Page 23

Lexa

The room reeks of him.

It clings to the stone walls, seeps into the furs, coils in the pillows. That rich, dark, cedar-and-winter scent that once turned my stomach now just makes it twist in a different way. I hate it. Hate that I know it. Hate that it’s inside me.

Hate that I remember what he made me do while he stood there—silent, watching. Like I was a puppet he could pull apart and rearrange, then put back on the shelf when he was done.

I press the heel of my palm into my eye until I see stars.

Maybe if I do it hard enough, I’ll forget the feel of his gaze on me.

It’s been eight days. I counted them on the edge of the hearthstones.

One for each miserable sunrise spent in this glorified cage.

Guards at the door. Windows barred. And not a single soul who dares look me in the eye—except the child. Except Dain.

I’m not even allowed to see him now unless Andros says so. I pace. Again.

There’s a scuff in the floorboards near the window—my boot’s been digging into it every time I reach the wall and turn back. A pointless rebellion, but it's all I have. The guards won’t let me leave. I asked. Demanded. Shouted.

They didn’t flinch.

I could pull on the bond again. Just a flicker, a whisper through that cursed thread between us. Tease his mind the way I did before. Make him snap. Make him come storming in with fire in his eyes and hands on my throat.

But I don’t, because I swore I would never be someone’s porcelain doll, locked in a castle for an Alpha’s pleasure.

And here I am.

I dig my nails into my arm until the skin stings, just to feel something that’s mine. Then the voice starts. No, not a voice. Not words. A growl. My eyes snap shut, and my heart claws into my ribs. No. Not this. Not her.

The wolf.

She stirs like a stormcloud shifting in my gut, like wind rolling in off the tundra. I’ve kept her buried for thirteen years. Shackled with runes, drowned with pain. She never spoke. Never moved. Just lay there—quiet, broken.

Now she barks. Sharp. Loud. Demanding.

I flinch, grabbing the edge of the writing desk for balance. My knees buckle, but I don’t fall. I won’t fall.

“What the hell do you want?” I hiss aloud, gripping the back of my neck, where the third rune still burns cold and iron-deep. “You did this. You let him mark us. You wanted it.”

Another bark. Fiercer. Not an answer. A challenge. I squeeze my eyes shut and press my forehead to the wall.

It’s like trying to argue with a wildfire. She doesn’t speak in thoughts. She speaks in impulse. Images. Feelings. My pulse races. My mouth dries. My skin feels tight.

I’ve never experienced anything like this. Never felt her so alive. So real.

And I hate that part of me is her. That her anger feels like my own. That her hunger is rising—raw, primal, and terrifying. I drag my fingernails across the stone wall until they split and bleed.

I went back to bed but I hadn’t slept. Not a minute.

The fire had died hours ago, and the chill gnawed at my bones, but it wasn’t the cold that kept me awake.

It was her. That beast pacing just under my skin, snarling, clawing, nudging my thoughts with hers like I was just another limb she hadn’t learned to control yet.

By the time the first grey sliver of dawn slipped over the horizon, my hands were shaking and something dark had settled in my chest.

If I couldn’t fight her, I could at least use her.

I moved through Andros’s room like a thief, which was fitting.

That’s what I was now. I pulled two silver candlesticks from the mantle and wrapped them in one of his shirts.

Heavy, real silver. They’d sell well. In the bottom drawer of his desk, I found a pouch of old coins—dusty, some with foreign stamps, but they’d trade.

Everything I touched reeked of him, but I forced myself not to care. I stripped quickly and changed into warmer clothes—furs stolen from his closet, a thick wool tunic, a heavy cloak. His boots were too big, but better than bare feet.

I stared at the window. Frost clung to the glass like spiderwebs. I cracked it open and the cold slapped me, sharp and bracing. My breath clouded instantly.

Good.

I slung the pouch over my shoulder, braced my hands on the windowsill, and climbed out.

The wall was slick with ice, but my fingers found their grip. My legs moved like they remembered something I’d never learned. The wolf guided me, stronger, quicker. My breath came in white bursts as I pulled myself up onto the roof and crouched low.

The wind bit through the fabric, but I barely felt it. I moved. One rooftop to another. Slate to timber. My muscles burned, but it was nothing compared to the weight I carried inside.

The stables were just ahead. A leap, no more than six feet. I pushed off. The wolf surged with me, and for a second, I swore I felt her smirk .

I missed.

The edge of the roof clipped my foot and I went down hard, tumbling through frozen air and landing in a heap in the snow behind the stable. Pain lanced through my side. My ankle screamed. I bit down on a cry and rolled onto my back, staring up at the paling sky.

