head's. The dark pools were filled with fear and tears, and I was shocked to find she was only a child, looking barely more than a toddler.

The door shut behind me, trapping the girls back in the dark.

We continued down a long corridor, flooded with light from both LEDs above us, and basement hopper windows that were spread periodically down the hall. At the end, he opened a door and shoved me inside. I stumbled a few steps, but refused to fall.

"Who are you?" I sputtered, turning back to face him. In the light, I got a much better look at him. His face structure was chiseled, almost pointed, with a hooked nose and narrow eyes. His blond hair was cropped short, making it resemble some sort of spikes. He was wide, but it was entirely muscle mass and that made me extremely afraid of what he could do to me.

"Aralia-"

"April." I corrected.

"Aralia, the Pack Doctor will see to you now."

I scrunched my eyebrows, confused by everything that came out of his mouth.

He left for a moment, returning with a second person. This one a female, short in stature with blond hair tied back into a bun. She didn't smile at me, just raked her eyes down from my hair to my bare feet — I wasn't sure what had happened to my shoes.

"Seems healthy enough." She commented, walking over and lifting my arms into a T position. She squeezed my wrists, my elbows, my shoulders, and even my cheeks, "brand new?"

The man nodded, watching her examine me the entire time.

"Wonderful." She motioned for me to lay on the padded table behind us. I obliged, keeping one eye on her and one on him through it all. She urged me to discard my clothes, and that was where I hesitated.

I was used to frequent pack doctor visits, especially being an Alpha's child. I was used to examinations where I couldn't be dressed, but this was a pack I had been kidnapped to. I wasn't about to let everything go as normal.

"No."

The man growled, but the woman was faster, pinning me to the table and baring her teeth in my face. "It wasn't an question, Aralia."

"April!" I snarled back.

Startled, the woman let go and turned to face the man, whose eyes were like lasers cutting through my flesh from across the room. "She remembers?"

The man shrugged. "It's been less than twenty-four hours, I'm sure that will dissolve."

"Hmm." Her long nails clicked together as she thought. Finally she turned back to me, "to complete a proper examination, I need your clothes to be removed."

My eyes flicked to the man. "With him here?"

She folded her arms sternly. "Clothes."

I didn't see how I was getting out of this, "at least a gown?"

The doctor laughed, a shrill sound that made me flinch backwards. She reminded me of a witch. With a sigh, I pulled down my pants and let her examine me. I wasn't sure of what for, seeing as I had been kept in a grimy dungeon for the past day, and the others had been there for who knows how long. Why would it matter if we were healthy? Obviously they weren't too concerned about our physical health, based on the gaunt appearance of the older girl in the cell to the left.

When she was satisfied, I rushed to pull up my pants, glaring at the man across the room. I knew full well he was not one that had turned away politely during that whole process. I did not like him.

The woman pulled her gloves off and tossed them in the trash before meeting the man's eyes. She nodded. He smiled. I felt very uncomfortable.

The man dragged a chair over and pulled me onto it, while they both sat on the couch across from me. She kept a notepad in her lap, and I knew I was about to be interrogated. I was getting more and more confused, and more and more irritated. Why was I here? How did this happen to me? Where was Xavier?

Xavier. A whimper escaped just thinking about him. It hadn't even been a day, how was I going to be trapped here for any longer without being near him?

"Aralia," the woman started.

"April." I bore my teeth, debating if it was worth it to lunge at her.

"Aralia!" The man snarled back. My focus switched to him, and I then debated if it was worth attempting to tear him to shreds. "Cooperate." His eyes were fierce, mine were already rolling.

"Or what?"

His smile became sinister, with a hint of greediness that sent me shrinking back before he even spoke. "I don't think you want to find out."

So I sat there, listening as the doctor read off a list of information about me.

Caucasian female.

Brown hair.

19 years of age.

Five feet, nine inches tall.

One-hundred and thirty five pounds.

Deemed healthy.

As she spoke, she was scribbling down notes according to her previous examination. My eyes widened at every sentence, scared to the bone by how much they knew about me.

"How do you know all of this?"

They ignored me, and she continued reading my information in a monotone voice. I noticed everything on the list was about me only; my family and my mate weren't included. That was relieving, because there was no way I would give any hints about anyone I loved. The world would shatter if May was thrown in here, or even Amethyst.

