Stolen by the Beastly Lycan King-Chapter 167: The Pit

Rhaegar felt as though his head were as heavy as the lead bowl he’d once stumbled across while roaming the border with Cara. He tried to move, but even the slightest twitch of his muscles sent sharp waves of pain searing through his body.

A low groan escaped him as he turned his head to the side, only for a fresh surge of throbbing agony to grip him, binding him in its spiky, relentless chains.

"Oh, alive, are you? Don’t move! They didn’t leave a single spot on you untouched—you’re black and blue all over!"

The sound of a high-pitched, chipper voice made Rhaegar wince in confusion. Forcing his eyes open as much as he could, he found himself staring at another boy leaning over him. The stranger’s dark, dirt-smudged face was split into a wide grin, exposing a row of surprisingly straight and white teeth with small sharp fangs.

The boy’s long, curly hair framed his thin face, casting shadows over his high cheekbones. Those shadows made the bright glow of his narrow golden eyes seem even more striking.

Rhaegar tried to lift his hand to push the boy away, but the pain slammed it back down to the floor. He clenched his eyes shut and stifled another groan, his body refusing to cooperate.

The boy clicked his tongue and shook his head, clearly unimpressed. "I told you not to move! You’re so big, I thought you were older than me—and smarter! Just stay still. You have to let it pass."

"What... what happened to me?" Rhaegar managed to rasp, though his voice was so weak and strained that he wasn’t sure it had even been audible.

Thankfully, Rhaegar didn’t need to repeat his question. The boy beside him let out a long, exasperated sigh and frowned in disgust, offering an answer instead.

"Consider it your initiation," he spat, his words sharp with anger, though his tone remained cautious. It was clear he was wary of everything he said.

"They do this to everyone they bring here—beat us to a pulp, as if starving us for days wasn’t punishment enough. They’re afraid we’ll fight back once they transport us here, so they wait until we’re weak enough that even breathing feels like a struggle. Then comes the beating... just to show us that we don’t hold any power here anymore."

The boy’s speech was deliberate and clear, every word dripping with a hatred that burned just beneath the surface. He leaned over Rhaegar again, his expression softening into a faint, somewhat reassuring smile.

"Don’t worry—you’ll get better soon. Tayiid says you’ve got quite a sturdy body for someone so young! You’ll be back on your feet in no time."

"Tayiid?" Rhaegar repeated, the strange name rolling awkwardly off his tongue. The boy pointed toward something—or someone—that Rhaegar couldn’t see.

"Tayiid, the bear, is an apothecary here. Well, he used to be one. The youngest in his pack! Now, everyone calls him the pit’s doctor. Quite the handy addition to this place, if you ask me. He’s turning sixteen soon, though, which means he’ll leave us... what a shame."

The boy paused dramatically, exhaling a long, theatrical sigh before shifting his piercing golden eyes back to Rhaegar. Rhaegar’s head swirled with questions, but he chose the one that seemed the most pressing at that moment.

"A pit?"

"Oh!" The boy clapped his hands with an odd enthusiasm. "This place," he said, sweeping his arm in a wide motion as if to gesture at the entirety of their surroundings. "It’s called the pit."

Rhaegar gave him a puzzled look, and the boy’s expression shifted into something more serious. He tucked his messy hair behind his ear, cracked his knuckles, and assumed a posture that suggested he was preparing for a fight—or, in this case, a lecture.

Instead, he scooted closer to Rhaegar and cleared his throat, as though searching for the perfect tone to begin.

"This is a slave prison, my friend, and you can think of it as your new home now. The reason it’s called ’the pit’ lies in its structure. You see, we’re underground—literally at the bottom of a very deep pit. That’s where the name comes from. Tayiid says his pack told him about it once, and when I arrived here a few years ago, he explained it to me too. Look up—you’ll understand."

Following the boy’s suggestion, Rhaegar tilted his head back and looked upward, squinting as his eyes met the faint white haze that hovered far below the impossibly high ceiling.

Though, in truth, one wouldn’t call it a ceiling at all. The boy had been right—it felt as though he was lying at the bottom of a massive, inescapable well. The white haze above seemed to be the only source of light, serving as a cruel reminder of false hope.

A surge of curiosity swept over Rhaegar, and despite the pain still clutching every part of his body, he managed to lift his shoulders and carefully glance around.

To his surprise, the prison itself was nothing like the one he had been taken from.

It was a vast, multi-level space where each cell was nothing more than a square hollow carved into the stone wall. There were no metal bars or other restraints to separate the prisoners. Instead, the slaves—each one a male—roamed freely, giving the impression of a strange, makeshift commune.

Rhaegar’s amber eyes shifted to his left, drawn to the figure sitting in the adjacent cell. He spotted a tall, well-built boy with short black hair and a long scar slicing diagonally across his left cheek. The boy appeared older, and his vivid orange eyes studied Rhaegar’s face with a lazy indifference, as though he’d already grown accustomed to seeing him there.

The boy who had been speaking earlier caught Rhaegar’s curious glance and exclaimed with cheerful enthusiasm, "Oh! That’s Tayiid—the one who patched you up!" He paused, his chipper tone softening with a hint of shyness. "And by the way," he added, "my name is Laesh. What’s yours?"

Rhaegar blinked at the question, momentarily thrown off. It was the first time anyone had asked for his name, and he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d said it aloud. The thought felt both foreign and oddly intimate.

Clearing his throat awkwardly, he focused his piercing gaze on Laesh and replied, "Rhaegar."