chapter 2: sleepless daughter of a whore

Selena’s POV

They came for me before the sun was fully up.

I hadn’t slept. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the hall again — the laughter, the way my father’s face stayed empty while he hit me, the sound of the pack going back to their celebration like I had never been there. So when the dungeon door opened, I was already awake.

Two guards hauled me up by the arms. My body protested. Everything hurt.

“Where are you taking me?”

Neither of them answered.

They dragged me through the quiet corridors and straight into my father’s office. The room was already full. My father stood behind his desk. Two men I didn’t know stood near the wall. And in front of the desk, looking me up and down like he was checking livestock, was Alpha Blackthorn.

I had heard the stories. Everyone had. Women who went into his territory and came out broken, if they came out at all. The fact that he was here, this early, looking at me with open interest, made my stomach turn.

“There she is,” my father said.

Blackthorn stepped closer. He was a big man, broad, with the kind of face that had never learned how to look sorry.

“She’ll do,” he said.

I stared at my father. “Do for what?”

“A marriage.” He said it like he was discussing the weather. “He’s the only Alpha willing to take a wolfless girl. You should be grateful.”

For a second I thought I had misheard him.

“You want me to marry him?”

“It’s arranged.”

“He’s a rapist.” I looked straight at Blackthorn when I said it. “Everyone knows what you do to the women in your pack.”

Blackthorn’s hand moved so fast I barely saw it. The back of his palm cracked across my face and sent me stumbling into the chair behind me. Pain exploded through the side of my head that was already swollen from last night.

“You will speak to me with respect,” he said calmly.

I pushed myself upright, blood filling my mouth again. “I won’t marry you.”

My father came around the desk. “You don’t have a choice, Selena. You have nothing. No wolf. No rank. No pack after today. He is offering you a name and a roof. Take it.”

“I’d rather die.”

Blackthorn hit me again. Harder. The chair rocked. My vision flashed white.

“Sign the papers,” my father said. His voice had gone quiet in the way it always did when he was done pretending to be patient. “Sign them and this ends.”

“No.”

Blackthorn grabbed my jaw and forced my face up. “I’m only going to ask nicely once.”

I looked him dead in the eyes and said it again. “No.”

Something ugly passed across his face. He raised his hand for a third time.

I caught his wrist.

I don’t know how I did it. My body was running on pure spite and the last scraps of pride I had left. I caught his wrist with both hands and held on, nails digging in, and for a moment the whole room froze.

Blackthorn stared down at my hands like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Let go,” he said, voice low and dangerous.

I didn’t.

My father moved first. He wrenched me backward by the hair, breaking my grip, and shoved me toward the guards.

“Tie her to the chair.”

They didn’t hesitate. Rope bit into my already raw wrists as they bound me to the arms of the chair. I kept fighting until they tied my ankles too. By the time they stepped back I was breathing hard and the ropes were stained with fresh blood.

My father set a contract and a pen on the table in front of me.

“Sign.”

“No.”

Blackthorn crouched so we were eye level. Up close he smelled like iron and expensive oil. “You are making this harder than it needs to be.”

“Good.”

He hit me. Then again. Methodical, like he was driving a nail. My head snapped from side to side. Blood ran warm down my chin. Still the only word I had was the same one.

“No.”

Blackthorn stood up and looked at my father. Something passed between them — a silent agreement that made my skin crawl.

“She’ll break,” my father said.

“No,” Blackthorn replied. “She won’t.” He sounded almost interested now. “Untie her.”

The guards looked unsure.

“Untie her,” he repeated. “She’s not going to sign. Fine. We’ll do this the other way.”

The ropes came off. My hands tingled painfully as blood rushed back into them. I flexed my fingers and felt nothing but pins and needles.

“Put her in the transport,” Blackthorn told the guards. “We leave in ten minutes.”

They grabbed me again.

I had almost nothing left. My legs barely worked. My face felt like raw meat. But when I saw the black, windowless vehicle waiting in the yard, something in my chest went cold and final.

Not this.

Not him.

I planted my feet.

The guards pulled. I pulled back. For a second we just strained against each other. Then I remembered something Drake had taught me years ago, back when he still pretended to care — how to drop your weight and twist.

One arm came free.

I ran.

I didn’t pick a direction. I just ran. Across the yard, past the startled guards at the gate, toward the treeline at the back of the property. My lungs burned. My vision swam. Behind me I heard Blackthorn’s voice rise, calm and lethal.

“Bring her back. Every man who lets her leave this territory loses his head.”

Boots pounded the ground behind me.

I didn’t look back. I just kept running, bare feet slamming against the dirt, breath tearing in and out of my throat, the trees getting closer with every step.

For one wild second I thought I might actually make it.

Then a body slammed into me from the side and the ground came up hard.

The last thing I heard before the weight of the guards pinned me down was my own heartbeat roaring in my ears… and the slow, unhurried sound of Blackthorn walking toward us.