CHAPTER FOUR

ELARA

*

*

“Cat got the Mute’s tongue?”

I spun but still couldn’t see him.

“Show yourself,” I snapped.

A low chuckle followed. “Giving me orders? That’s cute.”

He stepped out from between the trees.

Even in the dark I knew that build. Tall. Broad. Muscular to intimidate. His grey eyes sliced through shadow like they ran on their own power source.

Ian Nightshade.

The girl-moaning, door-slamming, either-get-in-or-fuck-off Ian Nightshade.

“Well, Mute?” He raised an eyebrow. “Any words to defend yourself?”

I was completely fucked.

If there was one person in this world who loathed my existence the most, it was Ian Nightshade.

He was one of the people who made sure I never felt welcome inside the packhouse.

We had six years of hate-filled history between us and nothing had changed.

My mother was the pack healer. One of the best the SilverCrest had ever had, or so Elder Crane liked to say when he’d had enough wine to get sentimental.

I used to grow up as a normal child until Ian’s mother—the previous Luna—fell ill.

She didn’t make it.

Not too long after, the Alpha followed.

Ian’s father. The most powerful wolf in SilverCrest. People whispered that it was the mate bond— losing his Luna had broken him, that a wolf couldn’t survive the death of its other half.

But it wasn’t just grief. I knew that much. The details of the Alpha’s illness were kept under wraps. The council never spoke of it publicly, my mother who treated him was sworn to silence.

Long story short, he died under my mother’s care.

I became Ian’s target when my mother mysteriously disappeared after the Alpha’s death.

My mother had gone to the woods one morning to gather herbs and never came back.

Nobody knew what happened. Some people said rogues. Ian said she ran because she knew she was a murderer. And just like that, I became an orphan.

The pack kept me out of obligation. And Ian—the boy who already hated me for my mother’s failure—now had me all to himself.

I hated him right back. With every fiber of my wolfless, cursed, unlucky body.

It was honestly depressing that after Ian finished the Academy program, he was going to run this pack. The elders were going to hand the keys to the kingdom to the cruelest person I’d ever met and the rest of us would just have to live with it.

My legs tensed, my body frozen between the choice of fleeing or fighting.

“I wouldn’t do this if I were you.” He walked toward me with lazy strides, his eyes raking my form with a disgusted look. “Traitors are punished cruelly. Did you forget?”

I took a step back. “I’m not a traitor.”

“No?” Another step. His boots barely made a sound while mine sounded like drums by comparison. “Let me guess, you’re just out here for the night air? With a packed bag? Past the patrol line?”

“I was taking a w-walk.”

“A walk.” He stopped right in front of me. “With luggage.”

“I like to be prepared.”

“You like to be stupid. But we both know that’s not new.” His tone remained condescending.

I squared my shoulders, meeting his icy stare. “What do you want, Ian?”

“What I want?” Something resembling amusement crinkled in his eyes. “What I want is to be literally anywhere else right now. Believe me, Mute, you’re not how I planned to spend my night. I was balls deep in something much better twenty minutes ago.”

My face burned at his crudeness.

“Fuck you.”

“You couldn’t handle it.” He smirked. “Now. Back to the matter at hand. Your little boyfriend found his real mate and what—you thought you’d just disappear?”

Something cold ripped through me. “How do you know about Nate?”

“I’m the Alpha of this pack. I know everything that happens in it. I knew your precious little boyfriend was going to find his mate tonight. I knew it wasn’t going to be you.” His head cocked with mockery. “I just didn’t expect you to be this pathetic about it.”

My eyes burned, the tears were building again. “You don’t know anything about me!”

“I know enough.” He sneered, stepping forward again. I stepped back until my back hit bark.

The tree trunk was cold and rough against my spine. I realized with a sinking, breathless clarity that I had nowhere left to go.

“Move!” I hissed at him.

