Chapter 13

SARA 

"Wake up! You have to eat Sara, you have to eat." Harlan came into my room carrying a food tray. "I came with what was served in the main house. It's better than what was served in the prisons." 

"I don't know Harlan, why are you helping me? Why are you going against your Alpha?" I asked weakly.

"I don't know, I've seen many killers in my life. I know one when I see one. I believe you didn't kill Claudia, and even if you did, I want to believe that there's an explanation for it." He explained and I just stared at him, it was good to find hope again. "I'm trying to convince Alpha Tristan to change his mind, but in the interim you'll have to find a way to hang in there, and that includes eating, so you'll have the strength to face whatever Alpha Tristan wants to throw at you." 

Just like Alpha Rune gave me a hope, this Harlan guy was giving me hope. "Thank you Harlan." I accepted the food he had brought.

The dawn did not bring light; it only brought a cold, grayish clarity to my misery. I was jolted from a shallow, feverish sleep by the sound of the iron bolt screaming across the door. Before my eyes could even adjust to the dim light of a torch, a heavy hand gripped the collar of my tunic and hauled me upward.

"Get up," Tristan’s voice commanded. It was a low, dangerous rumble that vibrated through my very bones. "The pack is waking. It’s time you began to earn the air you’re stealing."

I was half-dragged, half-marched through the twisting bowels of the pack house. My feet, bare and numb, slipped on the cold stone. We emerged into the central courtyard just as the first sliver of sun began to appear on the horizon. The air was biting, a frost still clinging to the edges of the floor.

In the center of the vast, open square sat a single wooden bucket filled with icy water and a small, stiff-bristled brush. There was no soap. No cleaning agent. Just frozen water and wood.

"Clean it," Alpha Tristan said, gesturing to the sprawling expanse of the courtyard. "Every inch of this stone must be spotless before the middle of the day."

"Tristan, I—I can barely stand," I whispered, my voice cracking. The wind was chilly and I desperately wished that he'd have mercy on me. The hunger strike had left me hollow, and the wolfsbane had stripped away the supernatural resilience that should have protected me from this chill. Without my wolf, I was just a girl in a thin rag, shivering in the wind.

"Posture, slave," he snapped, his hand connecting with my shoulder to shove me down toward the bucket. "You do not address me by name. You do not complain. You simply work. This is the courtyard where you once stood at Claudia’s side, pretending to be her friend. Now, you will learn your true place—at the feet of the people you betrayed."

I dropped to my knees, the impact sending a jolt of pain through my joints. I dipped the brush into the water; it was so cold it felt like plunging my hands into liquid needles and began to scrub. There was no need scrub a ground that cars and other automobiles run on, it was just wickedness but I didn't have a choice.

As the morning became brighter, the compound began to stir. I heard the windows of the upper floors opening, the sounds of the pack waking up. I kept my head down, focusing on the rhythmic skritch-skritch of the bristles against the granite, but I couldn't block out the eyes. 

"Is that her?" a woman’s voice drifted down from a balcony.

"Look at those hands," a man replied with a low chuckle. "She used to spend hours in the salon with Claudia. Now look at her. Pathetic."

They didn't speak to me. They spoke over me, as if I were a piece of landscaping, a curious new statue of shame.

Alpha Tristan paced around me, his boots clicking rhythmically. I was sure that nobody would would have noticed I was scrubbing the floor of He wasn't there. He had an engimatic presence that attracted lots of people. He began to speak, his voice raised just enough so that the growing crowd of onlookers could hear every word.

"Do you remember the Autumn Ball, Sara? You wore silk the color of the midnight sky. You walked through these halls as if you owned the very air. You were the daughter of a high-ranking lineage, the pride of the Lockwood family. Everyone thought you were destined for greatness."

I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper. Skritch. Skritch.

"And now?" Alpha Tristan’s shadow fell over me. "Now you are a murderer who failed her goddess. You are a reject who couldn't even keep her wolf. You are the dirt that these warriors walk upon."

