XIRA POV
Pain was the first thing I felt when I woke up.
It sat behind my eyes, throbbing in my skull, radiating down my neck and into my shoulders. My head felt split open, the wound on my scalp a sticky, wet mess that pulsed with every heartbeat.
I tried to move.
I couldn't.
My wrists were bound above my head, chafing against rough rope that bit into my skin. My shoulders screamed in protest from the angle. My legs were free but useless, sprawled awkwardly on cold, damp stone.
Wait, Stone.
Not forest floor. Not leaves or dirt or moonlight.
Stone.
I forced my eyes open.
Darkness. Thick, absolute, suffocating. And for a terrifying moment, I thought I had gone blind. Then my eyes adjusted, and shapes came out of the black.
Bars, a wall, a low ceiling.
A cell.
I was in a cell.
But where?
The last thing I remembered were shadows blocking the moonlight. Then nothing.
How long had I been here? Hours? Days?
What had happened to the rest of the pack members.
My throat was raw, my lips cracked. When I tried to call out, only a painful rasp emerged.
"Hello?" The word was a whisper, swallowed by the emptiness.
No answer.
I pulled at my hands. The rope didn't budge. The stone above me, I could feel it now, rough and cold, it was part of a wall.
I was chained to a wall in a cell in complete darkness.
But where?
Panic rose, hot and choking. I fought it down.
Think. You have to think.
But thinking was hard when your head felt like it had been split open with an axe.
*
I don't know how long I hung there, drifting in and out of consciousness. Time had no meaning in the dark. There was only the pain, the cold, and the slow, agonizing realization that I might die here.
Then I heard footsteps.
My heart lurched. I strained my ears, pressing them toward the sound. Footsteps, boots on stone—growing louder. Coming closer.
A torch flared to life somewhere beyond my cell, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut against the sudden brightness. When I opened them, a figure stood before the bars.
One I did not recognize.
"The Alphas don't have all day to wait for you to get your beauty sleep." the man barked, harsh.
Did he say alphas? As in plural?
I suck in a breath, panic rising in my chest.
Then he came in and moved behind me, I felt him working at the ropes binding my wrists. The release was painful, my shoulders screamed as blood rushed back into my arms and I fell.
"Up!" The man growls impatiently again.
He looked down at me in disgust.
The man snarled angrily at me and despite feeling an unbelievable amount of pain I hastily got to my feet.
"What.." I croaked, "What is happening?"
"You will find out soon enough." He grunted and impatiently dragged the ends of the rope so I had no choice than to stumble out after him.
Without ceremony I am dragged out of the cell like a sack of grain, the ground spinning with every labored step I take.
As we emerged from the darkness, I realized that we were in the Stormfang pack cells which were under the pack house.
As I was dragged into the hall, I could feel dozens of eyes on me.
This were not the usual contemptuous looks I got from the pack members, this was something new and even more scary. Hard, merciless eyes belonging to unfamiliar warriors who lounged against walls or stood at attention. They were scattered across the hall, their hostility a physical force that made the air hard to breathe. Some hooted, yelling obscenities that burned my ears.
The daughter of the defeated Alpha. My fate would be a show.
Finally, I was flung forward. I landed on my knees in the dirt at the edge of the hall, where the remnants of my pack were gathered.
Unlike me they were not chained.
They were mostly women, elders, and low-ranking men, all the ones who couldn't fight or had surrendered. Their faces were bruised, bloodied, with pure terror written all over. Their shoulders were slumped in defeat.
My eyes scanned the group, and a sob rattled my chest, but I choked it back. I would not cry here. Not in front of them.
As I knelt, the pack members shift as far as they can get from me, whispers breaking into soft cries. Their hispers cut through the silence, sharp as knives.
"It's her…"
"The curse…"
"She did this…"
The hatred wasn't just in their whispers; it was a heat against my skin, a venom in the air. Their gazes bored into me, screaming the accusations they no longer needed to voice.
This is your fault. You brought the darkness.
I curled inward, trying to make myself as small as possible, wishing the earth would swallow me whole.
Then, it hit me again.
That scent.
It washed over the courtyard, sharp, powerful, and utterly overwhelming, drowning out the smells of blood and fear. It was the same scent from the forest, the one that had awakened a something inside me. Now, it felt like a drug, I feel my body being pulled towards the owners of the scent.