“Or what?” He watched me the way you study something pinned under your shoe before deciding whether to press down. “You’ll do what, exactly? Cry at me? Glare? You’re the least threatening thing in this forest right now, and that includes the mushrooms.”

“Move, Ian!”

He reached out. Fast. Too fast for me to react. One second the bag was on my shoulder. The next it was in his fist.

“No—don’t!”

He didn’t unzip it. He ripped it and everything fell.

My clothes. The twenty dollars. And then—

My mother’s necklace.

“What are you doing?!” I dropped to my knees, grabbing the pendant first, scooping it out of the mud.

I glared up at him from the ground.

And Ian Nightshade looked down at me with those silver-grey eyes and his expression didn’t change. Not even a little. No guilt. No moment where his cruelty caught in his throat and he thought, maybe this is enough. Maybe she’s had enough.

I heard the sound of metal rustling. I saw the heavy links in his hands too late.

Old iron. The kind they used on prisoners. Mostly rogues.

This wasn’t a coincidence. Ian Nightshade came here with every intent of capturing me.

“What are you doing with t-that?” My voice faltered, my stomach dropping.

“What do you think?” He leaned downward, looming over me. “You tried to desert the pack. Treason has consequences.” He looked at me with those empty silver eyes. “Even for the Mute.”

“Ian—no!”

He grabbed my wrist.

“No, don’t!” I yanked it back. “I’m not a traitor!”

He grabbed it again, harder this time, his fingers clamping down like iron around the bone.

I thrashed. Pulled. Tried to wrench myself free with everything I had, which wasn’t much. He didn’t even strain. He just held me in place with one hand while the other brought the shackle up.

The iron closed around my wrist with a sound that made my stomach turn.

“Stop—p-please!” I choked out.

He didn’t stop.

His hand moved to my neck. I flinched, but his fingers found the collar piece of the chain and fastened it around my throat. The iron sat against my pulse, cold as death.

He stood and looked down at me. On my knees. Shackled. Collared. Mud on my jeans and he tugged.

Like he was leading livestock to the pen.

“Get up.”

My legs didn’t want to work.

He tugged again. Harder. The chain yanked against my throat and I gagged.

“I said get up, Muteblood. I won’t ask a third time.”

I got up. Not because I wanted to, but because the alternative was being dragged.

He walked and I followed.

The chain clinked between us with every step. He was walking too fast. My legs were much shorter and my feet kept catching on roots. I stumbled twice and the chain jerked against my throat and each time—he didn’t bother to slow down, as though whatever was attached to the other end of the chain wasn’t a person at all but something he was hauling to the dump.

We cleared the tree line and hit the main path toward the packhouse. And that’s when the stares started.

A couple sitting on the porch of one of the lower-rank houses saw us first. The girl’s mouth fell open. The guy stood up. Neither of them said anything, but their eyes followed us the whole way.

More faces appeared. I kept my eyes on the ground, watching my feet move, blinking back tears of shame.

I’d been the unlucky wolfless girl my whole life. But I had never been this. I had never been paraded through my own pack in chains like an animal.

Ian Nightshade had taken a lot of things from me over the years. My peace. My ability to walk through the packhouse without flinching. But tonight he took something new.

He took the last shred of dignity I didn’t even know I was still holding onto.

The pack dungeon was underneath the east wing of the packhouse. I’d never been down here before. I’d heard about it—everyone had—but hearing about it and standing in it were two very different things.

Two guards stood at the entrance. Big. Thick-necked, with faces that looked like they’d been carved from the same stone as the walls.

Ian shoved me forward. I stumbled and barely caught myself before hitting the ground.

“A traitor,” he said to the guards. “The council will decide her fate in the morning.”

“Ian, don’t!” I made one last attempt, hoping he still had even the slightest flicker of humanity left.

He tossed me a lazy disregarding stare. “Good night, Mute. Sleep tight. Don’t let the rats bite.”

And I was left alone in the dark.