My Lycan Mate of Suicide Forest

Andreas left Zoe in the dungeon cell for an entire 24 hour period. It was horrifying.

At first, she thought perhaps Andreas didn't know where she had gotten herself lost to. In that case, it would only be a matter of time until he learned from Kai that she had gone to investigate the map event and gotten herself into trouble. He would be down anytime to free her. Or he would send someone, and then she could return to her isolated but comfortable life.

Eventually it became clear to her that that wasn't the case at all. Either he didn't care enough to even notice that she was gone, or he did notice she was gone and didn't care enough to come and retrieve her. Or he was punishing her.

What had she done to deserve this treatment? All she ever did was what he asked.

Andreas' behavior toward her had definitely turned worse since the Alpha and his mate had arrived. No, it was actually after Marius had disappeared that he had truly become the ugliest version of himself that she had ever seen. He was impatient and easily angered and now cruel on top of it.

She wished she could find out what happened to Marius and bring him back. Andreas would be so much easier to tolerate, as would all of the elders. Marius had no problem doing the worst of whatever it was that the elders needed. But she didn't know how to go about finding him. It was so unlike him to run off. He lived for the council.

After several hours alone in the cell, even Zoe's elation from finally meeting August began to wear off, although she kept thinking about her eyes. Those bright, golden eyes. They looked like a pair of suns or matching twin crowns. There was no way that August had those eyes as a human before Eliade's experiment. They were too unusual. But no matter how much she ran it over in her mind, Zoe could not think of a good reason for why her eyes would have changed like that.

It obviously had to have something to do with the new genetic material she had gained from the virus, but there was nothing inherent to the virus that would explain it—nothing that she was aware of, anyway.

The eerie way in which August's eyes glowed reminded Zoe of the transgenic experiments that had been done with green fluorescent proteins from jellyfish. There was one highly controversial experimental artwork in particular that Zoe remembered reading about with extreme interest in which the artist had created a glowing rabbit with the protein. The pet bunny was just like any other albino bunny, albeit with one important exception: the way it glowed a vibrant neon green under blue light.

August was like that bunny. If only Zoe could have her as a pet to study.

In addition to the golden glow of her eyes, August's pupils had gone abnormally large—blown like someone who had experienced brain damage. And the way she was looking at Zoe when that happened… it was as if she could see into her soul or something. It was unnerving. And wildly fascinating. Zoe got goosebumps just thinking about it.

Perhaps the blown pupil phase of August's eyes had something to do with the multidimensional variability that she theorized the alyko to have. She had never heard of alyko whose eyes had manifested in that way, but now that she saw them in August, she had to figure out what it meant. And who knew what else was possible in alyko!

As yet another exciting example of something Zoe had never before known possible for alyko, it would seem that August had walked through the cell door—the very cell door that was ensuring Zoe's entrapment now. She walked through a solid object! How else would she have not been in the cell initially? Unless she had shrunk down in size and crawled through the food door?

And August had obviously done something to help heal the Alpha's sister, who otherwise would have been suffering extreme side effects from the serum Zoe had mistakenly given her. But that was less surprising. Alyko were known for their strange healing abilities. It was not something they all possessed, but it also wasn't unheard of.

Still, all of these things together meant August was the most fascinating and gifted alyko that Zoe had ever heard of. Was she even still considered alyko? Were there other genes present in the virus that Zoe didn't know about? Perhaps genes from alternate creature communities?

There were so many fascinating questions to investigate. Zoe wanted so badly to just go back in time and collect August for study. The elders were foolish to let this opportunity slip through their fingers.

But instead of being able to do anything to investigate more what she had witnessed today or to convince Andreas that he needed to jump on the opportunity of having such an unusual specimen for study on his pack land, Zoe was stuck in this cell. This damp, dark, smelly, lonely cell.

Hours went by in which Zoe occupied herself with the thoughts of August and the theories she had about her rather than the growing discomfort and horror of her surroundings. She tried to ignore it when the candles outside the cell seemed to blow themselves out, leaving her in utter darkness. She tried to ignore the squeaking and scratching sounds of rats scampering up and down the hallway outside her door. She tried to ignore the growing ache in her chest that spoke of her loneliness.

But eventually she couldn't ignore it. The cold and the dark threatened to swallow her and instead of thinking about August, she began thinking of Andreas and cursing him. Cursing him for all the times that he had made her feel inferior.

How dare he leave her down here. She knew Kai would have already come for her if he wasn't terrified of going against the elders' wishes. He must have been instructed not to come for her.

Zoe made herself as small as she could, hugging her knees to her chest to try to keep warm until finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a door creaked open down the hall, footsteps approached her door, and a key clicked in the lock.