CHAPTER 2.

Ravenna’s POV.

I woke up to a strange pressure in my arms, a dull ache pulsing from my shoulders down to my wrists, and when I tried to move, nothing responded the way it should have. My hands were bound above me, the rope cutting into my skin, holding my weight from the chandelier fixed at the center of the room.

The position forced my shoulders tight, the strain building with every second I remained suspended there.

The air was cold, but my skin felt wrong—too warm, too aware.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, the first thing I realized was that I wasn’t alone.

Several men stood around me.

Watching.

Some leaned back casually, as if they had all the time in the world. Others looked at me with open interest, their expressions carrying a kind of anticipation that made my stomach twist.

One of them idly spun a blade between his fingers. Another adjusted a camera on a stand, humming under his breath like this was routine. The third simply stared, wide-eyed, as if waiting for something to begin.

Panic tightened around my chest before I could stop it.

“Please,” I said, my voice hoarse, barely steady. “Please let me go. I don’t know what this is. I haven’t done anything to you.”

One of them stepped forward, his gaze dragging slowly over me in a way that made my skin crawl. He tilted his head, amused.

“Let you go?” he repeated lightly. “After all we paid?”

My breath caught. “Paid? Paid for what? What are you talking about?”

A man with a long scar running down his jaw spoke from the side, his arms crossed, his smirk lazy. “Lucas made us a good offer. Said you’d be a fun one. Told us he needed you gone.”

For a second, I didn’t react.

The words didn’t land properly.

Lucas… wouldn’t—

“You’re lying,” I said, but even as the words left me, they felt thin. “He wouldn’t do this.”

“Then where is he?” the first man asked with a short laugh. “He’s not coming for you. He paid us days ago and told us to wait.”

Something inside me gave way quietly.

The tears came before I could stop them, hot and blinding, slipping down my cheeks as my body shook against the ropes. I had no wolf, no strength, nothing to fight with. Just my own weight pulling against the restraints, the burn in my shoulders growing sharper the longer I hung there.

“Please,” I tried again, forcing the words through the tightness in my throat. “I can pay you. I can get more than he gave you. Just let me go.”

They didn’t even consider it.

One of them stepped closer with a silver goblet, the liquid inside catching the faint light.

“Let’s start with this,” he said.

I turned my face away instinctively, pressing my lips together, but rough fingers gripped my jaw and forced me still. The liquid spilled into my mouth, bitter and thick, sliding down my throat before I could stop it. I coughed, choking, but most of it went down.

The taste clung.

“Good,” he muttered with a grin. “That’ll make things easier.”

“What did you give me?” I asked, panic rising fast now.

“Something to help you along,” he replied casually.

They moved around me again, adjusting things, speaking to each other like I wasn’t there, like I didn’t matter.

And then it started.

At first, it was subtle.

A shift.

My heartbeat picked up, uneven, too fast. Heat spread through my chest, then lower, moving in a way that didn’t feel natural, didn’t feel like mine.

My breathing grew shallow, my thoughts slipping out of place as my body reacted to something I couldn’t control.

“No…” I whispered, shaking my head, trying to fight it, but it only grew stronger.

Every sensation felt amplified, wrong, overwhelming. My skin felt too sensitive, my thoughts unfocused, the heat building until it became impossible to ignore.

I hated it.

I hated the way my body responded.

I hated that I couldn’t stop it.

“She’s reacting,” one of them said, stepping closer.

I pulled against the ropes again, desperate, ignoring the pain tearing through my arms as I tried to create any distance between us, but I had nothing. No strength. No wolf. Nothing to fight with.

I shut my eyes, bracing—

The door slammed open.

The sound cracked through the room so suddenly that everything stopped.

The men turned.

A figure stepped inside.

Tall. Broad. Still.

The shadows clung to him, but even through the haze in my mind, I felt it—the shift in the room, the way everything tightened around his presence. It wasn’t loud or aggressive.

It was controlled.

“Who are you?” one of them barked, already moving toward him.

The man didn’t answer. The rogues rushed him, but it ended before it really began. He moved with precision, each motion clean, decisive. One after another, they dropped, unable to keep up with something they clearly hadn’t expected. The sounds blurred together—movement, impact, bodies hitting the ground—but what stayed was the rhythm of it.

Effortless. Certain.

By the time it stopped, the room had gone quiet.

He turned to me.

I barely registered it when he cut me down. The sudden release sent a sharp rush through my arms, my legs giving out immediately, but he caught me before I hit the ground. I didn’t think. I just held on.

My fingers curled into his shirt as I pressed closer, burying my face against him, grounding myself in something solid, something real. He smelled clean—like rain, like forest, like something ancient and safe.

The scent wrapped around me, cutting through the heat burning under my skin, pulling me toward him in a way I couldn’t name and couldn’t fight. For a moment, it was the only thing that made sense.

“You’re safe,” he said, his voice low, steady.

He tried to pull back.

I tightened my grip. “No,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “Please… don’t leave me like this. Please… make it stop.”

My thoughts were slipping, the heat distorting everything, making it impossible to think clearly. But his scent stayed, sharp and steady, like something I could hold onto while everything else unraveled.

His body stilled.

“You’re not in control right now,” he said. “They drugged you.”

“I can’t…” The words came out uneven. “I can’t stop it. I don’t know what to do.”

There was a pause, and this time it stretched, heavy and deliberate. I felt it in the way his hand tightened slightly against my back before going still again, like he was holding himself in place.

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said quietly.

But I didn’t have anything else. The heat kept rising, blurring everything, and his scent only pulled me closer, steady and grounding in a way nothing else was. I leaned into him without thinking, my grip tightening, my body reacting faster than my thoughts could follow.

He didn’t move at first. For a moment, he stayed completely still, like he was forcing himself not to respond, like he was holding onto something by sheer control.

“This isn’t right,” he said under his breath.

The words lingered, but the moment didn’t break.

Something shifted.

His arms came around me, firmer this time, steady, grounding, and whatever restraint had been there gave way, not abruptly, but like something he could no longer hold in place.

The room faded. The pain, the ropes, the fear—all of it pulled back under the weight of it. The heat, the confusion, everything blurred together until nothing else made sense but the fact that he was there.

The last thing I heard, just before everything slipped away completely, was his voice, low and rough against my ear.

“You’re going to hate me for this.”

And then everything went dark.