76. Summoning the Witch.

Winifred's head throbbed. The pain felt like someone had taken a knife to her skull. She leaned her head against her desk. Squeezing her eyes shut, she willed the pain to go away. The rest of the world became detached, all she could concentrate on was the pain rooted deep in her head.

She could barely hear the people chattering around her. All she felt, all she knew was the pain of that moment. But then, she opened up her eyes and looked around, it took her several moments to adjust to her new surroundings. She found herself locked in a wooden cage with a crude padlock holding the door together. Then she let the memories of the kidnap wash over her mind, and fixate on the point when they grabbed her. She had been kidnapped by the men who attacked them and while Arthur was distracted, one of them switched their hand with a cloth, with the distinctive smell of chloroform on it. It didn't work instantly. She continued writhing, tears springing to her eyes, terror pounding her heart, as blackness began to ink at the corners of her vision. She saw a dot appear in the middle, before it expanded out and sucked her into nothingness.

And where was she anyway? There was straw bedding underneath her. There was also a fucking water spout like the ones hamsters and rabbits drink in their cages, and a metal bowl of dried fruit. Aside from the obvious cage issue, like she was a rodent waiting for some greasy haired owner to take her and neglect her back at their homes, what else is there? There's sounds of distress all around. Cries, gibbers, moans and gasps. Side by side to her were other women in the same kind of cage she was in, and when she got over her panic and indignation enough to examine them better, she saw that all of them are astonishingly beautiful or stand out in their respective physiques.

There was a platinum blonde with a curvy figure, and broad shoulders. She's currently sipping at the spout, trying to work at the water without seeming like some wretched creature. There's a dark haired, light skinned woman who looks as if she has Irish blood in her. Such creamy skin – the type even Winifred. There's an Asian with blue eyes. A heterochromatic woman, with one green and one brown. A dark skinned woman with blonde, puffy hair. So many types. Her vision slides over the rest with a growing sense of unease. The way they were lined up with their identical cages, with a minimal amount of items in the cage to allow them to hide behind, Winifred soon realize that they were effectively on display.

Desperately, she looked around for any signs that she can recognize. Streets. Roads. What she do see instead is a rather lovely view of some mountains, though she don't exactly recognize said mountains, and a lot of trees and bushes. There's no signs of civilization, other than a dirt track road that trails on the other side of our cages, opposite the line of shifters. Wherever they were, they are isolated. Even if all of them joined their voices together in a scream, no caring ears will overhear them. They're alone together.

She knew she had to find her son if they took him as well. And at least plead for him to get to his father if Arthur wasn't killed by the men who had suddenly jumped on them, she couldn't believe that she was kidnapped again for the third time. It seemed like she could never have a moment of happiness to herself.

After a few more moments testing the strength of the cage, hoping to find some kind of structural weakness or a really shitty lock and also trying so hard to summon her witchery power, Winifred gave up and simply sat. There's little else she can do except resign myself to her current fate. Anyway, she was trapped in this thing. Not quite a helpless and defenceless damsel, given her life since she got to this world.

"Stupid stupid thing! Witch indeed, powers that can't even help me break out of a little cage! Nonsense!" She mumbles to herself, frustrated.

And then a man she couldn't recognize walked in, the man's nose was the star of his face, and not in a good way. It stuck out like a pinch of clay fashioned into a beak. It was arched, but not in a regal way. He looked like a carnival mask painted in fleshy tones, it was odd to see something that shape covered in real skin and stubble. The look was made more pronounced by the thick black eyeliner he wore day and night, so that his eyes seemed to peer from behind his face rather than within it, he glared at me so much that it pissed me off, "Yeah, that's right. Take a good look at me. I'm too much for you to handle!" I snapped.

“Do you talk back to your superiors this much, girl?” The vampire stared at Winifred in disdain. Winifred grinned back.

“It's called conversation. We don't have slaves where I come from.”

“You do, actually. In every one of your stinking human lands, you enslave one another. Some more than others. You pay people so little, they may as well be slaves. You abuse them, you rape them, you tell them they can't go anywhere... so why not accept what you humans seem to naturally do to one another anyway?”

“Cos it is so not natural. It's what shitty humans do to one another. And what shitty beasts or whatever you are do as well, apparently.”

The man was soon called on and he couldn't continue with the argument.

