. Apostasy . A Luna's Struggle

mature content - isolation, imprisonment, mental abuse, bondage, depression

Anulla woke to the sounds of the warriors moving the prisoners around. She rose quickly, dressing in her plain black apron. She wondered about the sight beyond the door.

As the prisoners of the Monarch’s dungeon filed past, many murmured, “Thank you, Luna,” or “Good Morning, Luna.”

She had never spoken to any of them or seen any of them, but the Dungeon Masters and Beta Victor made sure they knew who was cleaning their squalid cells and giving them worn but clean blankets and fresh straw. Most had stopped throwing feces at the walls and urinating everywhere. Most had been decent wolves once, imprisonment did something to a wolf’s mind, like any caged animal. It reduced them to something less than human.

Anulla was beginning to understand how they felt. She had not seen sunlight in months it seemed, she didn’t even know what day it was anymore or what season. She had not seen anyone’s face since she had been locked away. If he couldn’t break her through violence, he would break her through cruel loneliness. She had woken from the last, nearly fatal beating in this room, with no windows and no mirrors, she had a small water closet, table, and a single chair, but her bed was full sized for the nightly ‘visits’. Sometimes Orion came in wearing a mask, but usually it was one of his rogues turned Gammas. They were vile and violent as they took what they wanted from her body, but they never spoke. That was one of the new rules, no one was allowed to speak to the Luna when she was in the cells. She was grateful for the chorus of voices that called out to her every morning.

The door unlocked and one of the hooded dungeon masters waited. She faced away from the door as he unchained her from the wall, blindfolded her, and led her into the depths of the castle. She counted her steps and the turns carefully, from the smell she had not cleaned this section before. No prisoners had been kept here in a long time. The walls reeked of mold and rotted old corpses so thick it gagged her. He untied her blindfold. Dozens of torches lined the large open room. Its ceiling was a high arch above. One of the dungeon masters held out a slip of paper to her. She didn’t know if it was Miles or Walsh today.

The instructions read, ‘You will not leave until you are done. Remove the stench from this place, and care for my guests. Orion’

She sighed and turned to look at the Dungeon Master, he pointed to a corner alcove. There were several buckets and hand brushes, two sizes of ladders, and a harsh, powdered soap used for removing mold. There was also a pile of blankets.

She looked at them then at him, confused. “Where are the beds?”

The hooded figure pointed at her and she understood, “Oh, these are for my bed.”

He nodded once and motioned for her to follow. She picked up the blankets and trailed behind him, shivering in the damp cold and her short apron. She glanced around as his massive form led the way.

The walls were covered in green and gray slime, that hung like the Moon’s hair in places. The stones would be easy enough to scrub but the mortar between them would never be completely clean. It would take days or maybe weeks to get the filth and neglect cleaned away. She stopped short after following him around the corner. There was an old royal bed like Orion’s bed in the center of the room, along one wall was a small cot. But what had stopped her in her tracks with horror was what was hanging on the wall on either side of the bed. Two bodies.

Both wore dresscoats in the Monarchy’s colors. Both had the seal of the monarch around their necks, one was older, skeletal flesh. Anulla recognized the crest of Monarch Sovereign. The other body was only a few years old, rotting and not yet completely mummified, and was very obviously Monarch Sade. The cot was unmade. The dungeon master pointed at her and then the cot. Trembling, she hesitantly approached the bed and bodies. She would not sleep there. She grabbed the cot to move it but he stopped her. Shaking his head negatively. The cot was to stay there.

“Can I sleep anywhere else?” She asked shakily.

He shook his head negatively, pointing at the cot. She made it as quickly as she could.

He walked back to the door and locked the ancient iron bars. Outside of the door was a small table that had not been there before, on it was a small plate of food and an ornate goblet of liquid. As his footsteps faded, she realized she was alone with the dead until she finished. She took a bite of the hard bread. It was dry, salted, and bitter. The liquid was wine, it tasted sickly sweet, but it made her lips feel strangely numb. She set the cup back, her wolf urging her not to drink it. The tiny sip made her feel strange.

