Chapter 2

  Guilt is a slow, corrosive poison. It doesn't kill you all at once; it just sits in your chest, eating away at your marrow until you are nothing but an empty shell walking around in circles. For weeks after the execution of my family, the Bloodmoon pack made absolutely sure I swallowed a fresh dose of that poison every single day.

  It had been a month since Alpha Victor had snapped my father’s neck like a dry twig and ordered his warriors to slaughter my siblings right there in the center of the courtyard. A month since I was left out on the freezing, blood-soaked stones to mourn alone while the rest of the pack watched from their windows. The pack didn't look at me and see a grieving daughter or a broken sister, they saw a cursed omen. A parasite. To them, my family’s blood wasn't on Victor's hands it was on mine. They constantly reminded me of it, whispering behind their hands in the hallways, spitting on the floor whenever I passed. The cruel consensus was absolute: if I hadn't been so arrogant, if I hadn't dared defy the Alpha, my family would still be breathing.

  Even my wolf, Lillian, had gone completely silent. She was wrapped in her own heavy shroud of grief, curled up in the darkest corner of my mind, refusing to answer my mental calls. I was entirely alone in my own skin.

  "Fiona! If those steaks and meat pies are burnt, I'll have Lukas take another strip of skin right off your pathetic back!"

  Angela’s  voice cut through the fog of my thoughts like jagged, broken glass. The Beta's mate was vicious on a normal day, but her current pregnancy seemed to have magnified her malice tenfold and brought out her evil side, turning her into a monster who took physical pleasure in my torment. Just an hour ago, she had taken a plate of mouth-watering pancakes I had spent half the morning precisely preparing, sneered at them, and tossed them directly into the waste bin for no good reasons at all. Then she demanded a completely different, complicated meal from scratch, purely to watch me struggle on my trembling legs.

  I blinked through the thick curtain of sweat and unshed tears stinging my eyes, forcing my numb, aching fingers to keep kneading the heavy dough. But the heavy weight of my grief distracted me for only a second. A sharp, acrid scent suddenly cut through the air.

  Panic seized my chest. The pie’s  filling was scorching on the cooker.

  Without thinking, driven by pure survival instinct to avoid another beating, I reached out and grabbed the bare metal handles of the blistering copper pot. The searing heat tore through my palms instantly. I let out a sharp gasp of agony, my reflexes forcing me to drop the pot with a deafening, metallic clatter. Hot, blackened meat and scalding grease spilled across the stone floor, splattering against my shins.

  Before I could even register the agonizing burns blistering my hands, a brutal, heavy blow struck the back of my shoulder, completely shattering my balance and sending me crashing down. My face slammed directly into the hot, overturned metal of the pot.

  I screamed—a raw, unbridled sound of pure agony that echoed off the cold kitchen walls as the scorching copper cooked the sensitive skin of my cheek.

  "You worthless, clumsy bitch!"

  Angela’s  hand fist-fucked violently into my hair, ripping my face away from the burning metal only to force my head down, making me stare at the ruined, smoking food. "What the hell is wrong with you? Aside from spreading your legs for the pack warriors, are you good for absolutely anything at all?"

  "Let... let me go, Angela," I choked out, my voice cracking as I clawed weakly and uselessly at her iron-tight wrists.

  "How dare you speak back to me!" She brought her free hand down, slapping me hard across my freshly burnt cheek. It was a sickening crack that made the entire kitchen spin, dark spots bursting across my vision. "Do you have any idea how expensive those imported ingredients were? Just wait until Victor returns from his trip. He’ll gladly lock you back in the dark for wasting pack resources."

  With a disgusted grunt, she shoved my head back down. I landed face-first into the spilled, greasy filling, the hot meat sticking to my open wounds.

  Deep inside the frozen depths of my subconscious, a low, lethal snarl finally broke the weeks of silence. Let me handle this pregnant parasite, Lillian growled my wolf, her deep grief instantly morphing into a blinding, feral rage.

  Lillian, no! She's carrying the Beta's pup! I pleaded frantically in my mind, but the barrier had already snapped.

  The accumulated trauma of the past month completely broke. Lillian forced her way to the surface, seizing control of my body. I felt my canines extend past my lips, thick claws ripping through the tips of my fingernails. With an unholy, guttural growl that didn't sound human, I lunged upward, tackling Angela and pinning her wide-eyed, terrified body flat against the kitchen floor.

  I raised my clawed hand high, the silver of her jewelry reflecting in my vision, ready to paint the stones with her blood—

  Suddenly, a massive, crushing weight slammed directly into my ribs from the side. I flew clean across the kitchen, my body crashing violently into the solid brick wall before sliding down into the dirt. The impact rattled my spine, knocking every pocket of air from my lungs. Before I could even attempt to stand, the suffocating, crushing pressure of a high-ranking Alpha-line aura crashed over the room, pinning me to the floor like an invisible anvil.

  Beta lukas stood in the doorway, his chest heaving, his eyes glowing a feral, dangerous amber.

  "I... I think she hurt the baby!" Angela wailed hysterically from the floor, clutching her stomach in a pathetic, exaggerated display. "Lukas, look at her! She tried to kill our child! She's a monster!"

  Luka’s  fury exploded. He crossed the room in two massive strides, reaching down to snatch me up by the throat with one hand, his thick claws sinking deep into my collarbone. "How dare you lay a single hand on my mate?"

  Before I could even draw a breath to answer, his free fist struck my jaw with the force of a battering ram.

