“Stupid omega,” one of them muttered. “Nearly kills the Alpha and still gets to breathe.”
“Should throw her in with the rogues,” the other one said. “Let them have her for a while.”
I didn’t look at either of them. I just kept my eyes forward and tried not to think about what was waiting for me at the end of these hallways.
Then Garret appeared.
He stepped out from a side corridor, and the sentinels holding me actually tensed. There was something in the way he moved that made them nervous. His jaw was tight as he looked at me, then at the hands on my arms.
“You better be careful with the Luna of Skollrend,” he said.
His voice was quiet, but both sentinels let go of me like I’d turned hot.
“If she was a Luna of this pack, she wouldn’t be dragged to a cell,” one of them shot back, but his voice had lost its edge. “Alpha Cian despises her. Why should we not?”
Garret stepped closer. “I will take it from here.”
“We have orders,” the second one started.
“And my station is higher than both of yours.” Garret’s tone didn’t change, but something in his face went cold. “Would you refuse me?”
They didn’t answer. They just apologized, stiff and awkward, and despite clearly not wanting to, they bowed. Their shoulders were tight with resentment as they turned and walked away, muttering to each other in voices they thought were quiet enough I wouldn’t hear. I heard them anyway.
Garret looked at the silver cuffs. I saw his jaw clench when he noticed the burn marks on my wrists. He pulled on a leather glove from his pocket – where he’d been keeping it, I had no idea – and reached for the cuffs.
The metal came away from my skin with a rush of relief that made me gasp. The burning stopped. My wolf settled, just slightly, now that the silver wasn’t touching me anymore.
“Why are you helping me?” I asked.
“I am not.” He pocketed the cuffs and started walking. “The order was to put you in a cell. Not to treat you like shit while doing it.”
I followed him because I didn’t have much choice. We moved through more hallways, deeper into the stone. The air got colder the further we went. Damper.
“Why then do you not want to treat me like shit?” I asked.
“Because you helped Alpha Cian.”
“I had to.” The words came out before I could stop them. “I would be facing a much worse fate than this if something had actually happened to him. So it was not noble. I was trying to save my own flesh.”
He glanced back at me as we walked. “That is not what it looked like.”
“What does it matter what it looked like?” My voice came out sharper than I meant it to. “I am down here anyway.”
“I am a sentinel,” Garret said. His tone was matter of fact, like he was just stating something obvious. “I am good at sensing intention. And you genuinely wanted to save him.”
I laughed, but it came out bitter. “Well, see what that got me.”
“You are in this predicament because you blow hot constantly,” he said. We’d reached a set of iron stairs that spiraled down. He started descending them, and I followed. “Alpha Cian was going to step in. You know that. He would have.”
I did know that. I’d felt it through the bond. I’d felt him gathering himself to take control of the situation, to shut Ronan down. And that had filled me with a rage so hot I couldn’t breathe. So I’d spoken up. I’d made sure Cian knew I didn’t want his help. That I didn’t need it. That I could handle this myself.
I bit my lower lip because Garret was right. He was absolutely right.
“When it mattered, he did not hear me out,” I said quietly. “Or step in. I do not need him.”
“We should head to the cell,” Garret replied, like I hadn’t spoken. “It is not right to linger.”
We walked in silence for a while. The stone got rougher as we went deeper. Less finished. The air smelled like damp and old things. Like things that were locked away and left to be forgotten.
“I am only a sentinel,” Garret said eventually, his voice careful. “But I do believe you will have to take his hand. A lot of wolves here despise you for what they think you did.”
“I did not do it,” I said. “I was deceived.”
“It does not matter.” He said it without judgment, just like a fact. “They have what they believe, and they will stand by it. It is their first impression of you. It is probably the first lasting impression that Alpha Cian has of you as well.”
The words stung because they were true.
“But that is where you have it easy,” Garret continued. “You are Luna of Skollrend at the end of the day. You are his chosen mate. A chosen mate with a bond that was blessed by the goddess. He cannot hate you, no matter how hard he tries.”