There was a barrel of water in the corner with her cleaning supplies, but the water tasted bitter and after a few sips, her stomach seized painfully. She didn’t know what was in the wine, but if Orion wanted her to drink it that was enough for her to never want to do it. She looked over the strange area, chains hung from the curved walls all the way to the point where they met, the room could easily hold a hundred prisoners and yet the only bodies were Orion’s father and uncle. She began at the far end, dragging the tallest ladder. Cleaning the highest point of the arch first so the dirty water ran down the uncleaned parts and dripped down the chains and shackles. The soap solution hurt her skin, the work and the fumes made her very thirsty, but she sipped the bitter water rather than drink from the goblet.

She finally reached the point where she didn’t have to stand on the tall ladder when one of the dungeon masters brought her another meal of the hard, salted bread. He left the untouched goblet. Anulla scrubbed until her arms were rubbery, and her skin burned from the harsh soapy water dripping on her as she cleaned. She had discovered no mortar sealed the stones together, only the shape of the room and the compression of the earth above.

She shuddered remembering last night, the one who always wore the dog mask had come. He had licked her breast and suckled like a nursing child. It disgusted her as his drool dripped on her skin and smeared into her hair while he had taken her brutally. He came at least once a week and she wondered if her ‘suitors’, as Orion had tauntingly called them, would be allowed down here.

This was the place where the secrets of the Monarchy were buried. Monarch Sovereign was said to have been killed by rogues and his body burned by them. Monarch Sade was supposedly given a royal funeral and cremated after Balthazar Orion challenged and beat his father for the title of Monarch. It was a lie, they had died here.

And there was a royal bed, she could smell Orion on the chair next to the small fireplace but not on the bed. Faintly, there was the smell of both males from the wall and a female wolf on the bed. Anulla tried not to think about whose bed that had been and what had happened there as she worked. She just wanted to be done and leave this place.

Time passed, exhaustion and cleaning fumes clouded her mind until she collapsed against the wall in the corner with her cleaning supplies, too tired to move any more. She just curled up in the damp blanket she had tied around her body for warmth.

Her sleep was haunted by new nightmares. A wolf who looked like Orion was chained to a wall with silver, gagged with a silver ball. Forced to watch as a beautiful female chained to the bed was repeatedly raped by a darker version of himself. She knew those wolves she had seen their pictures in the portrait hall of the castle. She startled awake when a loud clang hit the bars. A Dungeon Master shook his head and pointed at the alcove.

Refusing, Anulla shook her head and got up unsteadily, “I won’t sleep in there.”

He folded his arms and stared at her through the slits in his hood. Sighing, taking another bucket of bitter water and soap to the wall, she began scrubbing. Every time exhaustion won, he banged the bars until she woke and started back to work. Every time she ate the dry bread she longed to drink something besides the bitter water. But she refused to sleep in the cot between the two dead kings of the wolves and resisted the urge to drink from the tainted chalice.

As she reached the walls around from the alcove, she had no choice but to look in it. From her nightmares, she knew what happened there. More and more nightmares of this place haunted her, horrified her, forced themselves into her mind. Monarch Sade was said to be worse than his son, not something she could easily believe, but if the nightmares were true...

This had been the bed shared by Monarch Sovereign and Queen Cassiopeia. Sade had trapped his brother here and forced him to watch his queen and mate raped by his brother until he had gone mad with silver poisoning. Sade had used his insane brother to breed the queen like a rutting dog to get an heir because he could not create one himself. Chaining the queen to the bed and releasing the silver-poisoned male from his shackles to get his son.

The second child had been conceived in the same manner, but the queen had pulled a tiny silver knife from her hair and stabbed her true mate in the neck. Holding him between her legs as he died, holding the blade in place as he rutted her while dying. In the last moment, Monarch Sovereign had come back to sanity and reached up to touch her face.