“You bitch,” I whispered, gasping through the pain.

She growled in my head, unrepentant.

“I swear to the gods, the second I find that witch again, I’m getting ten runes. Ten. I’ll carve them down to my spine if I have to. You’ll never make a sound again.”

The wolf didn’t answer. She didn’t need to, I knew it as her doing.

The pain in my side made every movement sharp, but I gritted my teeth and forced myself to stand. The stables loomed ahead, quiet, the doors slightly ajar. I limped toward them, keeping low, listening for voices or footsteps. Nothing. Just the soft snorts and shifting hooves of sleeping horses.

Inside, it was warmer, the scent of hay and sweat and animals almost comforting. I moved fast, choosing a lean grey mare with long legs and a wary eye. She jerked when I touched her flank, but I whispered soft lies into her ear and stroked her neck until she calmed.

I saddled her clumsily—too loud, too slow—but luck stayed with me. No one came. Before I mounted, I hesitated.

Dain.

A breath caught in my throat.My throat burned, but I forced the thought away. I couldn’t take him with me. Not yet.

“I’ll come back,” I said aloud, voice cracking. “When I have the runes again. When I’m stronger. When he can’t touch me.”

The mare stamped her hooves. Time was running out.

I led her toward the edge of the outer wall, where the gate guards rotated just before sunrise.

I knew their rhythm by now. Knew when the inner bell rang for the changing watch.

I waited in the shadows and, just as the gate creaked open to let in the new patrol, I threw a rock across the courtyard.

It shattered a window on the opposite side of the keep. Voices shouted. The guards turned. I dug my heels into the mare and kicked her forward.

We flew.

Hooves thundered over the bridge, shouts behind me, horns sounding. Arrows didn’t fly—I was lucky. Or Andros had ordered them not to hurt me. Either way, the gates vanished behind us in the snow.

The wind ripped at my cloak. My fingers went numb around the reins. The land beyond the citadel was white and endless, the mountains sharp in the distance like jagged teeth. I didn’t know where I was. I’d never been this far north. The air tasted like steel and pine.

If I could cross the mountains, I might find a village. And if I found a village, I could ask for the coast. And when I found the coast, I’d find her. And this time, I’d ask for more than just silence.

By midday, the wind had turned cruel.

The sky hung low and bruised, thick with snow that lashed against my face like glass shards.

The mare’s sides were lathered with sweat beneath her winter coat, her breaths coming hard and fast. I urged her on until her hooves began to slip on the frozen ground, until I could see the tremble in her legs with every step.

She couldn’t go further. And neither could I.

I spotted the cave just as the first flakes thickened into a blizzard. It was a narrow gash in the side of a hill, half-hidden behind a cluster of pine trees already half-buried in white. I dismounted, nearly crumpled from the jolt that shot through my side, and led the mare inside.

It wasn’t much. Barely deep enough to block the wind, but it would have to do.

I stripped the saddle, rubbed down the mare’s flanks with a threadbare cloth, whispered another round of soft lies, and then turned to the fire.

My fingers barely worked, but I managed it—twigs, dry moss, the edge of a torn shirt soaked in oil.

Sparks caught, flared, held. A flickering circle of warmth.

I sank down beside it, teeth chattering, cloak pulled tight around me. My skin was burning.

Too hot.

I shoved back the layers of fur and linen and stared at my arms. No marks. No wounds. But the heat pulsed beneath the skin, deep and steady like a war drum. My whole body was aching, not from the cold but from something else entirely.

Then I felt it.

The third rune.

It had been silent for days—cold and still, like a frozen brand carved between my shoulder blades. Now it flared, sharp and liquid, as if something molten had been poured beneath my skin.

“No,” I whispered. “No, not now.”

The pain twisted suddenly, violently, cutting through my spine. I collapsed forward onto my hands, breathing ragged, eyes wide and blind with agony. It was worse than the first. Worse than the second. This one didn’t just burn—it tore.

I screamed into the snow-packed earth, muffled and shaking. My nails gouged at the dirt. My body bucked once, then again. My jaw locked. It felt like something was clawing its way out of me. Not the wolf. Not entirely.

Just me—fracturing.

Sweat rolled down my temples even as frost gathered at my lashes. My heart was pounding too fast. My limbs convulsed. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t— And then it cracked .

The sound wasn’t real, but I heard it. Like shattering glass deep inside my skull.

And the silence that followed?

It was worse than the pain.