Fox shifter.

Then she stopped, and I went rigid-still, my back straight as a pin and my eyes unable to blink. "What?" Is that why I'm here? Is everything my mother taught me to fear based on fact?

The man leaned back into his seat, "well, that's what you are isn't it?"

My mouth popped open and closed several times as I debated. Did I try to divert them away, or was there no getting out of this? I decided that if I said no, they would just make me shift to prove I was a wolf. And then they'd probably kill me for lying, and so that I couldn't go tell my pack about them. Fine.

I huffed, "yes."

He smiled, "excellent." With a dip of his head at the doctor, she continued, this time her eyes locking with mine instead of staring at her clipboard.

"When did you shift?"

"Sixteen." I answered automatically, used to avoiding this question.

She lifted her pen, but the man stopped her by raising his hand. His eyes bore into my skull. "Tell the truth, Aralia. We know non-wolves can shift at other ages."

I grinder my teeth together. "It's April!"

"Truth." He pressed, ignoring my outburst.

"Fine. Seventeen."

The doctor didn't write anything, glancing at the man for confirmation. His eyebrow raised at me.

"It's the truth. We thought I was stunted."

Satisfied, the doctor scribbled furiously on the board. "And when you shifted, you discovered you were in fact not a wolf, like the rest of your family?"

I was careful, not knowing how much they knew about my family and not wanting to give anything extra away. "Correct."

"Your entire family are wolves? Wolves that shifted at a normal age?"

My hands gripped the edges of my chair, frustrated and confused, with nothing to get it out. "Yes."

The man's eyes narrowed and he stood up, closing the distance between us. I shriveled against the chair as his face got close to mine. "Both parents are wolves?"

This wasn't their first rodeo. He knew I was avoiding it.

I swallowed, and only answered to get him out of my face. "My mother is human."

"Good girl." He retreated to his seat and I let in a gulp of air I had been holding.

We sat in silence for a few minutes as the doctor finished her notes. When the pen finally stopped moving, she stood up and just walked out, not even saying a word. My eyes followed her steps; I was absolutely bewildered.

The man stood and grabbed my wrist hard, dragging me from the seat and out the door. I turned in time to see the doctor turn a corner, her shoes thumping up a set of stairs. We went the opposite way, and it didn't take much for me to recognize we were heading back to the room I woke in. I didn't fight it, because I knew at least I would be left alone in there and he would leave.

He flung the door open, easily tossing me into the cell I was in before. The rough ground sliced at the delicate skin of my palms, and I hissed, rolling onto my shoulder as I landed to get off my hands. That was going to leave several marks.

By the time I sat up, the padlock was in place and I was trapped again. I leaned against the wall, letting the light from the hall flood over me as I watched him prowl the room until he got to the farthest corner, where it was too dark for me to make out who was back there. The click of a lock echoed off the bars and the gate swung open. No sound followed as he stalked to the back of the cell. A second layer, he was dragging two teenage girls — as skin and bone as the girl next to me — out towards the door. When they hit the light, I saw they were about the same age, but one was shorter and had voluminous dark curls that bounced off of her chocolatey skin. The taller one had flat, dishwater blonde hair that formed a curtain over her face to block herself from us.

When the door closed behind them, I tilted my head to the left. "Where is he taking them?"

The girl beside me was also leaning against the wall in a similar position I was. She avoided the question. "Are you okay?"

That took me off guard, "yeah."

"Where did Ian take you?"

"To see a doctor. They asked some questions, she examined me over. That's it."

The girl sighed with relief. "Could've been worse."

"Who are the girls he just took away?" I was too curious, I knew that, she knew that, but she answered me anyway. In fact, she seemed slightly happier to have someone to talk to.

"Ivy and Rue." I didn't ask which one was which. "They're probably on cleaning duty."

"Cleaning duty?"

"Could be worse," she repeated. "I'm Iris."

"Is that the name they gave you?"

"Huh?" I could barely make out her face in the dim lighting now that the door was shut. It was contorted was confusion.

"Never mind." She remembers? The doctor's voice came back to me. Did they brain wash these girls to the point they didn't even know who they were anymore?