I stopped walking. “Are you suggesting I use the bond to save myself?”
“It is not going to get better,” he said instead of answering. We’d reached the prison section now. The cells were carved right out of the stone, dark and narrow. “Not unless you do something.”
We stopped in front of one, and Garret’s eyes opened it with some kind of magic. The door clicked open, and I stepped inside. The stone was cold under my feet. There was a thin cot in the corner and nothing else.
“He could reject me,” I said, looking back at Garret.
“He might have if the goddess had not blessed the bond during the union while you took your sister’s place,” he said quietly. “But rejecting a bond blessed by the goddess minutes after the ceremony would be asking for divine wrath. No Alpha is foolish enough to do that.”
I scoffed. “What would Alpha Cian care about divine wrath? Even I have heard stories. He does not seem like a man of faith.”
Garret chuckled as he locked the gate behind me. The sound echoed through the cell. “He is not. But even he has moments of weakness. For our Alpha, it is his mother. It is why he chose to get married in the first place. It is why he will not let you go or reject you. There is a small chance the goddess might bite him back for the mockery, and he will not risk that. Not for the woman he loves most in the world.”
I sat down on the cot. It was harder than stone. “I did not see her at the wedding. Or even a father.”
“She could not come,” Garret said, and there was something sad in his voice. “She is afflicted. With the rot.”
He didn’t explain what that meant, and I didn’t ask. But I knew. My mother had been afflicted as well. I just sat there in the dark and listened to his footsteps fade as he walked back up the stairs, leaving me alone in the stone.
CIAN
I got out of bed at exactly six in the evening. The healer had said I could move around, that staying still would only make the poison linger in my muscles longer. I didn’t argue. Lying there thinking about Fia in the dungeons wasn’t going to help anyone.
The shower was hot enough to sting. I stood under the spray and watched the herb-scented water run pink before it cleared. My bandages had come off that afternoon, and the Mourning Moon’s burn marks underneath were already fading. Maren had said I healed fast.
I dried off and dressed carefully. My hands weren’t quite steady yet, but I was Alpha. I couldn’t look weak. I combed my hair, checked myself in the mirror, and told the weak thing inside me to shut up and get back in its cage.
I headed for Mother’s wing at six forty-five.
The hallway was empty. Too empty. The omega who usually kept watch should have been there, should have seen me coming. My jaw clenched as I stood outside the door. I tapped my foot against the marble. The sound echoed down the stone corridor in sharp, regular beats. Six forty-eight. Six forty-nine.
The omega appeared at six fifty-three, her whole body shaking as she wheeled the dinner tray. She’d been running. Her hair was coming out of its tie, and there was a thin shine of sweat on her forehead. The moment she saw me, she actually flinched. Like my presence was something painful.
She dropped to her knees before the tray could even stop moving. Her body folded nearly in half, her forehead almost touching the ground.
“I apologize,” she whispered. “I apologize, I apologize.”
“I told you to always be here before me.” The words came out flat. Cold. The way I’d learned to speak to people who failed. “Six fifty-five. Every single time. You’ve had a week to learn this.”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry, Alpha.” She was crying now, the tears tracking down her face. Her whole frame shook with it. “It won’t happen again.”
“First strike,” I said. “There will be no second strike. You should know what happened to the former one.”
I didn’t wait for her to answer. I took the handle of the tray and wheeled it toward the door myself. I knocked. A soft sound, careful. Respectful.
“Mother, it’s me.”
I opened the door and stepped inside.
Her room was exactly how she preferred it. Everything was old. The walls had been made to look weathered and ancient. The furniture was heavy dark wood, the kind that had probably been carved before the pack even had a name. The curtains were drawn against the evening light. There were no electric bulbs up here. Just candlelight, which Mother said didn’t hurt her eyes the way the harsh lights did.
The chamber was in the corner, waiting.
The smell hit me first. Herbs. Always herbs. Mint and something sharper that I could never quite name. Thorne brought them in batches and Mother said they helped with the pain. I wasn’t sure I believed her, but I’d stopped arguing about it years ago.
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