Page 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.

He looked at me in the dark earlier, blinking through the gloom with those soft brown eyes and whispered, “At least it’s warmer than our house.”

I wanted to cry.

He grinned at me, as if this was just another place, another bad day, like the time the nets broke and we had nothing to eat but dried kelp and bitterroot. As if this—this—wasn’t a dungeon soaked in the screams of the forgotten.

“They even gave us food,” he said. “Bread and meat. Not bad.”

My stomach turned. Not from hunger, but from guilt. From rage. From helplessness. I couldn’t keep him safe. I’d tried. I’d bled for it. Lied for it. Changed everything I was just to disappear into the shadow of the human world. And still— still —they found us.

He found us. The Alpha.

Andros . His name was whispered by terrified mouths and scarred lips in every pack from coast to mountain, but now I had a face for the stories. A voice. A touch.

Gods, his hand on my throat had seared deeper than any flame. And what terrified me most wasn’t that he was cruel, or powerful. I’d known monsters like that before.

It was the way he looked at me. Like he knew. Like he felt the lie etched into my spine. And he wasn’t going to rest until he peeled back every layer to find the truth I’d buried.

I glanced down at Dain. He was sleeping again, mouth parted slightly, one hand curled against his chest.

They left us in the dark for three days. No questions. No threats. No beatings. Just silence.

The only thing that came regularly was food—twice a day, hot, seasoned, decent . The kind of meals I hadn’t been able to give Dain in weeks. Maybe months. That, more than anything, broke something inside me.

Because it meant they could. This brutal, blood-soaked pack could afford to feed even its prisoners like they mattered. And I—who scraped together every coin, who bled into the salt and nets and filth of the shore—could barely keep a child warm, let alone fed.

Every time the tray clanked against the stone, Dain lit up like it was some miracle. “They have cheese,” he whispered once, eyes wide. “Real cheese, Lexi.”

I smiled, but it felt like glass in my throat. And now, on the third day, the rhythm changed.

The door opened with a screech, metal against stone, too loud after so much stillness. I sat up fast, heart already pounding. Two guards stepped inside, their boots wet from the halls above. No food this time. No tray.

I rose slowly, stiff from the cold and chains. Dain sat up beside me, rubbing his eyes.

“What is this?” I asked, voice low, cautious. “Where are you taking us?”

“ Us? No. Just you.” One of the guards—taller, sharper eyes—snorted.

My chest tightened. “He stays? Why?”

The other stepped closer, smirking. “The Alpha wants a word. Alone.”

Dain climbed to his feet beside me, already frowning. “I’m coming too.”

The taller one shoved him gently back with the flat of his hand. “You stay here, pup. Insurance.”

“ Insurance ?” I growled, stepping forward until the chains caught at my ankles. “He’s a child.”

“He's your child,” the guard said, voice tightening. “And if you think about running… well. We’ll need something to keep you honest.”

I felt Dain grab my sleeve, his little fingers twisting in the fabric.

“No,” he whispered. “Don’t go.”

“I have to, cub,” I said softly, kneeling to look him in the eye. My throat burned. “I’ll come back.”

“You promise?” His voice cracked.

I hesitated. Because I didn’t make promises I couldn’t keep. But this time… I nodded.

“I promise.”

He held onto me for one more second, then let go.

The guards pulled me to my feet, unchained my ankles, and shackled my hands tighter instead. The door closed behind me with the sound of finality. And as they led me down the long stone corridor, I could still feel Dain’s eyes on my back. Watching. Hoping. Waiting.

They dragged me through a winding corridor of stone and steel, and as my boots echoed off the floor, I tried to keep my eyes open.

This wasn’t just a dungeon tucked beneath some den. It was deeper. Bigger. Older. The walls weren’t crumbling. The torches were freshly lit. Everything was maintained, guarded, watched.

We emerged into a vast inner courtyard, and I blinked at the sudden rush of light filtering in from above. Snow fell lightly, but even that looked out of place here—too soft against the towering black stone that surrounded us.

A citadel. That was the only word for it. A fortress meant not for survival, but domination.

The guards didn’t speak, just marched me forward past wolves who paused to look—some curious, some hungry. I didn’t drop my head. I wouldn’t give them that.

At the far side of the courtyard, beneath an arch of carved obsidian, a man waited.

Taller than most. Heavy with muscle. Thick brown beard, flecked with frost. His coat bore the mark of the Blood Night—silver thread stitched into the black leather like veins. His power rippled under the surface, tightly leashed but unmistakable.

Beta.

I reached for the long-buried knowledge scraped from overheard lessons, whispered politics between sisters. Alpha. Beta. Enforcers. The old structures. Wolves pretending to be kings.

He stepped forward as we approached, his smile too pleasant for this place. “You must be the stray .”

I didn’t reply. I was too busy calculating how many steps it would take to get past him, how many seconds before the guards behind me caught up.

He glanced at the guards. “I’ll take her from here.”

One nodded, hesitated, then released my arm. The weight of the man’s eyes never left me as he gestured toward the inner hall.

“Come,” he said. “The Alpha’s waiting.”

I didn’t move. “Why am I being treated like a criminal?” I asked, voice rough with cold and days without rest. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

He laughed softly, like I’d just told a child’s joke. “Wrong? That’s subjective, darling. Maybe you’re a spy. Maybe you’re bait. Maybe you’re just very bad at hiding.”

I stared at him, my jaw tight. “You think I’m Crescent Moon.”

“I think you’re something,” he said with a grin, “and the Alpha doesn’t like unknowns in his territory.”

He turned, expecting me to follow. I did. Because I didn’t have a choice. The Beta led me through a pair of towering iron doors etched with snarling wolves and bleeding moons. Beyond them, the castle unfolded like something from an old nightmare—grand, cold, and carved from shadow.

The walls were built from dark stone, smoothed and polished to a mirror sheen in places, rough and ancient in others.

Torches flickered in silver sconces, casting long, twisting shadows across vaulted ceilings and archways wide enough to drive a cart through.

Massive columns lined the halls, each engraved with scenes of conquest—wolves tearing through human armies, packs kneeling before a crowned Alpha.

The air was colder here, but not the kind of cold that came from winter. This cold was something else. Something deeper. It lived in the bones of this place, woven into its stones and silence.

My boots echoed on the marble floors, every step a reminder of my place: prisoner. Stranger. Other. Eyes followed me as we walked. Not many, but enough.

Some guards. A few warriors. But also... humans. Servants. They moved like ghosts, heads bowed, arms full of wood or cloth or trays of food. Silent. Eyes lowered. I smelled fear on them, sharp and acrid. Their lives belonged to the pack, and they knew it.

It wasn’t the humans that made my skin crawl. It was the women.

They gathered like vultures near the grand balcony, draped in silk and furs that shimmered in the winter light.

Their skin was flawless, almost too smooth—polished to perfection like glass dolls—and their hair gleamed in rich, pampered waves.

Everything about them was calculated: every tilt of the head, every flutter of lashes, every faint, sugary laugh drifting into the air.

They were beautiful in the way display cases are beautiful. Untouched. Untouchable. Empty. I didn’t need to scent the air to know what they were.

Omegas .

Their eyes turned to me in perfect, choreographed unison. Narrowed. Assessing. Disgusted. As if I was something feral, something unwashed and rabid dragged in from the snow. Their lips curled, but none of them spoke. They didn’t need to.

I met their stares without flinching. I had seen those eyes before. On my sisters. On my mother. On the mirror, once.

They were everything I had fled. Everything I had refused to become.