Chapter 4: This takes courage

Samantha POV

The cell was cold, but the wound on my wrist burned.

I sat pressed into the farthest corner, my back against the damp stone, my knees drawn to my chest.

The strip of fabric I had torn from the ragged shift they had thrown me was already soaked through, the dark stain spreading faster than I could stop it. I pressed harder, gritting my teeth against the pain, and watched the crimson bloom between my fingers.

They had come without warning.

Ranulf and his guards had appeared at my door while I was still half asleep, their faces hard, their movements efficient. They had dragged me to my feet, torn the dress from my body while I screamed, and then one of them had taken a blade to my wrist. Quick. Precise. Deliberate.

I had watched them soak the torn fabric of my old dress in my own blood, watched them carry it away like a trophy, and I had understood immediately what they were doing.

They were making me dead.

The wound was not deep enough to kill me. They had been careful about that. They needed me alive, at least for now, locked away where no one would find me while they fed Maddox a story of flight and death and rogue territory.

The blood was for proof. For scent. For the lie they would wrap around my mate until he could no longer see the truth beneath it.

I pressed my palm harder against the wound and tried not to think about what Ranulf had said before he left. His grey eyes had swept over me one last time, cold and final. "The King will mourn you for a day. Perhaps two. And then he will forget."

The hours that followed blurred together. I had no window to mark the passage of time, no sound beyond the dripping of water somewhere in the darkness.

The pain in my wrist had settled into a dull, throbbing ache, and the makeshift bandage had begun to dry, stiff with dried blood against my skin.

Then I heard the footsteps.

Light. Quick. Hesitant.

I knew them before the small door at the base of the cell slid open. Tori. No guard walked with that rhythm, that nervous energy, that careful softness.

A small wooden bowl appeared in the gap, pushed through with trembling hands. Gruel. Water. And beside them, a small pot of something that smelled of herbs and honey.

"Tori." My voice came out rougher than I intended, scraped raw from days of screaming and silence. "Is that you out there?"

The footsteps stopped. I heard her breathing, quick and shallow, on the other side of the door.

"Tori, if that is you, please help me. Please get me out of here."

Silence stretched between us. I pressed my face closer to the door, straining to hear any sound, any response.

"I am sorry." Her voice was barely a whisper, trembling with fear. "I am so sorry, Lady Samantha. But Ranulf will kill me. He has already threatened. He said if I come near this place again, he will"

"I understand." I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the cold iron. It was not fair to ask this of her. She was sixteen. An omega. She had no power here, no protection, no one to save her if Ranulf decided she was a liability. "I understand, Tori. You should go. Before someone sees you."

But she did not go.

"I brought you ointment," she said, her voice still low, still trembling. "For your wrist. I heard what they did. I heard"

"I know." I looked down at the small pot beside the bowl of gruel. An act of kindness that could cost her everything. "Tori, what are they saying out there? About me?"

Another long silence. When she spoke again, her voice was heavier.

"They found your dress in the forest. Soaked in blood. Lord Ranulf told the King you fled, that you were too frightened to stay, that the rogues must have found you in the woods and..." She trailed off, unable to finish.

My stomach turned. "And Maddox believes this?"

"I do not know what he believes." Her voice cracked. "He killed a guard. Right there in his chambers. Lord Ranulf says the curse is taking him again, that without a soother he will be lost completely. But the servants say" She stopped.

"What do the servants say?"

"They say he has not stopped looking. They say he ordered every cell in the castle searched. They say he stands in his chambers at night holding your gown and breathing your scent because it is the only thing keeping him human."

The words hit me like a physical blow. I pressed my hand against my chest, feeling the faint pulse of the bond beneath my skin. Faint but alive. He was still there. Still fighting.

"The walls of this prison," I said slowly, looking at the dark stone around me. "They block my scent, do they not? That is why he cannot find me."

Tori hesitated. "Lord Ranulf had them treated. With something that masks lupine scent. The guards told me. They said even a wolf standing outside this door would not know you were inside."

Of course. Of course Ranulf had thought of everything. He had not just hidden me. He had erased me. From scent, from sight, from the bond that should have been screaming my location to my mate.

But the bond was still there. Faint, flickering, but alive. And if Ranulf had thought of everything, then I needed to think of something he had not.

I looked down at the ragged shift they had left me with, at the strip of fabric I had torn from it to bandage my wrist. And then I looked at my hair, long and ashen blonde, falling in tangled waves around my shoulders.

An idea took root.

"Tori." I kept my voice low, urgent. "I need you to do something for me. One last thing. And then I swear I will not ask again."

"Lady Samantha, I cannot"

"You do not have to free me. You do not have to fight anyone or risk yourself beyond what I am about to ask." I pulled a length of my hair forward, wrapping it around my fingers. "I am going to cut a piece of my hair. I need you to take it and leave it somewhere Maddox will find it. Somewhere close to this cell. The corridor. The stairs. Anywhere he might pass when he searches again."

Silence.

"The walls mask my scent," I continued, my voice shaking with urgency. "But they cannot mask this. If he finds my hair, if he follows the trail, he will find me. Please, Tori. He is the only one who can save me now."

I heard her breathing on the other side of the door. Quick. Uncertain. Terrified.

And then I heard the sound of something sharp being drawn. A small blade, perhaps. Or a pair of shears.

"Do it quickly," she whispered. "Before I lose my courage."

I took the blade she slid under the door, its handle cold against my palm. My hands were shaking as I gathered a thick lock of my hair, as I sawed through it with clumsy, desperate strokes. The strands fell away, pale as moonlight in the darkness, and I bundled them together with trembling fingers.

I slid the bundle back under the door.

Tori's fingers closed around it. I heard her breath catch, heard the soft rustle of fabric as she tucked it somewhere safe.

"Thank you," I breathed. "Thank you, Tori. I will never forget this. I will never" Footsteps echoed in the corridor beyond. Heavy. Measured. Multiple sets. Tori made a small sound of terror. "Go," I hissed. "Go now. Before they see you."

She did not argue. I heard her scramble to her feet, heard her footsteps retreating down the corridor, heard the faint echo of her flight swallowed by the darkness.

The heavy footsteps grew closer. Voices. Guards, by the sound of them, their conversation low and casual. I pressed myself back against the wall, my heart pounding so hard I was certain they could hear it through the stone.

The guards passed without stopping. Without looking. Without knowing.

I let out a breath I had not realized I was holding and slumped against the wall, my wounded wrist cradled against my chest. The ointment Tori had brought sat untouched beside me. The gruel had gone cold. But none of that mattered.

My hair was out there now. A thread of pale gold in the darkness of the corridor. A trail leading straight to me.

If Tori could place it somewhere Maddox would find it. If she could evade the guards long enough to finish what she had started. If the bond was strong enough to guide him through the curse and the lies and the walls designed to bury me alive.