The clang of the bars had Anulla jumping, tears were streaming down her face. She didn’t realize she had fallen asleep. The horrible story of this place had seeped into her soul as she scrubbed the decay from the walls and it was driving her crazy with despair.

“Do you like my place of solitude?” Orion’s voice purred and echoed off the walls.

She looked around terrified but couldn’t see him, she couldn’t figure out where his voice was coming from. “Why am I here?”

“You’re here to do your duty,” his disembodied voice echoed.

She crept carefully looking for him in the dim torch light.

“You’re here to prepare the chamber where you will conceive my heir, in the same bed where I and my late sister were conceived. Does this place scare you, my golden one?”

She could feel him watching her. “N-no,” she lied but her trembling voice made him chuckle.

“You’re lying, kitten,” he laughed, then his voice became cruel, mocking, “You will stay here until you sleep in your bed and drink the lovely wine I left for you. The wine merchant who sold it to me promised it would make you more receptive. I want my fathers to see how a real Monarch makes an heir. I will see you soon, Anul-la.” Her name dripped from his tongue like honey and she hated that her body heated.

More days passed or so she thought, she had no idea of time. She was no longer given bread, only the goblet which she refused to drink. It now sat in the alcove next to Orion’s chair. She did not know who had moved it. It was just moved. Often she felt her mate’s eyes on her, heard the sounds of a gagged female suffering his attentions as she felt the burning pain of a betrayed mate bond. She had finished all of the arched wall, and the floor outside the alcove. She didn’t want to go in there but her only chance to be free of the place was to finish.

In her nightmares, she had replaced the queen and the corpses of the dead kings were raping her. The only voice she heard was Orion’s, the only faces she saw were the dead. She cleaned the alcove as fast as she could, trying not to look at the dead kings still chained to the walls next to her cot. She waited for one of the dungeon masters to come but they didn’t.

“I’m done! I’m finished... Let me out.” In desperation, she screamed for them to come, her task was complete. “Miles! Walsh! I’m finished cleaning. Come get me.”

Orion’s mocking laughter had silenced her pleas as she huddled by the iron gate. Silence then became the only sound and time stopped.

Once, she woke with a start to discover the barrel of bitter water empty. The goblet sat, solitary and sinister, on its little table. One by one the torches burned out. Until only the one beyond the bars and the one in the alcove burned. She did not know how they could be replaced without her seeing. She felt her mind cracking as her solitary confinement ate away at her sanity. She began to see the images of the late queen’s horror in her waking moments. Feel the ghostly touch of the late Monarch Sade on her flesh and hallucinate.

Yesterday, or maybe only a few hours ago, no logs had dropped into the small fireplace from the shoot in the back. It became cold, so cold and she kept imagining the dead kings crawling off the walls to assault her.

“Please, Monarch... please let me out,” Anulla begged, curled in his chair, her thin blanket wrapped around her filthy, emaciated body.

“Say my name, An -nul- la,” Orion purred. “Say my name and drink your wine.”

She sat silently, trembling, freezing, starving, so thirsty...

“Please let me out, Monarch,” she sobbed brokenly.

“Not until you obey, dear mate.”

An hour or a day later, she reached out with a trembling hand, the goblet was ice cold. She sobbed as she gulped its strangely sweet contents. As her head spun, she whispered brokenly, “Please... please, Orion. I drank it... please let me out.”

:::

Psychological abuse (also referred to as psychological violence, emotional abuse or mental abuse) is a form of abuse, characterized by a person subjecting, or exposing, another person to behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Psychological or Mental Abuse can be much worse than physical abuse, Physical abuse is targeted at breaking the mind through breaking the body. Mental abuse is targeted at breaking one’s soul, fracturing one’s identity, it is an invisible form of abuse, but it is still abuse in spite of any denial by an abuser.

It is not just you, you are not crazy if you object to being treated this way, it is not “All in Your Head...” Just because you don’t have bruises or broken bones, does not mean you are not suffering abuse.:::