CHAPTER 4: The Whispers

They watched me like I was dirt tracked across polished stone.

I walked between two guards — tall, stoic, silent — but their presence offered no protection. Not from the way the servants glanced up as I passed. Not from the way their eyes slid down my robe, resting on the burn mark at my throat where the silver collar still clung.

Not from the smirks.

Not from the whispers.

They didn't speak loud.

They didn't need to.

"That's her?"

"The little Vale girl?"

"God, he really did collar her."

"I heard she moaned."

"Slut."

I kept walking, each step echoing through corridors that stretched endlessly before me. The stone beneath my bare feet was smooth, worn by countless footsteps of those who walked these halls with purpose, with belonging. I had neither.

Barefoot, bruised, and so exposed I might as well have been naked. The robe Kael had given me was thin. Purposefully sheer. It didn't hide anything. Not the bite on my neck. Not the fading bruises between my thighs. Not the heat still lingering low in my stomach that I hated myself for.

The fabric clung to my skin where dried sweat and other remnants of the night before still marked me. Every movement sent it sliding against wounds I couldn't see but felt with each breath. The collar pulsed with my heartbeat, a constant reminder of the weight I carried — not just silver, but shame.

Every footstep echoed.

Every glance felt like a knife.

But worse than the stares… were the eyes that looked away.

The ones that pretended I wasn't real.

The ones that heard what Kael did to me and still called him Alpha.

Servants pressed themselves against walls as we passed, their gazes dropping to the floor as if the sight of me might burn them. But I caught the flickers — the quick, darting looks at my throat, my wrists, the places where his hands had left their mark. They catalogued my humiliation like inventory.

A woman carrying linens stumbled slightly when she saw me, her eyes wide with something between pity and horror. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then clamped it shut when one of the guards turned his head toward her. She scurried away, the clean white sheets in her arms a stark contrast to everything I represented in this place.

My legs ached. My shoulders burned from tension. But I held my head high.

I don't know why.

Maybe because it was all I had left.

A shred of spine Kael hadn't broken yet.

A flicker of defiance no one else could see.

The castle around me was a maze of power — tapestries depicting victories, weapons mounted on walls like trophies, portraits of stern-faced Alphas who had ruled before Kael. Each image seemed to watch me pass, judging the interloper who dared walk their halls in rags and chains.

The guards led me past the open archway to the main courtyard. A few Blackthorn warriors trained there, sparring shirtless under the morning sun. Laughter drifted through the open air like it belonged to a different world.

Steel rang against steel in practiced rhythms. Men shouted instructions, encouragement, challenges. The sound of normal life — if life in this place could ever be called normal. Steam rose from their bodies as they moved, sweat gleaming on scarred skin, muscles coiled with the kind of strength that came from years of violence.

One of them paused mid-swing when he saw me.

He said nothing.

But he licked his lips.

And grinned.

His sparring partner noticed the distraction and turned to look as well. Then another. Soon half the courtyard had stopped their training to watch me pass, their eyes following the guards and their broken prize.

Some looked hungry.

Others looked disgusted.

None looked away.

My stomach twisted.

I looked away.

The collar pulsed faintly, silver biting against my throat as if it wanted me to remember what I was — not a guest.

Not a wife.

Not even a prisoner.

Just owned.

We passed beneath another archway, this one carved with wolves in mid-hunt, their mouths open in silent howls. The craftsmanship was exquisite, but there was something predatory in the way the stone eyes seemed to track my movement.

The guards stopped outside a large double door carved with a blackened wolf sigil — Kael's. One of them knocked, the sound sharp and final.

"Alpha's orders," the other muttered to me, eyes forward. "Wait inside. Don't speak unless spoken to."

His voice was flat, disinterested. I was cargo to be delivered, nothing more.

And then they left me there.

Alone.

In the echo of my own humiliation.

I stood before those doors for a moment, hand raised to push them open, knowing that whatever waited on the other side would strip away another layer of who I used to be. The wood was dark, polished to a mirror shine, and I could see fragments of myself reflected in its surface — pale, small, marked.

The dining hall was grand, but it wasn't beautiful.

Stone walls lined with trophies — swords, antlers, bones. A long darkwood table stretched through the center of the chamber, set with iron plates and goblets carved with sigils of the Blackthorn bloodline. Torches cast flickering shadows across the floor, making the wolves carved into the pillars look like they were moving.

The bones weren't just decorative — I recognized some of them. Ribs from creatures larger than any natural wolf. Skulls with too many teeth. Trophies from hunts that spoke of power and dominance over things that should have been left undisturbed.

Weapons lined the walls in careful displays — not just swords, but axes, maces, instruments of pain crafted with the same attention to detail as jewelry. Each piece gleamed in the torchlight, edges sharp enough to catch and hold the dancing flames.

There were a dozen men seated already — all dressed in military blacks or heavy robes stitched with silver thread. Betas, captains, advisors. They spoke in low tones, laughing, drinking, tearing into roasted meat like predators who hadn't fed in days.