CHAPTER 3

The morning air in the central courtyard was biting cold, tasting of frost and mountain pine.

​They dragged me to the center of the stone square, where the heavy wooden whipping post stood embedded deep into the frozen earth. Chains of solid silver hung from the iron rings at the top, clanking with a dull, sickening ring as Guard Commander Garrett yanked my arms above my head.

​The cold silver bit viciously into my wrists, burning my skin on contact.

​"Kneel, Omega," Garrett barked, kicking the back of my knees.

​My legs gave out, the stone floor biting sharp through my thin gray trousers. I gritted my teeth, refusing to let out a cry.

​Around the perimeter of the square, dozens of pack members were gathering. Omegas, warriors, elders, and servants stood in silence. Some looked away in shame; others watched with cruel excitement. Standing on the high stone balcony overlooking the courtyard were the three triplet heirs—Malakai, Kieran, and Silas.

​Sienna stood right between Silas and Kieran, wearing a heavy mink fur cloak, her gloved fingers resting delicately on the stone railing. A victorious smile played across her painted red lips.

​"Thirty lashes for theft of the pack heirloom," Kieran’s voice boomed down from the balcony, cold and echoing across the quiet courtyard. "Let this serve as a warning to all who harbor treason in their blood."

​Garrett stepped up behind me, unfurling a thick leather whip studded with tiny silver hooks. He flexed his wrist, the leather snapping through the crisp air with a sound like a rifle shot.

​"One!" Garrett roared.

​CRACK!

​The heavy leather struck my back with brutal force, tearing straight through my gray maid linen. The silver hooks bit deep into my flesh, ripping away skin before tearing back out. Pain—blinding, white-hot, and absolute—erupted across my shoulders.

​I gasped, my back arching off the wooden post, my fingers twisting wildly inside the silver cuffs. The burn on my chest from Sienna's scalding tea throbbed in rhythm with the fresh blood spilling down my spine.

​"Two!"

​CRACK!

​Blood soaked through my uniform, warm and dark against the freezing stone. I bit my lower lip so hard the taste of iron filled my mouth. Do not scream, I told myself, staring at the frozen gravel beneath my knees. If you scream, she wins.

​Up on the balcony, Silas leaned against the railing, his dark eyes fixed on my trembling frame. Beside him, Malakai stood like a statue carved of dark granite, his jaw clenched so tight the muscle leaped under his skin. His obsidian eyes never left my face.

​"Ten!"

​CRACK!

​The world began to blur. The agonizing sting of the silver-studded whip was tearing away my strength bit by bit. My vision flickered, edge-red and dizzying. Sweat mixed with blood dripped down my forehead, stinging my eyes.

​Through the crowd, a frantic commotion broke out near the lower gates.

​"Aria! My baby! Stop this! Please, stop!"

​My heart seized. "Mom... no..." I choked out, my voice barely a raspy whisper.

​Helena shoved through the line of guards, her apron torn, her face pale with absolute terror. She threw herself toward the post, but two heavy guards caught her arms, shoving her violently back into the dirt.

​"She didn't do it! Check her hands! She is innocent!" Helena wept, reaching toward me from the dirt, her fingers clawing at the frozen ground. "Alpha Malakai! I beg of you! Take me instead! She cannot survive thirty lashes!"

​Up on the balcony, Malakai didn't move a muscle. His voice cut through the courtyard, flat and unyielding. "Restrain the female. If she interrupts again, double the sentence."

​"Mom, don't..." I gasped out, blood dripping from my chin. "Look away... please, Mom..."

​"Twenty!"

​CRACK!

​A guttural scream tore from my throat as the whip struck the exact same line of raw, shredded flesh on my back. My body sagged against the wooden post, held upright only by the silver chains biting into my torn wrists. My wolf, weak and suppressed for years under the weight of my father's dishonor, whimpered in the back of my mind, curling into a ball to die.

​Is this how it ends? I thought, my chest heaving with shallow, agonizing breaths. Beaten to death in the snow while they watch from their high towers?

