Page 9

NINE

SELENE

S elene slipped past the last torch-lit corridor like a shadow between breaths.

No guard posted at her door tonight. Either someone had gotten lazy, or Kael had assumed she’d learned her lesson. Maybe both. Either way, she wasn’t wasting the opportunity.

The citadel above the Veil was a fortress—stone walls and sharp edges meant to intimidate. But beneath it, under winding stairwells and carved tunnels, the Veil city pulsed like a secret heart, alive and ancient and humming with the kind of danger that whispered run .

She’d seen glimpses from high balconies and shadowed windows. But tonight… she wanted more.

The world she’d been thrown into wasn’t made of council meetings and ceremonial silks. It was bone and blood and survival dressed in moonlight.

She needed to see it.

To understand it.

Or at the very least, stop feeling like prey perched in the middle of a predator’s throne room.

The stone passageway curved into a stairwell that spiraled deep into the mountain’s belly. Each step was slick, damp with moss, and echoing. No guards. No warnings.

They probably assumed no one would be stupid enough to wander down alone.

Selene adjusted the dark cloak she’d stolen from a guard rack earlier, hood up, hair tucked beneath it. Her Mark throbbed faintly beneath her tunic, like it was annoyed with her disobedience.

Join the club, she thought grimly.

After ten more minutes, the air changed.

It smelled warmer . Richer. Like earth, smoke, and animal sweat. Sounds reached her ears—laughter, shouting, the distant howl of something she hoped wasn’t aimed her way.

And then light.

She emerged into a cavern so massive it stole the breath from her lungs.

The ceiling stretched like a cathedral of shadow, glittering with bioluminescent moss that dripped down columns of stone carved into twisted animal shapes.

Pathways wound between glowing pools and crumbling archways.

The buildings weren’t like human ones—they were woven into the stone itself, grown organically like living structures, bone and branch and obsidian.

This was Aethermoor.

Not the ceremonial part the council talked about.

The real one.

Selene slipped into the flow of bodies moving through the main square. Shifters of every House passed by—wolves in half-shifted forms with golden eyes, lean panther folk cloaked in silk and shadow, towering bears, even a few bat-shifters with pale skin and hollow stares.

No one gave her a second glance.

She kept her hood low, her steps steady. If she looked like she belonged, maybe she wouldn’t get ripped apart.

The deeper she went, the more the glamour of the place faded. The stone streets gave way to mud-streaked alleys. Laughter turned to growls. Tension thickened.

And then she heard it, a shout. Followed by a cry.

Selene stopped just behind the edge of a wall, heart slamming against her ribs like a prisoner rattling the bars.

Around the corner, under a flickering rune-lamp, two wolves in black leathers dragged a man to his knees.

Blood streaked down his temple and soaked the collar of his tunic, staining it a deep, ugly red.

His hands were bound behind him with thick cord, the kind enchanted to burn through flesh if he fought it.

A third figure, taller, broader, and cruelly calm—stepped forward. The golden sigil of House Fenrir shone against the black of his cloak. In his hand, he held a curved blade with runes etched into the metal, glowing faintly with ancient magic. It hummed in the air like it was hungry.

A crowd had gathered. Men and women, some armored, others in dark leathers, watched with folded arms and blank faces. No one stepped in. No one looked surprised.

The bound man tried to speak, his mouth working around slurred syllables, too wet and loose to form words. Blood bubbled from his lips.

The enforcer didn’t wait.

The blade came down in a vicious arc—not slicing flesh, but branding it. A hiss split the air, louder than fire on wet wood, as the metal burned through the man’s tunic and into his chest. The man screamed, a raw, animal sound that clawed through the square.

Selene slapped a hand over her mouth.

But it wasn’t over.

The enforcer stepped back. Another shifter emerged from the shadows—tall, with broad shoulders and a pelt draped over one arm. He held a collar made of bone and steel.

“No—” the man sobbed, voice finally audible.

The shifter didn’t respond. He clamped the collar around the man’s neck, and when it clicked into place, the runes on the blade flared again . The man spasmed once, then twice, as a blue shimmer passed over his body.

Then… he shifted.

Not fully.

The bones beneath his skin cracked and twisted, but it was wrong —stunted, half-formed. A muzzle burst through his face, but the rest of him remained human. He collapsed, twitching, moaning like a broken thing.

The enforcer nodded, and the crowd began to disperse.

Selene stared, horror freezing her to the spot.

That wasn’t just punishment.

That was transformation as torture . A forced half-shift. A curse in motion.

She’d heard whispers, old files hidden deep in her father’s study, warnings about forbidden methods used by rogue enforcers or darker corners of the Dominion. But this… this was sanctioned .

“May the Mark remind him,” the enforcer intoned, sheathing the blade with reverence.

Selene’s stomach turned.

One of the onlookers, pale eyes and patchy facial hair—turned sharply, head tilting. She ducked back into the shadows, heart beating so loud she was sure someone could hear it. Her hand pressed against the stone wall for support.

This wasn’t justice.

It was dominance. Terror, dressed as ritual. A performance to remind everyone that weakness was not just punished—it was destroyed .

And she’d walked straight into it.

Her fingers trembled as they rose to her chest, to the mark burned into her skin days ago. It pulsed against her palm, faint but unmistakable.

She couldn’t breathe.

Was this what Kael lived with? What he was raised on?

Was this the future they'd tied her to?

She stumbled back through the corridors of the lower city, moving fast now, too fast. She didn’t remember half the turns she took. Didn’t care.

She reached the stairwell with a chest full of fire and bile, her boots loud on the worn stone.

By the time she reached the citadel proper, her cloak was soaked from underground mist, her boots caked in grime, and her hands shaking. She kept her hood up as she passed through the empty antechambers and silent halls.

But as she rounded the final corridor to her chamber, her steps slowed.

There were guards at the door now.

Of course there were.

Two wolf-blooded sentinels stood at attention, their gazes flicking to her without surprise.

She straightened, forced her expression smooth.

But when she opened the door, the air in the room shifted.

He was there.

Kael.

Waiting.

He stood near the hearth, arms folded across his broad chest, the firelight carving shadows across the lines of his jaw and the hard set of his shoulders. His ash-blond hair was mussed, like he’d been pacing before she arrived.

His eyes snapped to hers.

And when he spoke, his voice was low and dangerous, a blade sliding from its sheath.

“Where the hell were you?”