"Where is my son!" Winifred called out just when he left but got no response and so she sighed, hoping that she could hold the tears as much as she wanted to because it was getting too hard to act strong and hard headed.

Where was her son? What happened to her man? She knew not any answer to at least one of the questions she had.

“You find a woman, she belongs to the land! You know that!” A voice spoke in a booming voice translated through the megaphone or whatever he held onto, an external skeleton that gives him the power of a hundred men, and the weaponry of a small army.

Winifred could recognize the man as soon as he walked in, and she knew that she has to get of of here. It was the same Chief warden she had only managed to narrowly escape during her first stay and offense here. Her only chance is to run, now, through the chaos created by people she didn't know. While the chief warden yelled at his unruly lower person, Winifred discovered that her padlock was suddenly broken and she saw a chance to escape, she thanked whatever witchery powers that might have worked and tried to sneak from her hiding place, out around the bar.

“She’s getting away!” Someone tells on her before she even had a chance to try to escape. The Chief warden soldiers come for her. Bigger, faster, fucking terrifying. They swing her off her feet and carry her back to the sheriff, her slim body dangling between them. Her toes don’t even touch the ground. In their grasp, she was weak and vulnerable. The remnants of her clothing didn't give her much in the way of modesty. Her underwear was still on, and the wrap she put around her breasts to complete the male illusion is still there.

The soldiers delivered her to a small villa deep after a while where she was greeted by two men with shaved heads. They wore white robes that were a far cry from the armor everyone else was wearing. They are not as rough or masculine as the previous ones. Their eyes held a more gentle expression— not that Winifred cared about their expressions.

She had been packed into a cage, wheeled across more lands than she knew existed, and taken into a fortified place from which escape is going to be exceptionally difficult. This was the heart of it. There was no coming and going here and she could only hope that her son and husband were fine.. The soldiers opened the cage, dragged her out, and thrust her at the two robed fellows, both of whom are taller than any man she had seen before. They must be at least seven feet in height, the pair of them.

“I am Elijah,” the slightly taller one says. :And this is Gregory.” Elijah had the face of a poet. We don’t know which poet, but there was something elegant about him. Gregory was even more finely built. They are very, very handsome men, but not in the way the soldiers might be considered handsome. They are handsome in an androgynous way, almost... pretty. Elijah has deep brown eyes and long dark lashes. Gregory was fairer, with blue eyes, and Winifred suspect he would have blond hair if he had any. His face is rounder than Elijah, which was long. She found them much less intimidating than the soldiers, whose rough bodies, bearded faces, and guttural speech make me want to hide. She was glad that they were leaving now that Elijah and Gregory were guiding her indoors.

“My name is Winifred, where's my son? And my husband, the alpha king? What did you guys do to them? Why was I brought here?” She asked said but the men didn't care about her questions.

“How old are you, child?”

“My father told me I was ten, ten years ago. So twenty. Not a child.”

“That is how we refer to our charges,” Elijah said. “We look after the girls brought to us, and ensure that they are ready for their new lives.”

“As fuck toys for some rich monster? Don’t even bother. I’m going to escape as soon as I can. I’ll never stop running.” Elijah placed his hands on his hips and gives Winifred a look that confused her. It was not mean, but it was stern. It made her feel like a petulant little brat, which is ridiculous because she was a captive, and she had every right to be fuming with anger.

“Do we need the shackles for you?”

Winifred cut her eyes at him. “I don’t know, do you?”

“That’s enough,” Someone suddenly interrupted and Winifred was shocked to see who it was.

Xavier? Again?

‘You must be hungry and tired. Come and eat.” He simply said to her and Winifred felt like he was running mad. Eat?

"Are you crazy? Where the hell is my family, you psychotic and obsessed idiot? What did you-”

Before she could say or ask more questions, Xavier suddenly slammed his lips to her and nearly knocked all wind from her lungs out of shock.

She hardly had a moment to react before he pressed his tongue to the seam of her lips, bit it open and delved inside her mouth. It was a very sloppy kiss with the strong scent of old wine being exchanged in the intermingling of their billowing breaths.

Somehow, she managed to push him off her all of her strength and then, she landed him a hot slap on his cheek but Xavier was not fazed as he had other plans, "Marry me, Winifred. Be my queen." He let out.

And Winifred felt like she had been dropped in an asylum.