​Garrett stepped closer, his heavy breathing loud in my ear. He raised the whip high for the final strike.

​"Twenty-nine!"

​CRACK!

​The impact snapped something deep within me. It wasn't a bone. It wasn't a tendon.

​It was a seal.

​Deep within the core of my soul, beneath the layers of suppression and humiliation, an ancient, dormant power cracked wide open. A sudden wave of intense, blinding heat flooded my veins, replacing the agonizing chill of the courtyard with liquid fire.

​My heart beat once—a deafening THUD that echoed inside my skull like a war drum.

​My vision cleared instantly, shifting from dull crimson to a brilliant, terrifying gold.

​"Thirty!" Garrett shouted, swinging the silver whip with all the strength in his broad shoulders.

​The whip whistled through the air, heading straight for my bloody neck.

​NO!

​A blinding pulse of golden light erupted from my chest.

​An invisible wave of raw, ancient pressure blasted outward from my body in a circular shockwave. The heavy leather whip was disintegrated into ash mid-air before it could touch my skin.

​Garrett let out a choked yell as the blast hit him square in the chest, lifting his heavy two-hundred-pound frame off his feet and throwing him ten yards backward across the stone courtyard. He slammed into the stone wall, unconscious before he hit the ground.

​The silver chains holding my wrists shattered into a hundred glowing fragments, dropping my arms.

​Silence fell over the entire courtyard—a quiet so absolute you could hear the frost falling from the trees.

​The guards froze, their swords half-drawn. The pack members shrank back in horror, staring at the center of the square.

​"Aria...?"

​A frail, trembling sob broke the dead silence.

​Through the frozen mist, my mother, Helena, was on her knees in the dirt where the guards had shoved her. Her hands were pressed over her mouth, her eyes wide with a mixture of utter disbelief, raw tears, and sheer, terrified awe. She stared at the blinding golden fire wreathing my body—recognizing the ancient, imperial light she had prayed never to see again.

​"By the Moon Goddess..." Helena whispered, her voice breaking in a choked weep as tears carved clean tracks through the dirt on her cheeks. "My sweet girl..."

​The guards around her shrank back in horror, scrambling backward in the snow away from both of us as if we carried a plague...

​I stood up slowly.

​My gray maid uniform was shredded and soaked in blood, but I didn't feel the cold anymore. I didn't feel the pain. The gold light flaring beneath my skin was knitting my flesh back together at an impossible speed, leaving smooth, unblemished skin where the whip had torn me open moments ago.

​I raised my head, locking my glowing golden eyes directly on the balcony.

​Sienna had taken two steps back, her face drained of all color, her hands trembling as she clutched Silas's arm.

​Silas was staring at me with wide, disbelieving eyes, his mouth slightly open. Beside him, Kieran had gripped the stone railing so hard the granite was cracking beneath his fingers.

​And Malakai... Malakai was leaning forward, his dark eyes wide, his chest rising and falling as he stared at the golden aura radiating from my body.

​The Solis Royal bloodline, my wolf roared back to life inside my head, her voice no longer a weak whimper, but the thunderous roar of an ancient queen. They tried to bury us. Now they will burn.

​I took a single step forward, the stone floor beneath my bare feet cracking under the weight of my newly awakened aura.

​Before I could take a second step, the sudden, overwhelming surge of royal power drained my physical body as fast as it had awakened. The gold light flickered out. The heat vanished.

​My knees buckled. Darkness swirled around the edges of my vision as my body gave out under the sheer strain.

​As I collapsed toward the icy cobblestones, I heard the sound of heavy boots vaulting over the balcony railing, followed by three loud impacts on the ground.

​A pair of strong, muscle-bound arms caught me an inch before I hit the stone.

​The scent of dark cedar, iron, and blood enveloped me. I looked up through heavy eyelids to see Malakai’s pale, panicked face staring down at me, his large hand cupping the back of my neck.

​"Aria!" he roared, his voice trembling with a emotion I had never heard in him before.

​Beside him, Silas and Kieran dropped to their knees in the snow, their eyes locked on my face as my world went completely black.