CHAPTER 6

Cold , that was all I felt. I lay on that stone floor for what felt like endless hours. My chest had stopped hurting after a while, but my breathing never returned to normal. So I just lay there, drawing heavy, uneven breaths as tears occasionally rolled down my face and pooled beneath me.

Was this my life now?

I guess it was, this repetitive torture that I was sure would drive me insane soon enough.

Even my thoughts refused to obey me. They wandered back to my pack… to him. My heart ached at even the faintest memory, so I tried pushing it all away. Tried, that was the key word. No matter how hard I fought it, I always failed. I wondered how they were coping. How their perception of me — Julian had changed. Did they now see only a murderer when they thought of me?

It hurt to think about, yes, but at least they were safe. That was what mattered. My life might be over, but theirs had to go on. Me and the Men of Shadows , we had brought this upon ourselves. I was serving my punishment now, but I was certain theirs would come eventually, one way or another. And if by some miracle they escaped it… I would make sure they didn’t.

If I ever got out of here, I would hunt them down and drag them out of their shadows for the life they ruined, for how they used me as their pawn, for how they tore me away from everything and everyone I loved. I would never let it slide. If I survived this, vengeance would be the only thing keeping me alive.

I shuffled on the floor after what felt like weeks months though it was probably just a few weeks . Part of me expected guards to show up with food, until it finally hit me: this prison was self-sufficient. Solitude had begun to eat at my mind; how could I forget something so basic about this place?

I raised my head from where it had been resting and instantly regretted it. My face brushed against dried blood on the wall, and my stomach turned violently. The image flashed through my mind , my hand piercing through the Elder’s chest, warm blood splattering across my face.

A strangled sound tore from my throat as I scrambled backward toward the cell door, my breathing growing heavier. My knees folded to my chest as I tried, and failed, to calm myself down. The screams , their screams — echoed in my ears, relentless. I pressed my hands over them, but it didn’t help. The torture wasn’t physical anymore. It was in my head ,inescapable.

I don’t know how long I sat there, fighting for every breath, before a voice broke through the silence. My head snapped toward the sound, instinctively on guard.

Someone was here.

Were they sent to finish me off? It wouldn’t be a surprise. The last time I remembered, there weren’t any other cells down here. So maybe this was it, they were going to end me quietly, just like I had ended the Elders.

But then I heard something strange — a conversation.

“He really is alive,” a calm voice said, so soft and steady that it sent chills down my spine.

“I told you he was,” another voice feminine this time replied.

“It shouldn’t be surprising I thought otherwise, Raven,” the first voice returned, still calm, unnervingly so. “But how is it that he hasn’t moved or spoken in months, hm?”

“Months for you,” a third voice joined in —darker, heavier, yet carrying something else underneath that darkness. Something I recognized too well.

Guilt.

I froze. Whoever they were, they didn’t sound like executioners. But if they weren’t here to kill me, then who the hell were they? How had I not sensed them before? Were their cells hidden, or was I so lost in self-pity that I’d missed them completely?

Some Beta I was.

“Who are you?” I rasped, my voice sounding foreign even to me.

“Oh, he talks,” the calm voice mocked as metal rattled — he had hit his cell door. “I was beginning to think you were deaf or dumb, boy.”

I blinked through the dim light and finally saw him step out from the shadows. His cell was directly across from mine. How had I not noticed that? Something was wrong here.

“Stop being so dramatic, Lucian,” the woman Raven spoke again, her tone softer.

My eyes followed her voice until they landed on her. Then, another figure appeared in the cell beside her.

“We’re prisoners, just like you,” the third voice said with a low chuckle.

A chuckle. In a place like this. What was funny about any of this? My eyes flickered between them all.

“We mean no harm,” Raven said gently. “We were just worried , you haven’t moved or spoken since you arrived.”

“You were the only one worried Raven” Lucian snorted. “I was betting on whether he was dead or alive.”

“You don’t even have any money,” the dark-voiced man muttered, leaning lazily against his cell door.

“You don’t need money to bet, our Dark Lord Damon,” Lucian replied with a twisted grin. “The boy looked dead enough for me to bet my nonexistent fortune on.”

His eyes gleamed in the shadows as he looked directly at me, and for some reason, that stare lit a flicker of anger in me and i welcomed it because it was the first other emotion I’d truly felt since being thrown in here.

I gripped the cold bars and forced myself upright, legs trembling.

“Why do you keep calling me boy, Lucian?” I snapped, voice rough but stronger than before. “We look about the same age.”

Lucian’s laughter echoed through the darkness.

“That’s where you’re wrong, boy.”

The words didn’t come from his lips. His mouth didn’t move, not even a twitch. But i heard him.

The voice was in my head.

I stumbled backward, my knees giving out as I hit the floor hard, eyes wide and locked on him.

Who the hell were these people?