  "I will break you into pieces before the Alpha even returns," Lukas boomed, his voice vibrating through my skull. He didn't bother letting me walk. He dragged me out of the kitchen by my hair, my bruised body scraping mercilessly against the stone corridor. The pack members gathered in the hallway to watch the spectacle, laughing, jeering, and spitting on my bloodied clothes as I was dragged past them.

  He didn't take me to the standard pack cells. He dragged me across the muddy courtyard and threw me down into the rogue torture pavilion—a place reserved for spies and traitors.

  He threw me hard against the base of a high iron frame where heavy, silver-plated shackles dangled from the top bar. Slipping on a pair of thick leather gloves to protect himself, Lukas grabbed my raw wrists and snapped the heavy silver cuffs shut.

  The reaction was instantaneous and horrific. A agonizing, high-pitched shriek ripped from my throat as the pure silver began to cook my flesh on contact, sending thick veins of black, burning agony shooting straight up my arms and into my chest.

  "Let's see how tough you are without your wolf to shield you," Lukas sneered, walking over to the wall to pick up a heavy leather whip lined with jagged silver spikes.

  For the next hour, the isolated pavilion echoed with the sickening sound of tearing flesh and my muffled groans. I bit my lips until they bled into my chin, desperately refusing to give him the twisted satisfaction of begging for mercy. Deep down, Lillian fought against the silver restriction, throwing every ounce of her fading energy into slowly knitting the edges of my open wounds together, trying to keep me from bleeding out on the dirt.

  Lukas noticed the sluggish, stubborn healing of my skin and stopped, his chest heaving as his eyes narrowed into slits. "You really think you're unbreakable, don't you, Fiona?"

  He dropped the whip and walked over to a tray of cold surgical tools, picking up a heavy glass syringe filled with a dark, glowing amber liquid. It was a concentrated lethal dose of wolfsbane mixed with liquid silver.

  "No... please," I whispered, the very last remnants of my strength fading as real, primitive terror gripped my chest.

  Lukas smirked coldly, showing his teeth, and plunged the heavy needle deep into my thigh.

  A agonizing, violent convulsion racked my entire body. The burning poison flooded my veins like liquid acid, completely and brutally severing my connection to my wolf. Lillian vanished into the black void of my mind with a faint, painful whimper, leaving me entirely human. Entirely defenseless.

  "That's much better," Lukas whispered, his voice sounding distant through the ringing in my ears. He picked up a serrated hunting knife from the tray. "Alpha Victor should have gotten rid of you a long, long time ago. You are nothing but a wretched curse on this pack."

  He pressed the jagged blade deep into my side, dragging it down in a slow, agonizing line, carving cruel words into my exposed skin that I was too weak and blind to read. The pain was overwhelming, a white-hot fog that pulled the darkness closer and closer to the edges of my mind.

  "Please..." I sobbed, my spirit finally breaking entirely under the weight of the silver poison. "Please, Lukas... stop... I beg you..."

  "Now the little butch begs," he laughed darkly, pulling the blade out with a sickening, wet twist. He unlocked the cuffs, and without the support of the chains, I collapsed into a pathetic, bloodied heap on the dirt floor. Before turning away, he delivered one final, crushing kick directly to my fractured ribs. "Get up, clean yourself, and make sure my mate’s dinner is served exactly on time. If she complains about your attitude again, I won't stop next time."

  It took me hours of agonizing effort just to crawl back across the courtyard to the pack-house.

  Without Lillian's passive healing, every single microscopic movement felt like a knife twisting in my joints. I dragged my broken body through the back entrance of the kitchens, enduring the loud, mocking laughter of the low-ranking warriors who watched me stumble. I had to move with agonizing care, wiping the sweat from my brow just to keep my own blood from dripping into the food I was being forced to prepare for the people who hated me.

  By nightfall, I stood trembling in the doorway of Nora’s lavish quarters, my hands shaking violently as I held a freshly prepared bowl of hot broth.

  She took one look at the steam rising from the bowl and flung the scalding porcelain dish directly at my head. I ducked by instinct, and the bowl shattered against the stone wall behind me, splashing hot liquid over my hair.

  "It smells like absolute filth! Just like you!" she screamed, pointing a manicured finger at the door. "Get the hell out of my sight, you wretched, cursed whore!"

  I didn't say a single word. I simply turned on my heel and practically stumbled out of the room, desperate to escape down the corridor before Lukas could return and find a reason to drag me back to the pavilion. I cleaned the disaster in the kitchen in a complete daze, my mind entirely numb to the insults of the passing wolves, clinging desperately to the only sliver of comfort I had left in this entire world.

  Toby.

  Toby was a low-ranking Omega, a sweet, quiet boy with soft eyes who had been assigned to the grueling task of washing the pack's heavy linens. He was the only living soul in the entire Bloodmoon pack who hadn't turned his back on me after the massacre. While the others threw stones and names at me, Toby would secretly leave extra clean bandages hidden in the pantry corners, or whisper quiet words of encouragement when the guards weren't looking. He was my only friend. My only anchor to reality.

  Exhausted, bleeding through my clothes, and trembling violently from the residual effects of the wolfsbane running through my blood, I made my slow way down the dark, creaking wooden stairs to the sub-basement where the Omegas slept. I had managed to pocket a few stale scraps of bread from the kitchen counter, eager to share them with him in the quiet of the dark.

  "Toby?" I whispered into the shadows, pushing the heavy wooden door open with my bruised shoulder. "Toby, wake up, I brought—"

  The words died instantly in my throat. The dry bread slipped from my numb, blistered fingers, hitting the dusty floorboards with a dull, hollow thud.