로그인CHAPTER 96 MATTEO HELD BY TEETH Pain had layers. I discovered that sitting there. The first layer was physical, wrists bound too tight, shoulders screaming, spine aching from being forced upright for too long. The suppression wards crawled under my skin, a constant pressure that made my wolf snarl and recoil, like claws scraping glass inside my chest. One. The second layer was rage. That one burned hotter. It coiled in my gut, climbed my ribs, lodged in my throat until every breath felt like I was swallowing fire. I hadn’t stopped pulling against the restraints, not really. Even when my muscles shook and my hands went numb, even when the leather bit deep enough to draw blood, I kept testing them. Kept pushing. Kept reminding the room that I was still an Alpha. That Alessandro hadn’t won yet. But the third layer, the one that nearly broke me, was watching Marco fall apart in slow motion and being un
CHAPTER 95 CALLIE THE QUIET REALISATION Time didn’t move normally in that room. It stretched and warped, pulling tight around my ribs until every breath felt borrowed. The wards hummed softly, almost gently, as if they were alive and pleased with themselves. I sat bound in the same chair, muscles aching, wrists raw, but the pain had faded into something dull and distant. My body was still here. My mind kept drifting somewhere darker. Santiago’s breathing was uneven across from me. I focused on it without meaning to, counting the rise and fall of his chest because if I stopped, my thoughts went places I couldn’t survive. He looked worse now. The blood on his face had dried into dark streaks, his head tilting forward slightly as exhaustion dragged him down in waves. His wolf flickered weakly through the bond, a fragile presence that made my chest ache with every pulse. I hated that I couldn’t touch him. I hated
CHAPTER 94MARCOUNWANTED DECISIONSThe first thing I noticed was the quiet. Not the absence of sound, there was plenty of that. The wards hummed like a living thing, a low vibration that settled into my skull and refused to leave. Chains scraped when someone shifted. Santiago’s breathing was shallow and wrong. Callie’s muffled sobs kept tearing through me like glass. No, this was a different kind of quiet. It was the stillness that came right before something inside you snapped.I sat bound in the chair, shoulders pulled back by restraints that burned against my skin, my wrists numb where the metal bit too deep. My wolf paced inside me, frantic, claws shredding the inside of my chest, slamming against the suppression wards like it might break through sheer desperation alone. It didn’t. Nothing did.Across from me, Santiago sagged forward, blood drying dark against his skin. His head dipped, lifted, dipped again. Every time it did, panic
CHAPTER 93SANTIAGOWHEN THE BODY GIVES WAYPain had its own language. I learned that sometime between the second time my vision went white and the moment my knees finally gave out. Pain didn’t shout. It didn’t rush. It stayed. It layered itself carefully, deliberately, until it rewrote everything else, thought, memory, time, into something smaller and meaner. By the time they dragged me into the room, I wasn’t even sure my legs belonged to me anymore.Stone scraped my knees. Hard. Cold. The sound echoed too loudly in my skull, like the room wanted credit for my collapse. My wolf curled tighter, a sick, wounded thing pressed so deep inside me I barely felt him breathe. That scared me more than the blood loss. More than the way my ribs screamed every time I inhaled.The air here wasn’t neutral. It leaned. It pressed. It reminded you, constantly, that you were allowed to exist only because someone stronger hadn’t decided otherwise yet.
CHAPTER 92MATTEOASH IN THE LUNGSPain had a rhythm. I noticed it only after Alessandro left, after the door sealed and the wards flared brighter, after the silence settled so thick it pressed against my ears. Pain wasn’t just there, it pulsed. It rose and fell in time with the wards, with my heartbeat, with the shallow breathing of everyone else trapped in that room.It lived in my wrists first. Leather biting skin, circulation half-cut, nerves screaming every time my fingers twitched. Then my shoulders. My spine. My chest, where my wolf paced and slammed and snarled without sound, furious at being trapped, terrified of moving too much. But the worst of it was in my lungs.I kept my head bowed, eyes fixed on the stone floor, because if I lifted them too soon, I knew exactly what I’d see. Santiago. Bloody. Broken. Dragged in like a trophy. And Callie watching it happen. I didn’t trust myself to witness that again without losing cont
CHAPTER 91CALLIEWHAT REMAINSTime stopped meaning anything after that. Not because it truly froze, but because every second dragged itself forward like it was wounded, bleeding out slowly on the stone floor between us. The kind of time that didn’t move in hours or minutes, only in heartbeats and breaths and the ache in my wrists where the restraints rubbed raw.The wards never stopped humming. They pulsed low and steady, like a second heartbeat layered over my own, artificial and cruel. Every time my wolf shifted or stirred too loudly inside me, the sound sharpened, biting down until she whimpered and retreated again. It felt like being watched by the walls themselves, like the room was alert and waiting for weakness.We sat in silence for a long time. Not the peaceful kind. Not the kind that let you rest. This silence was heavy with unspoken fears, with things none of us dared say because saying them would make them real. I could
CHAPTER 85CALLIETHE WEIGHT BEFORE BREAKINGI knew something was different before anything actually changed. It wasn’t dramatic. No alarms. No shouting. No sudden shift in guards or doors slamming open. It was quieter than that, subtler. The kind of difference you only
CHAPTER 83MATTEOPATIENCE IN SHADOWSThe room felt smaller than its actual was. Like I was trapped. Cold stone walls, faint wards humming like restrained power, the air thick with scent markers and dominance I couldn’t quite ignore. My wolf snarled quietly inside
CHAPTER 82MARCOQUIET TEETH I paced the length of the room for what had to be the hundredth time, bare feet whispering over the polished floor before I turned sharply again, three steps short of the window. Always three. Muscle memory. Control. Or the illusion of it.My wolf hated this room. I co
CHAPTER 81CALLIE THE WEIGHT OF TEETH AND SILENCEBeing alone after Alessandro left was worse than being interrogated.At least when he was there, I knew where the danger was. It stood in front of me, wore a polite smile, and spoke in careful sentences. When he left, the danger became everything e







