1. The Tribute

Adeline's POV

"Addie…" Teagan whispered as tears slipped down her cheeks. "What is he going to do to us?"

Her fingers were wrapped so tightly around my arm that I could feel each tremor running through them. I knew they'd leave bruises behind, but I didn't have the heart to pull away. She needed something to hold on to, and right now, I was all she had.

"Please tell me he isn't going to hurt us."

I wanted to tell her no. I wanted to look her in the eyes and promise her that we'd walk out of this room together, that we'd go home and forget any of this had ever happened.

But the lie wouldn't come.

I looked around the room instead.

Hundreds of women were packed together on the cold stone floor, all dressed in the same thin white nightgowns. Some were crying into their hands. Others whispered prayers beneath their breath, their voices barely audible over the occasional sob. A few had gone completely silent, staring at the soldiers stationed along the walls.

No one was trying to escape anymore.

No one was asking when they could go home.

Whatever hope we'd carried through those doors thirty-six hours ago had been slowly beaten out of us, one hour at a time.

Teagan followed my gaze, then looked back at me.

"Adeline," she whispered again. "Say something, please!"

The desperation in her voice nearly broke me.

I glanced at my best friend Sam, silently begging her to step in and save me from having to answer. If anyone could convince Teagan that everything would be okay, it was her.

"Sam?" I called softly.

She didn't even look at me.

My gaze followed hers to the peeling wallpaper across the room. She was staring straight through it, like she wasn't really there.

"I heard he lets the Alphas hunt you."

The voice came from somewhere behind me.

I turned.

Mirabel was sitting a few feet away with her back pressed against the wall and her knees drawn to her chest. I knew her from the pack, though we'd never been friends. She'd always kept to herself, and until now, I couldn't remember the last time she'd spoken to me.

"What did you say?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes.

"The Hunt," she said, as if I were an idiot for not understanding. "That's what they brought us here for."

"The Hunt?" Teagan asked. Her voice came out smaller than before. "What's that?"

Mirabel looked at her for a moment, then shrugged.

"It's one of the Lycan King's traditions," she said. "He takes the female prisoners, releases them into the woods around his fortress, and gives the alphas a chance to bet on who they'll catch first. Then they let them loose after us."

Teagan's eyes filled with tears.

"And they just... hunt us?" she whispered.

"What did you think the word meant?"

A tear slipped down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand, but more followed.

"And if they catch us?"

"Then you're theirs. The alpha who catches you can do whatever he wants with you. However he wants. For as long as he wants. And nobody's going to stop him."

Teagan broke down, pressing her free hand over her mouth to muffle the sob that escaped her.

"Mirabel," I hissed. "Stop."

"Why?" she shot back. "She asked. I'm just answering the questions nobody else has the guts to answer."

"Those are just rumors," I snapped. "People tell those stories to scare everyone into obeying the Lycan King. None of us actually know if they're true."

Mirabel stared at me for a moment before letting out a short, humorless laugh.

"Right. Because apparently they dragged us across half the kingdom, stripped us and dressed us in these ridiculous little nightgowns for fun."

She glanced around the room.

"Maybe there's a welcoming banquet waiting for us behind those doors."

Her words settled heavily in my chest.

Everyone had heard the stories about the Lycan King.

Whenever he conquered a pack, the defeated Alpha was forced to offer tribute. The tribute wasn't gold, land, or anything else a king would normally demand.

It was people.

And the Lycan King only ever demanded women.

No one knew why.

No one knew what happened to them once they crossed into his territory. Not a single woman taken as tribute had ever returned to tell the tale.

There were plenty of stories about what happened to them. Some said he locked the women in underground cells and forced them to bear pups for his endless army. Others claimed they spent their short lives scrubbing floors and breaking their backs under the whip until they dropped dead from exhaustion.

But the story that had always terrified me most was the one Mirabel had just described.

The Hunt.

Before today, it had been nothing more than a whispered story. Something frightened pack members talked about after dark, always lowering their voices as though saying it too loudly might summon the Lycan King himself.

Sitting here now, I wasn't so sure.

"What is going to happen to us, then?" Teagan sobbed.

"Only the Moon Goddess knows that," Mirabel muttered. "I hope she's feeling generous tonight."

I almost laughed.

Fuck the Moon Goddess.

She hadn't done a damn thing for me in twenty-three years, so why would she start now?

If anything, she was the reason I was sitting here in the first place.

She was the one who had cursed me from birth with a body too weak to ever shift. While everyone else heard the voice of their wolf and celebrated their first transformation, I remained trapped inside a body that refused to cooperate.

Being wolfless meant being weak.

And being weak meant being a burden.

I'd spent my entire life watching the disappointment in people's eyes whenever they looked at me. The sympathy. The judgment. The unspoken question of why someone as useless as me had been allowed to remain in the pack at all.

So when our alpha chose me as tribute, I couldn't even bring myself to hate him for it.

At least he was honest.

Honest enough to admit what everyone else had been thinking for years. That I wasn't worth protecting when there were stronger people to save. A wolfless girl with a sick body and no future was an easy sacrifice.

The soldiers lining the walls suddenly snapped to attention. One of them, a massive man with a scar across his lip, stepped toward our section.

"On your knees."

His voice wasn't loud, but it carried across the room with enough authority to make everyone freeze.

"Eyes down. Nobody speaks. Nobody moves." He let his gaze travel over us slowly. "If I see you looking up, you'll regret it."

The sound of bodies hitting the floor filled the room and disappeared just as quickly.

I kept my eyes fixed on the dirty floor between my knees and took a shaky breath.

This was it.

The moment we'd all been dreading since they dragged us here.