Page 27

And I lunged.

I don’t remember crossing the space between us. One heartbeat I was at the threshold, the next I had my hands tangled in her perfect hair, dragging her down, slamming her back against the stone wall.

She shrieked. I hit her again. And again. Fists like fury. Her lip split. Her head cracked against stone. She tried to claw me, but she wasn’t trained for this. She was bred for seduction, not survival.

It wasn’t until I heard Garrick shouting—felt his arms around me, dragging me off—that I realized how close I’d come to tearing her throat out.

“Lexa!” he roared, barely holding me back. “Stop!”

I thrashed against him, eyes wild, teeth bared, my entire body burning. He forced me back, step by step, into my room. I fought him, limbs shaking, the taste of blood still on my tongue. He slammed the door shut behind me and locked it, panting.

I collapsed to the floor.

Pain bloomed under my skin, low and deep and hot. My back seared, the broken rune flaring like open flame. I bit down on a scream and curled against the wall, hands fisted in the sheets, breath shuddering.

The pain was a beast inside my bones.

It clawed its way up my spine, hot and sharp, chewing through sinew and scar, dragging my breath ragged through clenched teeth. I curled tighter into the floor, nails scraping the stone, my jaw locked around the scream I wouldn’t give them.

I heard Garrick’s boots pacing just beyond the door. I felt his hesitation like a pressure in the air—he wanted to summonhim.

Andros. The Alpha.

No. No, no, no.

“Don’t!” I gasped, forcing myself upright, my body shuddering under the weight of the breaking magic. “Don’t bring him. Please—please, Garrick, don’t—”

He turned toward me, brows drawn, mouth grim.

“I need to send for the Alpha,” he said, cold and clipped. “He needs to see what’s happening.”

I stumbled to my feet, catching the wall for balance. “It’ll pass,” I panted. “It’ll hurt—for a while—but I’ve had one break before. I just need time. I can go back. I have coin. I just—just let me go to the witch and have it recarved—”

“No.”

His voice cut like steel. Final. Merciless.

“No more witches. No more runes. No more magic.” His eyes narrowed. “My Alpha gave an order. You’ll stay here. You’ll let it unravel. And I’ll see it done.”

My breath caught. My throat closed.

“You don’t understand,” I whispered. “You don’t know what it feels like. Thatthinginside me—it’s not me. It’s wild, Garrick. It’s teeth and instinct and heat, and I don’t know how to live with it.”

I pressed my hands to my chest as if I could hold it back, as if I could keep the wolf inside from crawling free now that the first chain had shattered. “It’s never been awake this long before—if the rest of them break—”

“You’ll survive,” he said. “That’s whatwolvesdo.”

I looked up at him. Begged. “Let me go.”

“No.”

“Please—”

His eyes flickered, for a moment, with something like pity. But it wasn’t soft. It was the pity you give a starving dog who bit its own tongue trying not to howl.

“You carved your wolf into silence like it was some disease,” he said. “You butchered what the gods gave you. And now you beg to keep butchering it?”

I turned away, ashamed of the tears stinging my eyes. He stepped closer, voice low with fury.