Page 8

“If you don’t tell me where she is, I will slaughter every male in this pack until you release her to me.”

His pupils dilated, and I could see the gears of his mind turning at the implications. If I took out the males, he wouldn’t have much of a pack left. He’d be powerless, something every alpha feared more than dying.

The whites of his eyes became more apparent as he looked at the door. I pushed Alexander out of the way, and I heard his snarl as I stepped into the hallway. I caught a whiff from a door across the hall from where I stood. She couldn’t have been that close, could she? If she had been across the hall this whole time, howdidn’t I notice? Taking in a deep breath, her scent was faint in the air. She hadn’t crossed this threshold for a few days. There was a mildew smell coming from the door. My heart sank at the implications of that added scent. Was she here, just beyond the door?

Wait a minute.

That bastard kept my mate locked away and tried to hide her from me. She was in there when he knew it was her I was smelling!

The way my lycan pushed to shift nearly dropped me to my knees. He wanted nothing more than to rip Alexander apart for keeping our mate from us. It took far too long to calm my beast enough to convince him we needed to find our mate first.

If she was locked in the dungeon, it meant she would be surrounded by metal bars etched with runes. If Alexander was the monster I believed him to be, the metal was likely charged with powerful magic—designed to contain not only whoever was trapped inside but their lycans as well.

Many rulers, especially tyrants, hired sorcerers or witches to enchant prison bars with magic that would kill their occupants if they tried to escape. Runes were crafted to hold; darker magic was used to ensure those runes were never broken.

I needed her out of there.

This time, I didn’t give anything shit about being polite. Without hesitation, I ripped the door off the hinges, realizing that no one had reinforced it as they should have, and then barreled down the stairs to search for my mate.

The room was filled with the caramel and vanilla scent of my mate mixed with the must of the basement, blood, and decay that sent my lycan on a warpath. Each cage lining the wall was too dark for my human eyes, so my lycan pushed for his eyesight, as he had better night vision. My heart raced as I inspected each one, and my body vibrated from the need to find her before it was too late. That decay I smelled could have been her. If it was, this pack would be slaughtered as I threatened.

I wouldn’t know how to hold back my beast if his mate had been taken from him before we found her. Now that her scent had been committed to memory by both of us, the faintest spark of a bond had begun to form—one that threatened to shatter us both into madness at the mere thought of losing what might have been.

That’s when I reached the final cage. The small form curled into a ball against the wall sent my lycan into a frenzy. Her clothes were tattered, brown hair matted to her scalp from dried blood, and bruises covered everywhere I could see skin.

With my heart racing, thumping loud enough that I was sure anyone in the room could hear it, I grabbed onto the bars of the cage. My skin hissed from the contact with the runed metal, but I ignored it enough to pull two bars in opposite directions to break into the cage. I had to turn my body to the side to squeeze in, my clothes preventing my skin from contacting the bars, until I got through. Rushing to her side, I dropped to my knees and reached out to touch her. A gentle caress down her cheek was all I managed before I saw fluttering in her eyelids. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing she was alive—that I wasn’t too late and could wake her to show her I was her mate.

But my hope of her recognizing me as her mate was futile.

Her eyes snapped open, brown irises looking at me before her pupils dilated as she scrambled to a seated position. My mate winced as she moved, revealing that she was beyond hurt in that moment. Terror was etched into her face, tears welling in her eyes. I wanted to bathe in the blood of the person who caused her to respond this way. They didn’t deserve to breathe.

“It’s okay. I won’t hurt you,” I whispered to her while holding out my hand for her to take.

She slapped it away. “Stay back!”

I stifled my growl at her refusal to take my hand. That wasn’t how I’d win my mate over. I needed to show her I would take care of her.

A million questions ran through my mind, but only one came out of my mouth when I opened it. A growl mixed with my words, but I couldn’t contain my fury any longer.

“Tell me who is responsible for locking you away in these conditions! I need names! I need to know everyone behind this!”

5

Kylie

I could feel my body wasting away, forgetting when my last meal had come. My father left me inside the cage for at least a few days, judging by the patterns of movement above me. Amara snuck down at some point to give me a few peanut butter sandwiches—something my father wouldn’t miss from the pantry because he hated peanut butter—but that had been the last time I had food.

I was going to die down here.

My lycan wasn’t strong enough to call on a shift due to the lack of energy. She wanted to help me, but unless she could break through the bars of the cage, there was nothing she could do. I knew she couldn’t, even though I wished she could. I reassured her I didn’t blame her for this. This was all my fault.

I should have run away from here and become a rogue a long time ago.

It’s not like my father wanted me around.

Maybe that’s why he didn’t want me present when the king arrived. This was just a ploy to get me out of the way so he wouldn’t have to show the king he had a weak daughter. He had beaten and imprisoned me before, but this seemed less provoked than before. I was being punished for his vanity, not for my wrongdoings.

Just when I felt like I was going to give up, allowing the darkness to take over for the Moon Goddess to claim me, a power washed through the house. It caressed me in a way that my father’s never had before. I could tell it came from an alpha, judging by the way I wanted to lower myself to the floor even more than I already was.