As I finished a three-foot section of the stone, my knuckles raw and bleeding, Alpha Tristan signaled to a group of young men passing by.

"Kaelen," Alpha Tristan called out. "Walk through here. The stone looks a bit... dull."

 He was a member of Alpha Tristan's kitchen cabinet. He purposefully stomped his mud-caked boots directly onto the wet, scrubbed stone I had just finished. He ground his heel into the granite, twisting it until a thick smear of dark sludge covered the surface.

"Looks like you missed a spot, Sara," he said, his voice devoid of the respect it once held. "Do it again. Properly this time."

I looked up, my eyes burning with unshed tears. "Kaelen, please..." I wanted to cry but I had made a promise to myself, never to let him see my tears. He wanted to see me grovel and beg but I would not do that, I would not give him that satisfaction.

Alpha Tristan’s foot suddenly pressed down on the back of my neck, forcing my face inches from the muddy stone. "Eyes down. Silence is your only privilege. If he says it’s dirty, you scrub."

The morning was a blur of agony. My knees were bruised purple, and my fingernails were worn down to the quick. People I had once outranked—servants I had been kind to, junior wolves I had mentored—took turns walking across my work. They laughed softly, making comments about my "clumsy" technique.

One girl, a maid named Elara who used to bring me tea, stood over me with her arms crossed. "You’re slouching, slave. The Alpha expects a straight back even when you’re in the gutter. Redo the north corner. I saw a smudge."

I didn't argue. I couldn't. Every time I tried to sit back on my heels to catch my breath, Alpha Tristan was there, his voice a cold lash, reminding me of my worthlessness. He wasn't just making me clean; he was systematically peeling away every layer of the girl I used to be. He was showing the pack that the "Sara" they knew was a lie, and this broken, muddy thing on the floor was the only truth left.

By noon, my hands were shaking so violently I dropped the brush. I looked back at the courtyard. It was messier than when I had started. The dirt was thick, the water in my bucket was brown, and the stone was stained with my own blood.

That was when I realized the cleaning was impossible by design. The courtyard didn't need to be clean. The stones didn't matter. This was about the public erasure of my soul. I was the dirt he wanted to grind away.

When they finally dragged me back to my cell, I was shivering so hard my teeth clattered. I collapsed onto the thin, damp straw, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I wouldn't cry. I had promised myself I wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

The bolt slid back. I expected Harlan, but it was Yvonne. She stood in the doorway, looking down at me with a smile that was purely venomous.

"You look like a drowned rat, Sara," she purred, tapping her chin. "I heard the courtyard was a disaster today. Alpha Tristan is very disappointed. He was saying how Claudia would have been horrified to see what a clumsy, wretched creature you've become. You’re not even a wolf anymore. You’re just... meat."

She let out a sharp, tinkling laugh that echoed in the tiny cell. "Sleep well, slave. Tomorrow, we tackle the underground packing lot. I heard that place have not been clean all year."

She left, her footsteps fading down the hall. I stared at the wall, my eyes wide and dry, my heart a cold stone in my chest. "I didn't even have the strength for a reply."

A few minutes later, the door opened again, softly this time. Harlan stepped in, carrying a small tray with a piece of warm bread and a cup of clean water. He didn't say anything at first. He just sat on the edge of the low cot and set the tray down.

"Sara," he whispered, his voice cracking with a gentleness that felt like a physical blow. He reached out, his hand hovering over mine—my raw, bleeding, ruined hand. "I’m so sorry. I tried to stop him."

I looked at his face, seeing the genuine pity in his eyes, and the armor I had built around my heart violently shattered.

The first sob ripped out of my throat before I could stop it. It was a jagged, ugly sound. Then came the rest—years of rejection, the pain of the wolfsbane, the grief for Claudia, and the crushing humiliation of the morning. I curled into a ball, burying my face in my ruined hands, and I wept. I cried until I couldn't breathe, my body shaking with the force of my despair, while Harlan sat in the shadows, a silent witness to the final breaking of Sara Lockwood.