Chapter 5

 Clara’s POV

My body started to shut down. The blood running from my fingers felt cold. I sat back, my knees coming to my chest.

The heat stayed, but it felt farther away now.

So did the pain.

I pressed my forehead against my knees and stared at the thin line of light beneath the door.

I stopped calling for Peter.

Stopped hitting the wood.

My hands rested in my lap, blood drying across my skin.

I closed my eyes, but Peter’s rage-filled face was still there.

I had never expected to see him again. The Peter I had loved disappeared the day he rejected me, and the man I saw today was exactly who I knew he would be.

He had stayed.

He had become Jacob’s Beta. He had built a life here while I counted cracks in a prison wall and waited for two months to end.

My chest hurt, but even that began to fade.

Peter had rejected me once.

Today, he had finished the threat he never said out loud.

The pig shed grew hotter as the sun climbed. Sweat slid down my back, soaking into my dress. Each breath carried the smell of old animal waste and rotting straw deeper into my lungs.

My stomach cramped.

I pressed my knees tighter against it, but the pain only twisted harder.

I couldn’t remember the last proper meal I had eaten.

There had been scraps in prison. Bread too hard to bite. Thin soup that tasted like dirty water. Mouldy soft fruit and uncooked rice. Sometimes Garrick took the tray away before I could reach it because he liked watching me crawl towards him.

Yesterday, I had drunk the redberry juice.

That was all.

The thought of food made saliva fill my mouth, but there was nothing in my stomach to bring up.

I swallowed it down.

Soft, distant voices carried from somewhere beyond the sheds. Servants called to each other. Wheels rolled over the dirt, followed by the heavy steps of wolves moving across the pack grounds.

The prince had arrived.

The whole pack would be gathering, dressed in their best clothes, while Jacob stood beside Rose and told everyone how perfect she was.

No one would notice I wasn’t there.

My head slipped forward.

I caught myself before my face hit my knees. The room began spinning around me.

The darkness shifted, and I wasn’t inside the pig shed anymore.

Metal walls pressed against my shoulders. Heat burned through the thin prison dress stuck to my skin. My tongue felt swollen inside my mouth, and Garrick’s footsteps moved slowly around the outside of the hot box.

“Still alive in there, mutt?”

I could smell his breath.

I lifted my head.

The pig shed walls returned.

A thin beam of sunlight cut through one of the gaps in the wood. Dust moved through it, floating slowly before disappearing back into the dark.

I stared at it, but my eyes were too heavy.

My stomach growled, twisting again, but I didn’t have the strength to stop it. My head rested against the wall, the rough wood pressing into my cheek as my eyes slowly closed.

If this was all life had left for me, I didn’t want to fight for more of it.

The darkness pulled at me.

Warm light spread across my skin.

The door must have opened, but I couldn’t make myself move. I let the sunlight touch my face, pretending I was somewhere else. Somewhere the air didn’t smell like rotting straw, and my stomach wasn’t painfully empty.

Something brushed through my hair.

My body flinched.

Fingers slowly pulled the damp strands away from my cheek.

“Don’t…”

The sound barely left my lips.

Arms slid under my knees and around my back.

I waited for them to tighten painfully. Waited to be dragged up or thrown back down.

Instead, they lifted me carefully.

I was pulled against a warm chest. A steady heartbeat filled my ear, slowing the frantic beating of my own.

My body relaxed into their touch. 

I tried to open my eyes, but the sunlight blurred everything. I couldn’t see his face.

My fingers curled weakly into his shirt as his scent wrapped its way around me, filling my nostrils. 

It was intoxicating.

Something shifted inside.

Mate… A voice so weak I almost lost it beneath his heartbeat.

The darkness closed over me before I could reach for her.