Before the Queen 4

Lira (POV)

From my altar of chains and rot, I can see him.

Draven looks like a king carved from the pages of some fever-dream fairytale—a black leather jacket wrapped tight over a crimson silk shirt and silver buckles gleaming under torchlight. His honey-brown hair is still damp, slicked back from either snow or bathwater. Clean. Impossibly clean. The kind of clean that makes the blood dried under my nails feel louder. He looks almost innocent—like he didn’t order the flaying on me last week.

With a casual flick of his fingers, he dismisses the guards. There are no words—just power soaked in silence. They obey like hounds. One last glance is thrown my way, and then the door grinds shut behind them, the sound echoing like a tomb sealing.

He takes a step closer, then another, his boots whispering against the blood-slick stone. He stops just short of touching distance, green eyes burning under the light—those same eyes flecked with gold, like sunlight caught in the cracks of something much darker.

His eyes meet mine, and a smile spreads across his face. “You look like shit,” he says casually, lips curling into that slow, slanted grin.

I smile back, my lips still leaking blood. “Still prettier than your new whore.”

I feel it—the bond flinching like a cut nerve. A twitch down the tether he refuses to sever. His wolf recoils, subtle but real. His eyes narrow, and that smile falters into something hungrier.

He crouches in front of me, slow, controlled, never breaking eye contact. His scent crawls down my throat, and he tries to settle in my lungs like it used to. “Jealousy doesn’t suit you,” he says.

“I’m not jealous,” I rasp. “I just like knowing that you had to fuck down after I rejected you.”

He chuckles—the sound is quiet—and reaches out and almost touches my face. I flinch as his fingers hover just shy of my jaw. He never directly touches me unless he wants it to hurt, and he’s aware of that. He lets the threat hang there between us like a blade.

My body betrays me. Just a twitch, just a flicker of heat curling in my gut—residue from the bond that hasn’t broken clean. My wolf stirs, not with want, but recognition. And I hate that she remembers.

This cell isn’t just stone and rot; it’s a shrine of suffering. Blood stains don’t fade here—they fossilize. Every chain bite and every scream is absorbed into the walls of this place. The altar beneath me is worn and smooth, and countless bodies have broken before mine. It’s not a table; it’s a witness.

“You know what they told me?” he asks. “After your last cleansing?”

I bite my blood-stained lips; I’ve gotten used to the taste of blood and keep my mouth closed. I refuse to answer.

He tilts his head like he’s trying to figure out whether that amuses or enrages him. “They said you've started laughing instead of screaming. Are you broken yet, little wolf?”

“Not yet,” I rasp. “But give it another round; I’m getting close.”

“You’ll come back,” he says. Soft. Like a promise. Like a prayer. “You always do.”

Draven’s voice is honeyed poison, the same melody he used to wrap around me like safety, now laced with rot. Still soft. Still low. But now, every syllable is a hook. A chain. A lie.

My vision whites out—and I’m not in the cell anymore. I’m back there. Back to three months ago when my mate cheated on me.