Chapter 002

Sienna’s POV

The air hit me first, clinical and sharp, thick with the industrial rot of bleach and old iron. I tried to drag oxygen into my lungs, but my chest was pinned under an invisible weight, my body feeling heavy while my eyelids remained rusted shut by dried salt. I was dead weight, a suit that no longer fit my soul.

I tried to shift, and a loud clang echoed as metal struck metal in the hollow room. Steel bit into my wrists where my pulse hammered against the restraints, leaving me strapped down like a specimen in a jar rather than stone.

Deep within me, my wolf stopped whimpering and began to pace, a low guttural snarl vibrating in my throat because she felt the violation before I even saw the blade.

Then came the scent of cedar and cold.

My eyes snapped open. The overhead bulb buzzed with a dying insect hum that burned into my retinas. Lucas stood by the far wall like a funerary statue carved from ice, staring at my feet as if I were already a corpse waiting to be buried.

“Oh, look. The vessel is finally awake,” Ivy purred.

She stood beside Lucas, draped in a silk dress that looked obscene against the grime of the room. She invaded his space, cupping his face and pulling him into a kiss while keeping her eyes open, locking them on mine with a cruel, triumphant glint.

Lucas didn’t flinch or resist. When she finally pulled away, his eyes met mine, flat and cold, with no trace of love left in them.

“Mother, the heart rate is peaking,” Ivy said, her voice rising with a sick excitement. “Let’s not waste the moon. I’m not letting my son be born a weakling just because an Omega is hoarding the bloodline.”

“Patience, Ivy,” Morrigan replied as she stepped into the light, wearing a sterile white lab coat and carrying a tray of instruments. “The vessel is ready. The moon’s high.”

Vessel. A harvest.

“Lucas,” I choked out, my voice thin and distant. “You marked me yesterday. You claimed me. Why?”

“Stop it, Sienna,” he snapped, turning his face to the wall. His jaw worked, but he refused to look at me. “You’ve always been fragile,” he muttered, like he was repeating something learned. “This… this is service.”

“Fragile?” My body shook in a violent tremor. “You’re standing there while they plan to carve me open.”

“The moon is peaking,” Ivy said sharply, leaning over the table until her face was inches from mine.

“Stop, Ivy. Please,” I begged, pride stripped away by raw terror. “Just let me go. I’ll go to the human cities.”

Ivy blinked. For a brief second, something like surprise crossed her face before she laughed.

“You really are stupid,” she whispered. “You think this is about the man? I want what she denied me. Womb, name, blood. You’re the last.” She dragged her tongue over the mate-mark on my neck, the one Lucas had once given me with promises of forever.

“Enough,” Lucas said, finally moving to the bedside.

Hope flickered in my chest, but my wolf rose inside me, her eyes turning a blinding pale white.

“Lucas, look at me,” I whispered. “You said I was your anchor.”

“Sienna, I do love you,” he said quietly, leaning in. He reached for my hair, but his fingers stopped short, as if the air around me had begun to burn. “Father is dying, and this buys him time.” He swallowed. “The pack needs strength, and you give that. Your spark… his future.”

I went limp. He stepped back and turned away, staring at the wall while muttering a pack mantra under his breath.

The room fell into deathly silence.

Then the blade went in.

A jagged, cold slice tore across my abdomen, and my vision white-out followed as the needle sank deep. A sick, hollow suction dragged through me, as if the heat was being pulled straight from my marrow.

“It’s working,” Morrigan whispered.

I forced my eyes toward her hand. She held a glass vial, and for a brief moment I saw it—the liquid inside was not red, but a thick pulsing gold that lit her fingers from within as she stared at it with greedy, wide eyes.

That was when the hum in the room changed.

A roar ripped from my throat. It wasn’t human, but something that rose from deep beneath the floor, like the earth itself was screaming.

The buzzing bulb overhead shrieked and exploded. The force of my scream hit the windows, shattering the glass into a thousand shards that burst outward into the night.

Everything blurred into motion and shadow. I couldn’t see their faces anymore, but I heard the tray crash to the floor and Ivy’s sharp, terrified scream.

“The light—Morrigan, it’s burning through the glass!”

The heat in my veins surged until I could no longer feel the table or restraints. I was no longer a girl, but a sun collapsing inward.

My fading sight caught one last thing: the gold blood was no longer only in the vial. It was leaking from my wound, spilling across the floor in a molten river that lit the darkness on fire.

My heart stuttered, stopped, and then the blackness came.