Chapter Three

Freda’s P.O.V

I didn’t know when I eventually fell asleep.

My eyes burned.

My throat felt raw.

My body trembled from the cold.

But it was the whispers that woke me.

“Look at her… she seems right at home in this dungeon,” someone murmured.

More voices followed—low, curious, cruel.

I blinked, sitting up slowly. My blue dress, once elegant and soft, was now wrinkled, stained, and clinging uncomfortably to my dirty skin. My hair was tangled. My throat tasted like metal.

A group of pack members crowded the dungeon entrance, their faces twisted with disgust, fear, or fascination.

Their collective gaze dropped to one place—my thigh.

The curse mark.

Murky red lines sprawled across my skin like a burn that refused to heal.

I gasped and tugged the slit of my dress closed, covering it.

“She’s truly cursed,” a woman whispered.

“Isn’t she the girl without an origin? I always knew she would bring trouble,” a man muttered.

The shame hit me harder than the cold ever could.

Their eyes weren’t just looking—they were devouring.

I searched the crowd desperately for familiar faces.

My father’s stern jaw.

My mother’s anxious eyes.

Adrian’s soft brown gaze.

Even Nina’s. I still couldn’t believe she’d betray me like this.

None of them was there.

Instead, people I had grown up with—trained with—played with as a child—were now staring at me as though I were a disease.

“She should be kept away from the pack,” someone said.

“She might curse others if they get close.”

“A disgrace…”

My throat tightened painfully.

A young girl pushed forward, eyes wide with curiosity.

“Let me see the curse!”

A woman gasped sharply and yanked the child back.

“Don’t you dare! You want to be cursed, too?”

The girl burst into tears, and the mother dragged her away.

I felt like an animal.

Trapped.

Cornered.

On display.

Before I could pull myself fully upright, a voice boomed through the dungeon—one that silenced every whisper instantly.

“Where is she?”

My breath hitched.

Adrian.

He stepped through the crowd, tall, commanding, breathtaking in a black tuxedo. His presence alone made the pack part without him asking. His jaw was sharp, his eyes intense, his posture radiating the authority of a true Alpha.

For one fragile second, hope fluttered inside me.

Then I saw her.

Nina.

Holding his arm.

Her smile was sweet… but her eyes glittered with triumph.

A newly formed mate mark glowed on her neck—red, fresh, unmistakable.

My world tilted.

I rose slowly, hand still pressed tightly over my cursed thigh. The slit of my dress stuck to my leg with sweat and tears. My voice felt like it was lodged deep in my throat.

“Adrian,” I whispered. “Did you… did you really marry Nina?”

He stopped a few feet away, avoiding my gaze.

His chest rose and fell deeply.

His jaw clenched as he ran a hand through his hair—a nervous habit.

“This is for the pack’s good,” he said quietly. “I cannot marry a cursed mate.”

My heart shattered.

“You told me you loved me,” I said, voice breaking. “Last night—”

His eyes flicked up, pain flickering there, but he looked away immediately, focusing instead on the mark on my thigh.

Gasps rippled through the crowd.

The whispers swelled again, stronger this time.

“What did she expect?”

“She should’ve been removed from the pack long ago.”

“Execute her before she dooms us all!”

“Yes! Execution!”

The word slammed into me repeatedly.

Execute. Execute. Execute.

Adrian lifted his hand, and the crowd instantly obeyed, falling silent.

His eyes, once filled with warmth, now held something else entirely—pressure, fear, responsibility, something darker.

“To protect the pack,” he said, his voice firm but shaking beneath the surface,

“Freda will be executed tomorrow.”

The world dropped out from under me.

I stumbled backward, gripping the bars to steady myself.

“No,” I whispered. “Adrian, please—”

He stepped toward me slowly.

Every step was a knife.

His eyes finally met mine, and in them, I saw guilt, pain, and a choice he had already forced himself to accept.

“But first,” he said softly, almost broken, “the bond must be severed.”

My breath caught.

“Adrian, don’t do this.”

He swallowed hard, voice cracking just barely before he forced it steady.

“I, Adrian Waters of the Sun Blood Pack, reject Freda Aton as my mate.”

Pain ripped through me instantly.

A violent, tearing, suffocating pain that felt like claws sinking into my heart and dragging downward.

I gasped, dropping to my knees as my chest burned, my vision blurred, and the sound in my ears drowned into static.

The bond snapped.

Shattered.

Dead.

And something inside me died with it.

Nina’s laughter rang loudly, echoing off the dungeon walls as I curled into myself, shaking, choking on silent sobs.

My mate had chosen my sister—and left me to die.