11

Melany’s POV - 6 years later

The floor was colder than it looked.

I knelt anyway, folding my skirt under my thighs so it wouldn’t soak completely through. The bucket sat to my left, water already gray from use. I dipped the cloth, wrung it out until my fingers ached, and pressed it to the wood.

Back and forth.

The boards were dark here, sticky in places. Old spills. Old nights. I leaned my weight into my arm and scrubbed harder, jaw tightening as my shoulder protested.

Swish!

Swish!

I pushed my hair off my forehead with the side of my hand. It clung to my skin, damp with sweat. Annoyed, I tucked it behind my ear, then rolled my sleeves up to my elbows so the fabric wouldn’t drag through the water again.

I was good at this now.

Cleaning. Scrubbing. Erasing.

The rhythm kept my thoughts from scattering.

I am not a witch. The words came easily, without bitterness. Just fact.

After I turned eighteen, I tried. Every spell I had ever overheard, every whispered ritual, every half-remembered charm that once made my heart race with hope. Candles. Symbols. Words spoken until my throat hurt.

Nothing happened.

Not once.

I never read another mind either. No whispers. No чужas thoughts crawling into my head. Just silence. Ordinary, human silence.

And the bruja, the woman from the forest... never returned.

I dragged the cloth along the baseboard, scraping dried residue from the corners. My knees burned now, skin numb and sore, but I adjusted my weight and kept going.

Swish!

Swish!

In the end, the truth was simple. I wasn’t cursed, I wasn’t chosen and I wasn’t special. Just a human girl raised by wolves who mistook desperation for destiny.

The capital of Atheon hummed outside the walls, distant but constant, voices, the faint metallic ring of the castle bells not far away. Too close. Always too close. The King’s shadow reached everywhere here, even into rooms like this.

I rinsed the cloth again. The water rippled, reflecting my face in broken pieces. I did not look too long.

Swish!

Swish!

Footsteps sounded behind me. I did not turn right away. I finished the line I was scrubbing, smoothing the wood until it gleamed damply, then straightened enough to ease the strain in my back.

Nora stopped in the doorway. Her eyes swept the room, quick and practiced. Corners. Tables. Floor. 

Me.

“Clean it well,” she said. Her voice was flat, businesslike. “We’ll have an auction tonight.”

I nodded once, lowered my gaze, and reached back into the water. “Yes,” I said.

Back and forth.

Swish!

Nora’s footsteps faded down the corridor, and I waited until the sound was gone before exhaling.

The cloth moved again, slow and steady. The water spread thin over the boards, catching the light from the lamps above. I dragged it once more, and the wood answered with a dull squelch, heavy with moisture.

When I pulled the rag back, the floor shone. Not clean — never clean — but smooth enough to reflect.

I paused.

The reflection wavered in the thin layer of water, my face broken into ripples. I leaned forward slightly, bracing one hand on the floor so I wouldn’t slip, and looked closer.

Green.

Ordinary green.

The eyes staring back at me belonged to a human girl. Those other eyes — the ones the bruja had touched, the ones that had once burned with something sharp and unnatural — had never returned.

Not in mirrors.

Not in water.

Not in dreams.

I lifted a hand and brushed my thumb beneath my eye, as if I could wipe away a lie that wasn’t there anymore. The reflection followed the movement exactly. 

Just me.

I straightened, the water trembling and breaking the image apart. The girl vanished into streaks of light and shadow.

Good.

I reached for the bucket again and went back to work, letting the sound of the cloth against the floor fill the space.

The door creaked.

I heard it before I saw him, the slow hinge, the heavier step that did not belong to the house. My hand paused mid-stroke. The cloth lay flat against the floor, water spreading in a thin, uneven line.

I did not look up right away.

Boots crossed the room, unhurried. Close enough that I could smell him... leather, sweat, something sharp underneath.

“I’ve got money,” the man said lightly, like he was sharing a secret. “Tell me… what do you get here?”

The boards reflected his shape beside mine, stretched and warped by the water. I saw the outline of his legs, the way he stopped too close.

“Food?” he went on. “A roof?” A pause. I felt it more than heard it, his gaze sliding over me. “No,” he said, amused. “Let me guess. Doesn’t look like there are blankets.”

My fingers tightened around the cloth. I drew it back, slow, keeping my eyes on the floor.

“I could offer you a house,” he said. “Walls. A door that locks. A place where you do not have to kneel like this.” He stepped closer. The water rippled. His reflection bent toward mine, crowding it.

I shifted my weight instinctively, knees pressing harder into the wood, one hand braced flat against the floor in case I needed to move.

Then heels clicked sharply against the boards.

“Enough.” Nora’s voice cut clean through the room. She stepped between us, blocking the reflection completely. The man stopped.

“Wait until the auction,” Nora said coolly. “You can touch my merchandise then, Nate.”

Silence followed.

I lowered my head again, lifted the cloth, and scrubbed.

Swish.

**

King Ravok POV

300 Years Ago

In the war between wolves and men, my father died in my arms. His stomach had been torn open by a silver blade and blood soaking into the mud while his breath grew shallow. 

His eyes lost their light before I could speak a single word, and in that moment, with my hands stained red, I swore vengeance.

I was king now.

That night, I entered the human containment fortress alone. They called it a prison, but it was more than that. Cause the walls pulsed with ancient runes that burned against my skin, silver dripped from hooks like holy water and every cursed corner reeked of scorched flesh.

A cathedral built to destroy my kind.

Humans hated wolves th,at much I knew. But witches were hated far more, because they had the power to take the place of the strongest wolf. They hoarded corrupted magic in caves and mountains, old and rotten power buried deep in the earth, magic no wolf could endure without breaking.

Still, I went on.

I could hear them, my pack and brothers, screaming in the dark.

Romeo, my Beta, stepped in front of me, pressing a hand against my chest. “you are not going in there alone,” he said, jaw clenched. “This place is crawling with traps.”

“There is no backup,” I snapped, shoving his arm away. “The humans either killed or captured everyone, and you damn well know it.”

He did not move. 

“do not ask me to sit here playing king while the rest of our pack rots in their hands,” I hissed. “Stay here and protect the women and pups. That’s an order.”

Romeo’s lips parted like he wanted to argue, but he did not. He just nodded, once, and stepped aside.

The iron door groaned as I forced it open with my shoulder, the hinges shrieking under the pressure. Inside, the darkness gave way to shapes. I found the first ones shackled in the northern wing: broken, barely conscious. Five of them, maybe six, piled in corners or hanging from chains bolted into the stone. 

I took a step forward, and the wet squelch beneath my boots told me the floor was soaked.

One of them was barely breathing, ribs exposed where the flesh had been torn away; Another hung limp from the ceiling, wrists bound by silver cuffs, arms stretched above his head so tightly his shoulders had long since dislocated; A third had no leg, just a shattered bone jutting out where it had been ripped away. 

My stomach twisted, not from weakness... but from rage.

I dropped to one knee beside a figure crumpled near the wall. His skin raw, his body shaking in small, involuntary spasms, his hair was matted with filth, and blood coated his lips.

“Arnon,” I said, brushing the grime from his face.

No response.