CHAPTER 3.

SERAPHINA 

The guards grabbed my hair, pulling my head back so hard my neck popped. The cold edge of the silver blade pressed right against my skin. I closed my eyes, squeezing my mom’s cold, shaking hand as tight as I could.

I braced myself for the sharp sting of the metal cutting through my throat. I just prayed it would be fast. I prayed we wouldn't feel it for long.

"Wait, Alpha."

Beta Harold’s voice sliced through the air, stopping the guards just in time. I opened my eyes through the thick layer of tears blurring my vision. He stepped closer to Alpha Kai, putting on a face full of fake righteousness and sorrow for the crowd to see.

"Killing them right now is too easy, don't you think?" Harold said, looking down at us like we were pieces of trash on his shoe. "They took your parents from us, Kai. A quick death in the slaughterhouse is an absolute mercy. They should be made to suffer every single day for the blood they spilled. We should whip them, starve them, and force them to work the deep mines until their pathetic bodies break under the weight."

Alpha Kai turned around slowly as he faced us again. He looked down at me, his eyes totally dead, then at my mom who was trembling with fear.

His face didn't show a single ounce of the sweet boy I used to crush on from afar. There was no kindness left in him. 

"Do as he says" He said coldly, his voice bouncing off the walls without a hint of regret. "Give them the greatest punishment we have. Let them rot."

The guards didn't waste any time. They roughly unpinned us and dragged us out of the slaughterhouse, pulling us across the gravel. They threw us down the dark, damp stone stairs of the pack dungeon. The air down there was thick.

It smelled horribly like rot, mold, and old blood. They dragged us to a small cell and slammed us against the wall, chaining our wrists to silver rings bolted deep into the stone.

Two guards stepped forward into the dim torchlight. They were holding long, leather whips that dragged on the floor.

"Please," I begged, trying to slide my body in front of my mom’s frail frame, even though the chains pulled hard on my wrists. "She’s sick! She won't survive this! I am begging you, just whip me twice as much! Give her punishment to me! I can take it, just don't touch her!"

A rough hand shoved me back hard against the stony wall, and the very first strike landed.

The pain was unlike anything I had ever felt in my life. It felt like a line of hot fire tearing completely through the skin of my back, ripping my shirt away. 

I let out a piercing scream, my knees instantly buckling beneath me. But before I could even catch my breath to inhale, another whip cracked through the air, and I heard my mom shriek in pure agony next to me.

"Mom!" I choked out, watching her thin body shake as the leather ripped her pale skin open. "Stop it! Stop it, please! She didn't do anything!"

They didn't stop. They didn't show a single second of mercy. They whipped us over and over again, the cracking sound echoing loudly in the small cell. They hit until our backs felt completely shredded, until the clothes on our bodies were just bloody rags. 

The ground beneath our bare feet quickly became pooled with our own blood. 

My head hung low against my chest, my vision spinning and blurry from the exhaustion of screaming until my throat was hoarse.

But the torture wasn't even close to over.

One of the guards walked over to a metal tray, holding two large syringes filled with a dark greenish liquid. 

Wolfsbane.

‘No please. Please don't do this.’ I couldn't get the words out.

He grabbed my bruised arm roughly, pinning it against the wall, and jabbed the long needle deep into my vein. I gasped out loud as the poison hit my system. 

It didn't just hurt. It felt like liquid acid traveling through my blood, burning me from the inside out, setting every nerve on fire. My wolf let out a weak, pathetic whimper deep in my mind before completely going silent and losing consciousness.

The wolfsbane completely froze our natural healing abilities. It meant the shredded, bloody skin on our backs wouldn't close up. The wounds would stay completely fresh, constantly burning, constantly dripping blood into the dirt. 

Every single movement would feel like the first strike all over again.

They did the exact same thing to my mom. She didn't even have the strength left to scream anymore when the needle pierced her arm; she just let out a heartbreaking moan that ripped right through my soul. Her head fell limp against her chest, her greasy hair falling over her pale face.

"Get up," the guard barked, unlocking our heavy chains from the wall rings but leaving the tight iron cuffs clamped onto our wrists. "No resting. Your shift in the deep mines starts right now."

My legs were shaking so badly I could barely keep my balance. My back was a bloody mess, and the heavy dose of wolfsbane was making a terrible fever spike through my body. 

I looked over at my mom, who was barely conscious, trying her hardest to drag her feet across the dirt floor so she wouldn't get hit again.

I swallowed the bitter taste of blood in my mouth and stumbled over to her side. I put her weak arm over my shoulder to carry almost all of her weight, holding onto her waist tight.

"I'm right here, Mom," I whispered into her ear, my voice cracking completely as a hot tear mixed with the dirt and blood on my face. "I’ve got you. Just keep breathing. Please, Mom, just keep breathing for me."

She couldn't answer me. She didn't have the breath for it. She just leaned heavily against my side, her chest moving in small painful wheezes that sounded worse than before. 

We walked out of the cell and into the dark tunnels of the mines. 

The guards shoved rusted iron pickaxes into our hands. 

"Start digging murderers," a guard shouted, kicking dirt at my feet. "If you don't hit your quota by nightfall, you won't get a drop of water."

I looked at the massive wall of stone in front of us, then at my mom, who could barely even lift the wooden handle of her tool. Her hands were trembling so much she dropped it into the dirt. 

A guard immediately stepped forward, raising his hand, but I lunged in front of her, picking up her axe along with mine.

"I'll do it!" I screamed, my voice raw. "I'll do her share! Just don't touch her!"

The guard laughed, an ugly sound that echoed in the tunnel. "Then you better get swinging, Omega. You have a long way to go."