Wolves and Men

Ansuya awoke in a very different place than she was expecting. She kept her body still and her breathing deep and regular, as she had done for the last eight or nine months inside Kenneth’s little basement dungeon. She let her eyes open to slits as she used her eyes to gaze around her new surrounding as best as she could.

She was inside a fully concrete building, a warehouse, by the looks of it. There were aluminum shelves full of items ranging from tools, to cords, to heavily plastic-wrapped boxes of who knew what. The ceiling was too high above her to see anything and she didn’t dare move her head till she knew what new kind of surveillance was on her. Was this a trick? Had Kenneth managed to infiltrate her dreams again? Or had he moved her for some other purpose? These were questions that she needed to have answered before she did anything.

Her cage was much bigger than the last one. Her legs were fully stretched out in front of her and she couldn’t see the top of it from where she was sitting. She was clean for the first time in a year. She could feel clean clothes on her, and she knew that they were not what she had been wearing all this time.

That thought was at once gratifying and terrifying. What had been done to her body while she was passed out under the influence of Kenneth’s drug? She let her eyes close again and in one long deep inhalation of her breath she took in all the scents of her body.

The scents of the soap and shampoo used to clean her were mixed with her skin and the dry dusty smell of the warehouse. She could smell salt from somewhere. It wasn’t a sharp smell; she wasn’t by the ocean. But the things in this warehouse held a salt residue smell that suggested that most of the things in this warehouse had been shipped by cargo ship.

She inhaled again. She sifted through all the other surface scents to smell what was distinctly her. She smelled her warm skin, the thin layer of sweat that had accumulated in her arm pits and between her legs, and even deeper. She could smell her center, and the natural scents that came from there. There was no trace of anything other than her. She hadn’t been raped or violated. She let out her breath in a relieved sigh.

She kept her eyes closed and her body in place. She went through her exercises as she had done since her capture; tightening the muscles of her shoulders and arms. She tensed the muscles of her abdomen and her legs till she couldn’t hold them tight anymore.

She went through her mental exercises as well. She systematically went through her mathematical tables. She summarized theology and philosophy. She silently recited scientific facts and theories. When she was done, she waited.

She had to stop herself from beginning her work and sending out her scents and pheromones. In a warehouse those scents would be swept away by the air constantly circulating through the place. And the openness of the warehouse would make what she was attempting to do in Kenneth’s basement impossible. So, she sat and waited.

“WAKE UP!!” Suddenly Ansuya was doused with cold water which caused her eyes to shoot open and she let out a involuntary gasp against the sudden assault of cold and wet.

Ansuya looked out of her cage to see a tall well-built man. He had jet blue black hair and his eyes were bright blue. He was wearing a pair of khaki pants and a white polo shirt. The cut of the clothes spoke of taste and expense. He was holding a now empty aluminum bucket which he dropped loudly to the floor.

“Stand up, bitch! I want to see you,” he said with a commanding voice.

Well, it sounded like it wanted to be commanding and maybe for most people it was. Ansuya however was not most people. The tone was a little too curt to be truly commanding. Ansuya stood up slowly, gripping the bars of her cage, more for the show of weakness than out of any actual need for support. Always better to appear more wounded to an unknown enemy than show your true strength right away. She stood upright, maintaining a firm grip on the bars of her new cage.

“Ahhahahah, wow you really are as weak and helpless as he said you’d be! You can’t even stand up without help! Wow… really? Is this the best you werewolves have to offer?” He laughed and walked around the cage, taunting her. “I guess being thin is just as important to a brown chick as it is to useless white ones.” He stabbed her hard in the back with a finger. “I guess it’s all about appearances with you, as long as you’re skinny, you’re attractive, and as long as your attractive, you have value isn’t that right?”

The taunting reminded her of someone who was insecure about something and was trying to cover it up. It was not all bravado though. There was an edge to his voice and his body was well built. She could sense that he would back up his words with violence if need be. Ansuya could tell that very little was needed to give this guy an excuse to resort to violence.

The man made his way around the cage and was standing in front of her with his arms crossed, probably to show off how big his biceps were. “So, your name is Ansuya, right?

The Elder held his gaze for a moment and then nodded once. She inhaled his scent and returned back a light mix of pheromones just for him.

“When I present you to my Head of House, I’m finally going to get the recognition I deserve. But I have some questions first.”

Of course he did, otherwise she would find herself dead or as a trophy for some vampire that was much more powerful than this one. The man pulled up a chair and sat down. Ansuya also slid down her cage and let herself sit down again. It felt good to stand up, but she wanted to appear as weak as possible. She let her body shiver as the air that moved through the warehouse chilled her now cold and wet clothes.

“Where did you come from?” the man asked.

“I was born in Bangalore,” Ansuya answered meekly. She continued to send out her pheromone mix towards the vampire, just enough to not be detected by him at all.

He kicked out at the cage and made it rattle on the cement floor. “Don’t fool around with me, Bitch! I don’t give a shit where you were born! I want to know where you and the rest of your filth live!”

Ansuya was shaken by the sudden attack. She didn’t raise her eyes to the man who had just yelled at her, weakness before strength. “I...I don’t know what you mean? Please?”

The man stood up so quickly his chair was turned over as he rushed towards the cage and gripped the bars so hard he bent them ever so slightly. If she could get him this worked up with a few words and a bit of a show he might break her out of her cage himself.

“Don’t, mess with me,” he growled menacingly. “I want you to tell me what you wouldn’t tell Kenneth. We can do this the easy way, here with you safe in your cage? Or we can do it the hard way, which will include your pretty fingernails being ripped out one… by one, and all two hundred and six bones in your skinny ass little body broken one… by one. Do you understand?”

Ansuya had never liked when people had tried to intimidate her and it took every ounce of will that she possessed to not blow her cover of the meek and weak persona that she was trying to convey to this rather stupid and over confident vampire. She settled on letting her knees shiver a little with the cold water that had been splashed on her and shook her head violently.