The Alpha Dating Game(32)

So the hunt had to start at the right moment. Not too early, not too late, but just right, like the story of Goldilocks and her three bears. Only here, there were a whole lot more bears involved. A hell of a lot more bears.

Kyle went to the grate and tested it. The metal was forged in a crisscross and everything was controlled by a computer code. Even if he shifted to his bear form, he would not be able to destroy the grate by sheer physical force.

He needed to find a way out.

Jessica’s life was at stake.

And possibly his own, if Caleb had his way.





WAKING PART TWO





Jessica awoke on a very plush, comfortable bed. Her head felt like a lead ball, but the mattress was so spacious and accommodating that she never wanted to get up. She had only read about beds like these, costing thousands and thousands of dollars. These beds anticipated your every movement and molded themselves to fit around your body so that you’d get the best rest possible.

She opened her eyes groggily. She was in a bedroom. A mauve frilly canopy tented her four-poster bed. She looked down at herself. She was still dressed in yesterday’s clothes, but it was morning now. The sunshine streamed through the windows and birds twittered outside. The windows were protected by a patterned iron grill which threw pretty floral shadows onto the bedspread.

Where was she again?

Ah, yes. The dinner party. Meeting Jericho. All in all, a charming, enjoyable affair. Jericho had made her feel so much at ease. There was tension between the two brothers, yes. But she thought that was nothing more than normal sibling rivalry.

But she had classes! She couldn’t afford to miss too many of them. She was on a scholarship and they didn’t take kindly to that.

She got up. Her mouth felt grimy. She padded to the attached bathroom to wash it out. There was a toothbrush and toothpaste there. Jessica brushed her teeth and made herself presentable. She wondered where Kyle was.

Once she was ready to go out into the world, she went to the door. To her surprise, the knob would not budge.

She tried it again, thinking something had jammed. But the door still wouldn’t open. No amount of pushing and shoving would move it.

Where was her purse with her cellphone? She could call Kyle and tell him she had been locked in by mistake. But her purse was nowhere to be seen. She searched for it – on the bed, in the drawers, under the bed, in the closets. Her unease was mounting.

It was in one of the closets that she found something which struck terror in her heart.





THE VIRGIN





The specifications were for the virgin to be around eighteen to twenty, according to the Elders. Who made up those stupid rules anyway? Kyle wondered.

He remembered the passage in the old language, like a canto out of The Divine Comedy.





A virgin ripe and plump,

A tender morsel thus,

Past eighteen years of age and not exceeding a score,

Warm of flesh and big of bone,

And step must she must across the Portal

Of the Mighty Enclave,

Of her own will, unfettered,

And fed alive to the Slumbering Beast,

Or dire tidings will befall.





As a child, Kyle had only heard stories about the Slumbering Beast.

“It has horns like a stag and it carries the weight of the world on its shoulders,” his grandmother would say to scare them into behaving. “It has teeth like a shark’s and it crunches upon the bones of children.”

“The Beast is very real,” Jericho would intone solemnly. “And we, the Atreides, have a very important task to contain him. You will understand how when you are older.”

“Is the Beast the devil?” Kyle whispered, truly frightened. At that time, he had been a lot closer to Caleb.

“No one really knows, son. Perhaps it is older than the devil himself, and what is the devil after all but a creation of religion and myth? All we know is that he must be appeased, and appease him we shall.”

No one had ever seen the Beast either, to Kyle’s knowledge. Except for, as the rumors went, his mother. And she had gone stark, raving mad before she killed herself.

He eyed the grate desperately. Surely there must be a way out of here.





THE NECKLACE





Jessica reached inside the closet, which was divided into three shelves. The closet was empty but for an assortment of clothes and a lapis lazuli necklace in green, bronze and purple.

She remembered this necklace. It was on the neck of Emily Watson, the plus-sized teenager who disappeared and was never found again.

Her premonition told her that she was in serious trouble.

But what did that mean? What about Kyle? Was he a party to all this?

With a sinking dread, she realized that none of it had been real. Who was she trying to kid? Why else would a phenomenally handsome young man with a billionaire father be interested in her otherwise?