Chapter 3

ELYSIA'S POV

I was scrubbing the kitchen floor on my hands and knees when the first noise reverberated through the castle.

Father had finally allowed me out after days of being locked in my little room in the basement. Not that I was grateful… I actually preferred that tiny room to the heavy chores they piled on me the moment I was free.

The castle walls trembled with noise. The floor beneath me vibrated, furious voices cutting through the air. They were running.

I scrambled to my feet, my heart hammering. Has another war broken out? Had my father angered the wrong nobleman? Was this one of his debts coming to collect?

Before I could spring into action, a hand clamped onto my arm. "Where do you think you're going?" Jenada, the head maid, sneered.

Her nails dug into my skin. I stared at her in shock. Even with the walls shaking around us, she was still cruel.

"You stay here," she snapped, shoving me backward.

I hit the floor hard, my palms scraping against the hard floor. Before I could recover, she was gone, disappearing into the chaos.

And just as I was about to run out, the door burst open. A gust of cold air swept in and a broad, towering, menacing figure stood in the doorway.

It wasn’t a soldier I knew, not a guard, nor one of my father’s men. I barely had time to react before he moved.

His hand wrapped around my throat, lifting me off the ground. My legs flailed and my hands clawed at his wrist as panic flooded my chest.

“Please,” I gasped, choking. He didn’t utter a word.

With a sudden yank, he slammed me against his chest, my face pressing against the cold leather of his armor. His grip tightened on my hair, forcefully drawing me forward.

I kicked against his legs, struggling against his hold, but it was in vain. I was painfully whipped around by his grip as he dragged me ahead, my barefoot scraping against the cold stone floor in a desperate attempt to keep up.

We passed through the hallway into the great hall; he roughly tossed me aside.

I hit the ground hard, a crushing impact sending searing pain coursing through my body. A quick gasp tore from my lips as I forced myself upright, my hands stinging from scraping against the floor.

The first thing I saw was my father, Cowered in a side of the room, shaking like a coward. That once-great frame seemed little, every arm trembling at a corner of his great chair.

What's going on? Where was Sybil?

Had he hidden her? Tucked her away somewhere safe while I was thrown to the wolves?

Before I could finish the thought, the man, another man, whose face I couldn't see moved to my father, seizing him by the throat.

I gasped as the strange man lifted him clean off the ground. My father's legs kicked wildly, his hands scrabbling uselessly at the powerful grip that crushed his windpipe. His face turned a deep shade of red, and his eyes bulged.

"Please, l…let him go—"I started, but my voice fell short a mere whisper. The man tightened his grip.

"You betrayed me," he growled. "You gambled with something that was never yours."

My father's eyes snapped to me, a look of pure horror replacing the arrogant nonchalance he had affected only moments before. "I—I did what I had to do, to protect my daughter!" croaked my father, in desperation.

The man scoffed, shaking my father like a rag doll. "You made your choice, twenty years ago when you pledged fealty to me! You promised me a daughter and you broke that vow!"

"Please! I had no control over it!" my father gasped, voice cracking under the strain. "You can't blame me for my decision, Moira’s gone, she's the only one I have!"

The man leaned closer, his voice dripping with venom. “You think I care for your excuses? You think I’d let you hide her behind your cowardice?” His eyes darkened, as if even the shadows in the room recoiled from his presence. “You think you can stand against me… the one who has waited centuries for this moment? For her?”

He let the words sink in before continuing, his tone like ice. “She is mine, Brynwick. Whether you accept it or not. The Moon Goddess marked her. I have already claimed her. The Shadowfangs’ breeder doesn’t belong to you—she belongs to me.”

“She belongs to me,” my father spat, his voice shaking with obvious fear. “She is my child. She is my blood, not yours. And if I have to keep her locked in this house until the sun itself burns out, then so be it. She doesn’t need to know what she is meant to become. She doesn’t need to carry that… burden—your burden.”

A very large sharp pang stabbed through my chest.

He had never spoken of me this way before. Never looked at me with such ferocity, such desperation.

He had never cared.

He had never fought for me.

Those words should have brought me comfort and should have stirred some warmth in my heart. But instead, they felt like a blade, cutting deep, as if they knew something was wrong. Something in his voice. Something in the way he said it.

"She won't forgive me if she is dragged into your world," my father snarled. "Even if she becomes your breeder, her life wouldn't be hers anymore. The Shadowfangs, your people will use her, you— will break her— I needed to protect what was mine, I'm saying this as a father who loves his only child."

"Protect her?" The man's voice turned mockingly. "You haven't protected her. You've hidden her from me for twenty years now and handed her over to another. You really expect me to stop on account of your wishes? The moment I scented her, it was over."

The moment I scented her. Handled her over to another That came as a slap.

My mind whirled, struggling to catch up to the meaning of what he said, trying to find a puzzle piece that fit.

If he had scented me, he would have known. He would have known the truth.

My gaze shifted to my father, searching his face for something, anything. But when our eyes met, a slow, menacing smirk curved his lips.

And then, it dawned on me. He wasn't talking about me. He never was.

It was Sybil.

My throat felt choked as if my pulse would go and hammer the word-out. Pieces suddenly started falling in place.

My father was fighting for 'her.' He was ready to burn the world for 'her.' Not for me. I was nothing but an unsought-and-discarded thing.

My father had spent the better part of my lifetime treating me as a mistake, an inconvenience, and I had desperately-wanted-so 'desperately'—to believe that somewhere beneath, there was a little bit of love. That maybe, just maybe, he had hidden it deep beneath the surface.

But there was nothing there. No warmth. No love. Just the bitter, inescapable truth.

I wasn't his daughter in the ways that mattered. And I never had been.

The breath caught in my throat, but I swallowed the pain, swallowing the ache that threatened to consume me completely.

I did not belong to my father.

I did not belong to this monster.

My father had left me to get taken, knowing I wasn't the daughter he was after. He didn't care about me.

I belonged to no one—and if he thought he could claim me, he would learn just how wrong he was.

My father's face twisted into a mask of fear, and with it, a storm of anger surged within me. "Let him go. He hasn't done anything to you, he did what a father would have done for his child" I yelled. I don't even know why I was still trying to defend and protect him even after everything he and Sybil had done to me, even after knowing the truth, even if I knew he'd never defend me if I ever was in trouble.

The stranger laughed, however, a low chilling sound that resonated in the depths of my chest. "He did everything to me, girl. He allowed your mother to slip from my grasp, he took what was rightfully mine! His failure is your burden now."

He twisted and released my father, who crumbled on the floor, gasping for air, face sickly pale. Then he swung around to face me with a savage jerk.

Before I could stop that hand, it was on me again. With a vicious jerk, he threw me back through the great hall and out of the castle, my only home, not that it had ever seemed much of a home really, but It was where I was raised.

The bitter air stung my skin as he flung me over the back of a waiting horse. I struggled violently, twisting in the saddle, but his grip was iron.

I barely had my leg thrown over the side in preparation to jump when— A sudden, searing heat flared across my face.

The blow had my head snapping to the side, my cheek stinging from the effort. "Try that again," he said darkly, "and I'll see that you can't run at all."

Slowly, I turned my head, consciously blinking away the dizziness that wrapped my vision. He looked me over.

"You are mine now. Breeder. And there is nowhere left to run."