Before the Queen: 7

Lira (POV)

I come back hard. The pain in my chest burns like a fire, my wrists scream, and my head throbs. I open my eyes, and my rage is sharp again.

For a heartbeat, I can still smell lilac and smoke and slick heat. I blink hard, and the cell snaps back into place—stone, rot, blood, and him. He was still watching me like he had never moved.

“I’d rather rot in this pit than come back to you, asshole,” I whisper, voice like rust and broken glass.

Draven smiles widely, a hint of some twisted pleasure. “Lie to yourself all you want,” he murmurs. “I’m patient.”

“No,” I rasp. “I’m as truthful as you are crazy.”

He leans in, close enough that I feel the warmth of his breath. “You’ll beg, Lira. You think this is suffering?” His lips brush my cheek like a kiss as he whispers in my ear. “Your heat is coming, and when it hits… You’ll come crawling.”

The last heat hit under a blood moon. I remember clawing at the ground, not from want but from madness, from needing something I hated. I remember the sound I made. I swore I’d never make it again.

Even now—even after the rejection—my body betrays me. The bond still coils beneath my skin like a parasite that refuses to die. My wolf doesn’t growl. She trembles. Not out of fear—worse. Out of recognition.

She remembers his scent. His voice. His touch. And I hate that she doesn’t hate it. My instincts scream to reject him. My blood thrums like it still wants to kneel. I don’t know which I despise more.

The bond pulses beneath my sternum like a damn parasite—hungry, writhing, and refusing to die. I tried to rip it out once, but it’s still there, and the heat will just fuel it. I know that when it hits, it won’t be just desire; it’ll feel like madness, wearing his scent like fire, begging for the one thing I hate most.

He doesn’t blink. He reaches forward and drags a finger through the blood seeping from my binding rune, slowly. Deliberate. Then he licks it clean.

“You taste like fire, little wolf,” he murmurs. “Still mine.”

He leans closer with a voice like a thread of silk around a noose. “I wonder if your body will whimper my name before your mind does.”

I try to lunge at him, but am unable to as the chain jerks me short; I’m chained down too well on this altar. Draven stands with a satisfied look and adjusts his leather jacket. “You’ll break, little wolf. Just remember that when the bond hits full force, you can’t breathe without me. This was your choice.”

Draven turns calm and strolls toward the door, his boots don’t rush, but as he reaches the door, he pauses with one hand on the handle with that fucking smirk on his face again—like I’m the punchline of his favorite joke.

I hear the faint clink of the dagger he always carries—my name engraved in the hilt. He wears it like a promise. Or a noose.

“Oh,” he says, almost like an afterthought. “I nearly forgot. I’m going to let them finish what they started.”

The blood spreads faster than it should. It curls at the edges, reaching like roots or veins. I don’t think they notice. I hope they don’t. Even though I’m not sure of the strange power I hold, I have a hunch.

I don’t blink or react to his words as the door shuts behind him like the lid of a coffin, quiet, final, but I’m done reacting. Let them think I’m broken. Let them think I’m waiting to die. That’s how I’ll kill them—slow, while they underestimate what’s still alive under all this rot.

The quiet doesn’t last long as the door opens again, and the guards step in once more—the same ones as before. One of them drops a burlap sack on the floor, and it clinks. The other holds a ceremonial knife in one hand, already slick with oil, its edge blackened with rune-ash.

I don’t scream. I bare my teeth. Let them cut and flay. Break everything but my will because I’m counting the days, and when I leave this pit, I’m not walking out. I’m crawling out with a trail of blood: their blood.

They think I’ll crawl when I leave, but they’re wrong. I’ll drag myself out by the teeth, trailing their blood behind me. I’ll rise like a curse, wearing their blood like a crown. And maybe by then, my blood won’t just answer to me—it will devour for me. Let them keep carving. Every cut is a summoning.