Chapter 5

Lyrielle

Something was wrong. I could feel my limbs. Feel my head throbbing. Even my heart, however haggard it currently was, was still beating.

Opening my eyes, I was blinded by light. Unadulterated light. No shadows on the walls left by trees. No familiar sights or sounds.

Something was definitely wrong.

Maybe it was the realization of being rejected or the unsettling feeling that I wasn’t meant to be here, but whatever it was coiled around my stomach. Nausea had me upright in bed, inhaling deeply through my nose to try and calm myself.

All I could smell was salt. Waves of it. The air was too clean. Too crisp. My ears perked, and all I could hear was that unfamiliar hum I had heard last night-

Last night. Anguish gripped my chest to the point where I could barely breathe. Tears stung my eyes, and I clutched at the clothes I was in. Too tight. Constricting. I needed out. Away.

Jared! Cillian!

Another throb echoed through my skull, and I cried out through parched lips.

What had gone so horribly wrong? What had I done to anger them this much?

Somewhere on my right, a door burst open. Soft footsteps rushed toward me, but all I could do was stare at the satiny blanket draped over my legs. All I could feel was the terrible remnants of being tossed away.

“My lady, please, you need not strain yourself. Lie down. You are still frail, and the chef is still preparing your lunch,” a small voice said, drawing my eyes away from the satin and the pain.

I found a pair of brown eyes staring back at me. A girl somewhere close to my age. Beautiful hair and collarbones so pronounced I might as well have cut myself on them.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered and did as she asked me.

The ceiling was high and had intricate silver carvings in it. But I could barely make them out through the blur in my eyes.

“My lady, do you wish for me to send the Alphas? This is a distressing time, I’m sure, but I am not allowed to touch you for comfort,” The girl spoke again, and it was only then that I wiped the tears from my eyes.

The word Alphas sang through me for a brief second before my mind wiped it away. Irrelevant. Everything was irrelevant now. I had lost them. There was no point in breathing anymore.

Why had I even run in the first place?

My silence stretched on too long, I realized, when the girl cleared her throat. I lowered my gaze to her again just as I felt the bed dip slightly beneath her weight. “My lady,” she started, taking my hand in hers. “I know this must be confusing and upsetting for you. Surely you know the stories surrounding our masters, but I assure you, they are not nearly as frightful as they might seem. Please, just breathe for now. I will be back with your lunch and water soon enough.”

She skittered out of the room on hurried feet, her brows creasing just before she slipped through the door.

Stories? Masters? The words were supposed to spark something inside of me, but it didn’t. They collided with one another and evaporated into nothing but sorrow.

Whoever these masters, Alphas or whatever, were, they couldn’t put me through worse than I had already gone through.

Inhaling slowly, the salt stung my nose.

“Are you still alive in there?” I asked softly.

My wolf hummed in my mind, stretching out fully on her back. ‘We made it to safety, didn’t we? Besides, I am alive because you are. Stop asking such silly questions.’ She chided and snapped the bond between us shut.

So much for helping me survive, then.

Emptiness brewed at the edges of my mind. Years I had given myself to all of them and now I had nothing to show for it.

‘It is a miracle we made it out of that hell alive. Moping around about those idiots will do you no good. Get up and look where you are.’ My wolf snapped coldly again.

Anger blistered the bridge between us, and I was the one to snap the bond shut this time.

Who was she to mock me for this feeling? Wasn’t she supposed to mourn this loss with me?

Still, I sat up again slowly, this time taking stock of my surroundings. Beautifully draped curtains to my left that opened to a balcony. A vanity in front of the bed with a mirror large enough to show my entire frame, even if I got close. Lotions and potions of all kinds stood in front of it. White chiffon curtains around my bed that blew in the breeze coming in from the open balcony door. An off-white satin duvet.

Luxury at its finest.

It was breathtaking. Truly it was. But it wasn’t home.

Emptiness gnawed on my insides again, and I shuddered.

‘At least go out on the balcony so you can mourn with pretty surroundings,’ my wolf said, slipping through the barrier I had constructed.

“You seem to care more for the finer things in life than the fucking fact that we got rejected!” I seethed and grabbed the duvet with both hands. “But sure, let’s go look out of the fucking balcony. Maybe I’ll throw myself fucking over, if it’s tall enough.”

There was silence on her end, my anger clearly showing her that I was in no mood for her games. Teasing. We had lost everything! And she just… didn’t seem to care.

I padded to the balcony and hesitantly stepped through the doors. The sight before me was perfect. Breathtaking. An endless expanse of water below me. Forest to my left. Homes littered along tall walls.

Beautiful.

And to my luck, the balcony was indeed high enough that I could die on impact.

“Well, at least the goddess is kind to me this once,” I murmured, teetering dangerously close to the side of the balcony. There were people down there, as small as ants.

Perfect. It was, indeed, high enough.