Chapter 2 – The Glass Prison

Raiden’s Pov

She fights like she has nothing to lose.

She keeps kicking, biting, and scratches with all her strength, but my wolf is bigger, and meaner, and it will not let her go. Inside my head, it keeps roaring the same word over and over again.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

I drag her through the dirt by her wrists. Her boots making long lines in the ground. Pack members come out of their cabins. Their eyes glowing yellow and gold in the dark. They can smell blood, fear, and something else, something that makes the mated wolves step back and lower their heads.

“Raiden.” Thorne runs up beside me, arms crossed. “What do you want us to...”

“The Moon Cell,” I growl. My voice is more animal than man right now. “Open it. Now.”

Thorne’s eyes go wide. “The Cell? For a human? Raiden, that’s...”

“Now.”

He shuts his mouth and runs ahead. We haven't opened that glass room in five years. Not since the last time I thought I'd found my mate. Not since I woke up with her blood on my hands and her heart no longer beating.

She twists hard, yanks one hand free, and drives her elbow into my ribs. I don’t feel it. My wolf is too busy drowning in her scent. Pine, steel, and something sweet that makes me crazy.

“Let me go!” she snarls. The sound shoots straight through my chest.

I lift her and throw her over my shoulder instead. She bites my back until blood runs warm down my skin. My wolf purrs like she just kissed me.

Fierce. Perfect. Ours.

“Keep biting,” I say, trying to sound cold even though my hands shake on her legs. “It won’t change what you are.”

“Your prisoner?” she spits.

“Mine.”

The word rips out of me before I can stop it. She goes still.

The Moon Cell stands in the middle of the compound, a round room with walls of clear, spelled glass and no roof, just moonlight pouring straight down. We built it for wolves who lost their minds, so the whole pack could watch and decide their fate.

It was never meant for a human like her.

I kick the door open and set her down, gently, even if every muscle in me wants to pin her to the wall and claim her right now. She stumbles back. Green eyes searching for any way out. But there is none.

“Silver chains,” I tell Thorne when he follows us in. “The strong ones.”

“Raiden,” he says quietly. “I can smell her on you. Is she really...”

“Chains. Bring them.”

He shakes his head and leaves. She watches him go, then turns to me. Up close I see an old scar across her collarbone, three long marks made by claws. Wolf claws.

“You’re going to chain me up like a dog?” Her voice is steady, but I can hear her heart racing.

I walk to the far side of the room. Fifteen feet feels like nothing. My fists close tight.

“The chains aren’t for you,” I say roughly. “They’re for me.”

She blinks. “What?”

More wolves gather outside the glass now. Kael pushes through the crowd. My best friend, my beta. He looks at her, looks at me, and his face goes white.

“No,” he whispers. “Tell me she isn’t...”

“She is.”

“Then kill her, Raiden!” His voice cracks. “After Elara, after Senna, you swore...”

“I know what I swore.”

Thorne comes back with the silver chains, pure silver, blessed by the priestesses, strong enough to hold an Alpha in full rage. I point to the iron rings in the floor.

“Put them on her,” I say. “Wrists and ankles. Leave enough slack so she can sit.”

She lifts her chin. “I’d rather die.”

“You might,” I answer, meeting her eyes. Something hot and wild sparks between us. “But not tonight.”

Thorne moves toward her. She fights hard, lands a kick that makes him grunt, but she is only human. The silver clicks shut around her wrists and ankles. The sound feels final.

She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t beg. She just stares at me with hate so strong it could light the forest on fire.

Good. Hate keeps her safe from me.

“What is this?” she asks, pulling at the chains. “You want everyone to watch before you kill me?”

“Protection,” I say. “From the pack. From Kael. From...” I stop.

From me.

Old Elder Voss steps forward, leaning on his staff. His yellow eyes look ancient and sad. “The Silver Blade has come,” he says softly.

“What did you call me?” she snaps.

Voss only looks at me. “You cannot fight fate, Alpha. Blood or bond. Nothing else.”

“I will find another way,” I say. Then I turn to the whole pack. “This woman came here to kill me. By our law she should die tonight.”

Growls of agreement ripple around the glass.

Kael steps closer. “Then let me do it...”

“But,” I say louder, and the growls stop. “She stays here until the next full moon. If she tells me who sent her, I will give her a quick death.”

It is a lie. My wolf would tear my own heart out before letting her die.

She laughs, cold and sharp. “No one sent me, wolf. Twelve years ago you burned my village to the ground. You killed my mother. You killed children in their beds. I came for revenge.”

The night goes dead quiet.

I stare at her. “What village?”

“Greyhaven.” She spits the name. “Your wolves wore your seal. They left no one alive.”

Ice runs through my blood. “I never gave that order.”

“Liar.” But her eyes flicker, just for a second. Maybe she wants to believe me.

“I will prove it,” I say quietly. “Give me until the full moon.”

“You have twenty-eight days,” she says, lifting her chin even with silver on her skin. “After that I kill you, guilty or not.”

The mate bond burns between us, hot and alive. My wolf claws at my ribs, begging to go to her, to break the chains, to make her mine forever.

Instead I turn and walk away.

Three steps out, her voice stops me cold.

“I’ll wear your chains, wolf,” she says, hate dripping from every word. My wolf loves it anyway. “But one day I’ll kill you with them.”

I don’t look back.

“Try, little assassin,” I say. “You can try.”

Behind me, the chains rattle once more. I hear her take a sharp breath, as the

bond pull at both of us like a second heartbeat.

Twenty eight days.

By then I will either be dead or lost forever.

Probably both.