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His hands come down on my shoulders. "I bet it felt good to share something of mine.

Did you let yourself get lost in the hope that she will stay with you forever?

Choose to belong to you?" That wretched laughter snakes up my spine.

"Seraphina always has been her own woman.

Why do you think I tried to cull her in?

Cage her? Clip those damned wings? She believes herself untamable, and it used to be that way for years. "

My lips pull tight and I don't give him the satisfaction of seeing his words sink in. I feign boredom even if my skin burns with unseen fire.

"It will be different this time," he coos. "She has too much to lose. Landon, and now, you. I will offer her the noose and she will take it, plead for it. And I will make her earn every second of it."

My jaw clenches, my fists tightening painfully.

I fight it, but the images come anyway. The way she had looked at him during the Hunt with longing.

The notes from him that she still hasn't gotten rid of.

She's loved him for longer than we've known each other, yearned for him, cried for him even when she didn't remember him.

Still hasn't gotten over him. And there is her complete lack of feeling and affection where I am concerned.

Her only inclination towards me being the matebond.

She was going to leave for a month. She was going to leave me.

My eyes close. No. Seraphina already chose me over him. Even when I didn't deserve it, even when I didn't deserve the soft touch of her fingers, she draped the blanket over me and made me tea to soothe the hangover.

Doubting her would be foolish. Insulting.

Still, the truth is jarring. For Landon, she would fight the entire world and let it perish to save him. She would have run straight here had I not compelled her. Wondering if she would do the same for me makes me feel little.

Did she love me? I don't expect her to. Did she care even a little? I could honestly live with only that. Would she cry for me? Miss me even a little?

I laugh a little at the thought. I laugh at my predicament.

At how deeply I have fallen into my own scheme.

I knew she was trouble the moment we met.

And though she didn't know it yet, she already owned me.

Wholly and deeply. I never could've used her against Ronan. Because she never was his weakness.

She was mine.

Callahan pats my shoulder. "Look alive, Winter. You should see all the fun things I have planned for us." He steps into a stinky puddle, causing it to splash. "Move him to the inner chamber. He escapes and your life will be forfeit."

Hours later, I am bound in an even darker chamber.

There is only one window, not large enough to fit through, the walls thick enough that my only companion is the chilling silence.

A single torch lights up the space, crackling weakly, offering something else to stare at other than the dead body of the man rotting at my feet.

Kincaid. Pretty face that didn't match a body that had been toned for war for years. He was our best runner. He was twenty-three, and Eric's closest friend.

Was . My throat tightens. Leaving me to sit here in the silence, watching the body of a kid I knew decay has to be the most creative shit Callahan has come up with.

The ground rumbles somewhere and the clanging of metal rouses me from my steady gaze on the wall. The sole door slides open and a sharp female scent fills the air. Cocking my head, I let my gaze run over Tova's frame as she halts before Kincaid's body.

Her eyes lack their usual warmth, sharp and hollow. Her skin seems tanner, her hair brittle. She is dressed in all of the finery befitting a Luna but it takes only one glance to see that she is being eaten away from inside out.

"You played right into his plans." Her voice lacks feeling. She steps over the body and I hold her gaze as she runs her cold fingertips over my punched shut eye. "I would have you tended to, but he won't allow it. I'll try to get a physician down here to get you looked at."

Her wrists are thin, scarred, and she tries to hide them as she lets her hand fall away. "He is hurting you," I rasp.

She yanks her hands back. "I'm fine," she lies. But I have seen my mother being abused and she acted the exact same way whenever I noticed her wounds. Defensive. Irritated. Vindictive.

"Tova—"

She throws her arms around my shoulders and I stiffen when she begins sobbing. "Gods, I'm sorry. For the things I said that day. I was upset, but I didn't mean any of it."

I itch to hold her, stroke her hair and wipe her tears like I normally would, but the restraints hold me in place.

"I knew what he was, always did, but I believed I could change him.

He was there, always, on the hardest of days, and I fell for him, fell for his lies even if I should have known better.

" More tears wet my torn up shirt. "I wanted to blame you for everything because it hurt less that way.

But all you've ever done is try to shield and protect me from him, and I was too blind to see it then. "

"It's okay," I whisper softly, but her crying only deepens, her chest heaving.

When she pulls back, her face is wet and her mascara is running.

She crouches low, eyes scanning my body for more injuries.

"They mock you in the gatherings, say it took only three men to bring you down.

But I've seen you fight and I know the only reason you'd get caught is if you wanted to. Why?"

I search her eyes. "The less you know about this, the safer you will be. Callahan might not harm Landon, but I won't be able to handle it if anything happens to you, Tova. Do not come here again."

She glares at me stubbornly. "I'm only trying to help. You don't trust me--"

I laugh a little. "It isn't you I don't trust."

"I can contact Eric--"

"Don't do anything, Tova." Silence descends at the harshness in my voice. I soften it as I add, "If Callahan so much as suspects that you are on my side, he will kill you."

Her lips quiver and though she looks like she might cry again, she doesn't. She stands after a moment, kissing my right cheek. "I will do everything I can to get you out. I promise."