CHAPTER 3

Days had passed since I last saw Axel. I knew he was avoiding me. What was odd was that Julietta had been giving me smug looks for the past few days.

The implication made my heart hurt. Was she somehow seeing Axel when I couldn't? Did Axel decide that he didn't want me, and would much rather be with Julietta?

Just as I wondered if I would find him if I went to the pack house now, Julietta barged into my bedroom without knocking.

"What's your problem?" I snapped at her.

She rolled her eyes and gave me another one of her smug smiles.

"Dad and Mom want to see you. Now."

"What's it about?" I asked. "I already told them I'm not marrying—"

She rolled her eyes again and turned away, sashaying out of the room.

"Ugh. You always feel sorry for yourself. It's boring. Dad's in the basement. You better come see what he wants."

She didn't even shut the door behind her. I heard her go down into the basement, before I sighed and followed.

What did they want now? It seemed to me that they thought up different ways to make me miserable every single day.

When I got to the basement, Julietta and my parents were there, but there was also a stranger.

The woman was dressed oddly, with numerous beaded bangles and necklaces adorning her. There was a somewhat tattered shawl wrapped around her head and shoulders.

"Shut the door behind you," Dad ordered when he saw me.

I did as he asked, then looked around. There was a chair in the middle of the room, and everyone was just standing there, staring at me.

My skin began to crawl, and warning bells rang through my mind.

"What's happening?" I asked.

"Sit," Dad told me.

"Why? Who is she?" I pointed to the stranger.

"That's none of your concern," he said, sounding annoyed. "I told you to sit."

I shook my head and took a step back. "I'm not sitting. Not until you tell me what's going on."

"We found a solution for your sister's condition," Mom finally spoke up. "We need your help."

"My help?" I took another step back. "And what condition are you talking about? Julietta isn't sick or...oh." My eyes widened. "You found a way to give her a wolf? How?"

"Just sit!"

"No!"

Someone shoved me from behind and I stumbled and fell right in front of the chair. Julietta.

I tried to scramble to my feet, but Dad simply yanked me into the chair.

In all my life, he had never laid a hand on me, but now, he did.

I opened my mouth to scream, and he backhanded me across the face.

"Shut it."

"Stop!" I struggled against his hands, but I was no match for him. "What's going on? Stop!"

I heard the sound of metal a second before I saw the long silver chain in Julietta's hands.

She smiled. "This will only hurt for a while, and then you won't feel anything."

With Dad holding me down, she began to wrap the silver chain around me, chaining me to the chair. My skin burned wherever the skin touched me. I screamed.

Since she had no wolf, the silver couldn't hurt her, but to me, it felt like hell.

"What are you doing?! Dad? Mom!" I cried, straining to get out of the chair.

"Gosh, Iris. Don't be so dramatic. This is all for your sister. You're helping her. After this, her place as your father's heir can never be contested."

"But what does it have to do with me?" I sobbed.

Mom smiled, just as the stranger stepped forward and began to sprinkle herbs in a circle around me.

"You'll see."

After the circle of herbs was complete, the stranger snapped her fingers, and the basement went dark. Candles I hadn't seen before flickered to life.

She was a witch.

"You need to escape," a weak voice said from within me.

My wolf.

"What are they going to do to us?" I asked her.

"They're going to—"

The witch placed a hand on my head, and my wolf screamed.

Her touch was searing hot. She began to chant in a foreign language.

What I felt started as a slight tug that grew in strength and pressure until it felt like someone was yanking on my insides.

I screamed from the pain, but the witch just kept chanting, never breaking her pace.

"No!"

Between me and my wolf, I didn't know who screamed. But I realized what was happening.

She was being taken from me.

Rituals like this were banned. They were illegal. To rip someone's wolf away from them was cruel and evil...and that my parents would do this to me...

I was in hell. It was like my mind and my soul were being torn in half.

Sweat and tears poured from my body, and I kept screaming and struggling until I could no longer move.

After what felt like hours, the chanting stopped, and the witch removed her hand from my head.

I felt empty. Broken.

I tried to reach for my wolf, but felt only absence. There was a gaping hole in my mind.

And what's worse, the silver no longer burned. I was no longer a wolf.

I couldn't breathe. I was imploding, collapsing under the weight of emptiness.

"It is done," I heard the witch say to my parents.

"Julietta?"

I couldn't even muster the strength to look up at what was happening. I could only listen as Julietta got in the circle with me, and went down on her knees.

The witch began to chant again, and Julietta screamed once, then collapsed.

The chanting stopped.

"Is she okay?" Mom asked worriedly.

"It will take her some time to get used to her new wolf," the witch said. "Make sure she gets lots of rest."

"Come with me so you can receive your payment," Dad said, already stepping towards the door.

I listened as they left, leaving Julietta and Mom next to me.

Mom undid the chain binding me to the chair, and I collapsed to the floor, unable to hold myself up.

When I looked up at her, I could barely see. My vision was blurry. All my other senses were dulled since I no longer had a wolf.

Mom was helping Julietta to her feet.

"W-why?" I asked in a broken voice.

"What does it matter?" She asked me. "You'll be dead in a few weeks anyways, when you marry Cassian Stone. It doesn't seem right to waste your wolf when your sister needs one."

"So... You know Cassian is going to kill me...but you'd let me marry him?"

"Don't be dramatic," Mom said, scooping Julietta into her arms and carrying her up the stairs. "You should be happy for your sister. She'll be the alpha this pack needs. Come upstairs for dinner when you're done crying."

She shut the door, leaving me on the floor, broken in ways none of them could imagine.