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“I’ve seen more kindness in that boy,” she said, voice steady, seething, “than I’ve ever seen inanyof you monsters.”

I chuckled, low and venomous, letting the sound wrap around her like a noose.

“Careful,” I said, voice dark silk over razors. “You keep talking like that, and I might forget I’m beingmerciful.”

“I don’t want your mercy,” she hissed. “Creatures like you don’t have any.”

For a moment, just a breath, I didn’t see the ragged stranger standing before me. I saw the flame inside her. The storm. The beautiful, impossible audacity of her. And gods help her… I wanted to break it. I wanted to devour it.

“Chain them,” I ordered, my voice sharp and final. “Now.”

The soldiers moved fast, metal clinking, eyes cautious. They knew better than to take their time when I was in this mood.

She erupted. Snarling, spitting, kicking with wild precision. She moved like a creature who had nothing left to lose. Teeth bared, fists flying. Her elbow cracked against one soldier’s jaw with a sickening snap, sending him stumbling back, blood gushing from his mouth. Another tried to grab her arm—she bit him.

Bit him.

He screamed, and she didn’t stop. Her hands were torn, her lip split, but she fought with the kind of violence only born of desperation. The kind that came from someone who had survived too much and refused to be caged again.

But when I stepped closer—She froze.

Not out of fear. She didn’t flinch from me like she did the others. No wild swings. No snarls.

Instead, she went unnaturally still. Her breathing hitched, just slightly, and she moved as little as possible. As if every inch mattered. As if proximity to mecosther something she couldn’t afford to lose.

It was... curious.

The wolf inside me stirred, nostrils flaring, drawn to something wrong. Not weak. Not broken. Bound. Hers was there. I felt it. A wolf. But barely. Like a heartbeat slowed to theedge of death. Faint. Strangled. Chained.

Not by steel or collar. No, this was something older. Something deeper. Magic. Silence. Shadow.

I narrowed my eyes as the soldiers finally subdued her—barely. It took three of them to clamp the irons around her wrists, and she still kicked one in the ribs hard enough to drop him to his knees.

The boy screamed. Fought back. Tiny fists and curses that meant nothing to trained warriors, but gods—he had her fire. Her rage. I let them chain him too.

Together, they knelt in the snow. Bruised. Bleeding. Unbowed. But it was her I couldn’t stop watching.

Because something about her waswrong. Wolves don’t silence themselves like that. Wolves don’t go quiet when an Alpha is near. They growl. They submit. They howl.

But hers didn’t. Not even a whisper. Whatever kept her wolf buried so deep—it wasn’t natural. And I would find out what it was. No matter how many pieces I had to tear from her to do it.

CHAPTER 6

Lexa

The chains around my wrists burned.

Not with fire—fire I could endure—but with iron chilled by stone and silence. My skin stung where the shackles rubbed raw, but I didn’t make a sound. The stone wall at my back was damp, slick with the sweat of centuries, and the darkness here was complete. No windows. No time. Just the drip of unseen water and the soft rustle of rats moving through bones.

We were underground.

I didn’t know how long it had been since they dragged us here. Hours. A day. Maybe more.

They hadn’t beaten me, not yet—but the humiliation had sunk deeper than bruises ever could. I’d fought them like a beast all the way down the frozen trail, kicking and clawing until they had no choice but to tie my legs too. I hadn’t screamed, though. I wouldn’t give them that.

They took Dain too. That was the worst part. I’d begged them to leave him, offered myself in exchange, but they’d laughed. Said no stray bitch gets to make demands.

Now, he was curled up beside me on a patch of straw, his tiny frame rising and falling with each breath. His hands were still bound, but one of the guards—one with a softer look—had loosened the rope enough for him to move.