Heavy, synchronized footsteps echoed on the marble tiles.
Everything else faded but them.
They walked into view, and the world seemed to stop.
Tall. Impossibly broad-shouldered. Mirror images, yet I could see that they were different. They moved with a predator's lethal grace, dark hair framing faces of sharp, brutal beauty. It was the dangerous beauty of a poised viper, alluring and deadly.
Their scent, this scent, wrapped around me, tighter than any chain.
My heart hammered against my ribs, disgusted by my reaction to them.
The pack fell into a silence so complete I could hear the rustle of leaves in the distant trees.
The twins stopped before us.
One smiled.
It was a slow, charming curl of his lips that never reached his cold, assessing eyes. A killer's smile.
The other didn't even bother. His expression seems carved from ice, his gaze a razor sweeping over the bowed pack. Dismissive. Calculating. When those eyes found me, kneeling in the dirt, something dark and violent flickered within them.
Disgust.
The smiling one spoke first, his voice deceptively smooth, almost pleasant.
"You must be Edmund's broken little mutt, where is he?"
As one, every head in the courtyard turned toward me as if I held answers.
The weight of their expectation, their blame, pressed down. My mouth was sandpaper dry. "I… I swear I don't know," I whispered, the words barely audible. "He left me. He used magic and disappeared."
The charming smile vanished.
In a blur of motion too fast to follow, the unsmiling twin was before me.
Icy fingers grasped my chin, forcing my head up. I froze, breath catching, as his scent, clean frost and dark wilderness crashed over me, overwhelming and terrifying.
He stared into my eyes and as if lulled by his smell or his dark eyes that hid all emotion, I stared right back, unable to back down.
He abruptly released me as if touching me contaminated him, before pulling a cloth from his pocket to meticulously wipe his fingers and spitting to the side.
The other twin tilted his head, studying me like a curious, repulsive insect. "If you don't tell us where he ran," he said, his tone light, conversational, "we will begin killing them." A lazy gesture encompassed the huddled pack. "We'll start with the pups. They make the most noise."
A collective gasp, followed by a strangled sob, ripped through the air.
"No please!" I shook my head frantically, the chains rattling. "I'm telling the truth! He abandoned me! He left me out there!"
For a heart-stopping moment, there was only silence.
Then, laughter.
It rippled from the smiling twin, cold and sharp, empty of any real humor. It was the sound of cruelty being enjoyed.
Like the discomfort before him gave the utmost pleasure. I felt real fear crawl up my spine.
Before it could fade, a voice, shrill with venomous judgement, cut through the courtyard.
"Maybe you should kill her instead."
I turned.
May had pushed her way to the front of the pack, her face pale but her eyes burning with a hatred so pure it was almost like the sun.
"She is the Alpha's daughter," she declared, loud enough for all to hear. "The cursed, scentless abomination. If you want to teach the Alpha a lesson, if you want to purge the rot from this pack, start with her. Why should we suffer for the sins of her father?"
Now that Alpha Edmund was out of the picture, May wanted to use the chance to get rid of me
Murmurs of agreement rose around her, a wave of validation for her suggestion.
My chest tightened until I couldn't breathe. The twins' gazes slid back to me, now glittering with a new, predatory interest.
The smiling one crouched down, bringing his terrifyingly handsome face level with mine. So close that it felt like his long eyelashes would poke my eyes out.
His proximity made the intoxicating, frightening scent nearly suffocating.
"Well," he murmured, his breath ghosting over my cheek. "That does make you… special."
The unsmiling one didn't move, his voice a blade of frost. "Or disposable."
The chains felt heavier, biting into my hope. Terror felt like a current under my skin.
"So," the smiling twin whispered, a cruel playfulness in his eyes. "Shall we take her advice? Perhaps you can join your beloved."
He tilted his head toward the outer wall.
My gaze followed, and my vision blurred, the world tilting on its side.
Axel.
His head was mounted on a spike atop the wall, alongside others. A grisly row of trophies, Warriors. Elders. Faces I had seen every day of my life.
Axel's eyes were open, glassy and unseeing, his mouth frozen in a final snarl. Blood, dried to a black crust, matted his hair and streaked the wall below.
"No…" The word was a broken thing, torn from a place deep in my soul. "Please, no…"