3

Zeva’s POV

Three days blurred into an eternity. The dungeon was a pit carved out of stone, damp and cold, filled with the stench of mildew and rusted chains. I thought I would lose my mind long before I lost my body. Time didn’t move down here; it stretched and warped, melting into agony. My throat had dried into sandpaper, my lips cracked until blood crusted them.

Leah, my wolf, fought inside me like a cornered beast. Stay alive, she urged, though even her voice wavered with fatigue. We can’t die here, Zeva.

But I was dying. Slowly, brutally. Every bone in my body throbbed, every muscle shriveled under the cruelty of deprivation. My head spun until I couldn’t tell if I was awake or dreaming.

And yet, I wasn’t dead.

I wondered bitterly if that was Thalyn’s plan all along—not to kill me outright, but to unravel me piece by piece until I begged for death.

I was curled against the damp wall when I heard footsteps echoing, heavy and deliberate. My foggy mind barely registered them until the iron door screeched open, flooding the dungeon with flickering torchlight.

Two guards dragged something—or rather, someone—across the stone floor. The body landed with a sickening thud in front of me. My heart stopped when I saw her face.

“Kara!” My voice cracked, raw from disuse. My younger sister groaned, her delicate features twisted in pain. She couldn’t be here. Not her. Not my Kara.

The world narrowed to her trembling frame as I scrambled forward, ignoring the chains clattering around my wrists. “Please,” I begged, looking up as shadows filled the doorway.

Darian and Thalyn entered, dressed in ceremonial silk, looking every bit like royalty in this rotten place. Their smugness made bile rise in my throat.

“Leave her alone!” I shouted, shielding Kara with my own body.

Darian’s lips curled. “This isn’t about her. This is still about you.”

Thalyn stepped forward, her voice syrupy with cruelty. “Three days, Zeva. That was the deal. Accept the trade or pay the price. But we’ve decided to… raise the stakes.”

She crouched down, brushing a mocking finger against Kara’s cheek. My sister flinched. “Either you agree to go to Aric Veylor as his breeder bride,” Thalyn whispered, “or you watch your sweet sister bleed before your eyes.”

I froze.

The words cracked something deep inside me. My wolf, Leah, growled with feral rage, but even she faltered at the thought of Kara’s death.

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “Not her. Please, Thalyn, she has nothing to do with this.”

Thalyn’s eyes glittered. “Oh, but she has everything to do with it. You see, pain is only useful if it’s shared.”

Darian folded his arms, towering behind her like a dark sentinel. “Decide, Zeva. Your life or hers.”

I clutched Kara to me, my body trembling violently. For years, I’d defied every cruelty, spat back every insult, endured every lash of humiliation. But this—this was where my defiance broke. I couldn’t let Kara suffer for me.

Tears blurred my vision. My voice cracked as I forced the words out. “I’ll do it. I’ll go. I’ll take the trade.”

Kara whimpered behind me, but the guards yanked her back before I could hold her again.

Darian’s grin spread like poison. “Good girl.”

The chains were ripped from my wrists. For the first time in days, I felt air that wasn’t tainted with mold. But it was no victory. The noose around my neck had only tightened.

They didn’t even give me time to breathe before the preparations began.

I was led upstairs, my body half-dead, stumbling on weak legs. Omegas swarmed me like I was some doll to dress. Warm water filled the copper tub, steam curling in the chamber, and I sank into it with a hiss. The water stung my raw skin, but it was a luxury I hadn’t felt in years—or perhaps only days that felt like years.

Food followed: a bowl of broth, soft bread, meat that tasted like salvation on my tongue. Leah purred inside me as strength trickled back, though it was tainted with bitterness.

As the omegas brushed out my tangled hair and wrapped me in silk, I caught Thalyn leaning against the doorway, arms folded, eyes burning with triumphant mockery.

“Not too pretty,” she ordered the girls dressing me. “Remember, she’s going north to suffer, not to shine.”

Laughter echoed from the omegas, though uneasily. I didn’t react. My spirit was too hollow to waste on her taunts.

Still, one thought clawed free of my haze: “Kara comes with me.” My voice shook, but my gaze locked on Thalyn’s. “Wherever I go, she goes.”

Thalyn’s laugh was sharp as glass. “Do you truly think you can negotiate? Kara stays here, Zeva. You’ll bear Aric his heir first—then maybe we’ll consider returning her.”

“No—”

“Shut her up,” Thalyn snapped, and the omega girls froze me with a silencing look. My protests meant nothing. My words weighed less than air.

My heart cracked open. They weren’t just trading me—they were using my sister as a leash, binding me in chains stronger than steel.

The sound of trumpets cut through the hall. The herald’s voice rang clear: “Alpha Aric Veylor of the North has arrived!”

The air shifted instantly. The atmosphere grew taut with unease, as though even the walls recoiled.

My chest tightened. Every story I’d ever heard about the North’s Alpha spilled into my mind: tales of a ruthless warrior, a beast of blood and shadow, a man who turned rivers red with the blood of his enemies.

I was trembling as I walked downstairs to meet him.

And then I saw him.

Alpha Aric Veylor filled the doorway like a force of nature. He was taller than any wolf I had ever seen, his presence thick and suffocating, his shoulders broad and carved with power. His dark hair was cropped short, a jagged scar slashing across one brow, only amplifying the menace of his sharp, angled features.

But it was his eyes that stole my breath—storm-gray, cold as steel, merciless as winter.

Black tattoos curled down his muscled arms, intricate swirls of ancient runes and wolf sigils that marked him as more than just an Alpha. He was something primal, something feared.

Every instinct screamed at me to run. Leah crouched low in my chest, whimpering.

His gaze landed on me, pinning me in place. For a heartbeat, the world disappeared. There was no hall, no crowd, no Darian or Thalyn—only his storm-gray eyes burning into mine.

Heat crawled up my neck. Terror and something darker twisted inside me.

Alpha Aric had come for his bride.

And I was the sacrifice.