Thirty-Five: Wren

The morning routine is a slaughterhouse parade: open the cell, drag out the stray, march her down the hall like a side of beef for display. The guards arrive right at dawn, boots silent but their intent loud as a gunshot. They don’t speak, don’t meet my eyes, just unlock the door in three practiced moves and jerk their chins to let me know it’s time. The silver cuffs go back on—today a newer set, thinner, polished so bright the reflection burns. I give them my wrists with a little extra flair, flexing my hands so they don’t have to fight me for it. They want a scene, or maybe just a hint of desperation. I give them neither.

The escort is two deep: the first, a woman built like a fencepost, her buzz-cut scalp catching every scrap of torchlight; the second, a man so wide he has to angle his shoulders to clear the stairwell. They flank me, one step ahead and one behind, so close I can feel the heat of their skin and the faint, contemptuous thrum of their pulse. I try to walk loose, casual, but every nerve inside me is strung tight as piano wire.

They march me past the same doors, the same walls, the same cracks in the stone where the mortar is failing and time is winning its slow war. The scent in the corridors is different now—richer, more alive. Breakfast in the air: animal fat, browning bread, the simmer of onions and whatever local herb passes for garnish in this corner of hell. My stomach goes tight. Hunger and dread make poor bedfellows, but today they both clamber in.

We take the main route this time, straight up the staircase and into a corridor broad enough for a parade. Here, the banners hang lower, the colors deeper—blue and black and the off-white of aged bone, each stitched with a different glyph or a snarling wolf’s head. The symbols mean nothing to me, but my wolf reads the messages: this is not your home, this is not your pack, this is not your place. Every thread is a barbed wire fence.

Ahead, a double set of iron-banded doors stands open, the mouth of the dining hall swallowing the corridor’s light and exhaling heat and sound. The noise inside is a living thing—voices stacked on voices, the thud of utensils on wood, the scrape of benches, the wet, eager chewing of a hundred jaws. It drops in volume the moment my escort crosses the threshold. Not all the way to silence, but enough that the wordless animal message comes across: the intruder has arrived.

The dining hall is bigger than I expect, a cathedral in miniature. Arched beams overhead, torches burning low in brackets shaped like wolf jaws, and rows and rows of tables long enough to seat a small army. The tables themselves are battered veterans, each gouged and scarred by decades of meals, fights, and rituals I can only imagine. Most of the benches are full, but the crowd clusters in uneven knots—packs within packs, hierarchy mapped in the landscape of bodies.

At the head of the central table, the Alpha’s seat sits empty, a dark throne with the crest of Nightwind burned into the backrest. On either side, warriors pack the benches. They’re bigger than the guards, some already half-shifted at the edges—canine nails at the fingertips, teeth glinting sharper than they have any right to be. They watch my entrance with a collective, lazy menace, like cats eyeballing a wounded mouse.

Flanking the main table are the lesser ranks: omegas and kitchen staff, the latter identifiable by their stained aprons and the permanent burn scars on their wrists. The omegas cling to the walls in tight huddles, eyes darting between me and the warriors, never landing on anything for long. At a smaller table near the far end, a clutch of children passes around hunks of bread and cheese, their laughter brittle but persistent.

The guards steer me to a table by the door. Not quite in the room, not quite out, a place of perfect observation but zero comfort. The wood here is older, the grain so worn it’s more suggestion than surface. No one else sits nearby. The message is clear: you’re here to be watched, not welcomed.

They seat me with a little more force than necessary, hands gripping my shoulders to press me down until my knees hit the bench. The silver cuffs clink against the tabletop, leaving little half-moons of reflected light on the battered wood. I plant my elbows, fingers laced, and sit up as straight as the restraints allow.

The conversation starts to pick up again, but it’s changed. The volume is lower, the words more careful. My wolf can taste the tension in the room, the way every head is cocked to catch my first mistake. I force myself to scan the hall—slow, methodical, like I’m casing a mark instead of scoping out a death sentence. Three exits: the main doors, a service hatch by the kitchen, and a pair of heavy curtains at the back that probably hide a servants’ corridor. The windows are too high, too narrow, and barred in lead. No way out but through.

At the main table, the biggest wolf—a man with a scar zigzagging from brow to ear—leans over and whispers something to his neighbor. The neighbor laughs, mouth full of meat, and then turns to stare at me with open challenge. Two seats down, a woman in a vest cut to show off her shoulders catches my gaze and holds it, her pupils gone wolf-black. I don’t blink. She doesn’t either. The impasse stretches until a third wolf throws a crust of bread at her, breaking the spell and getting a snarl in response.

Closer to me, the kitchen staff is less predatory, more curious. A few risk open glances before ducking their heads back to their bowls. One, a girl maybe a year older than me, meets my eyes directly. She has hair like dirty straw pulled back in a tight knot, skin pale and freckled, and an expression that’s more tired than hostile. She studies my cuffs, my face, the too-large coat swallowing my shoulders, then looks away with a tight little frown. I remember her from last night’s walk through the cellars—a ghostly figure seen through a crack in a door, arms deep in a tub of peeled potatoes.

The guards take their places on either side of the entrance, hands on hips, not even pretending to relax. I glance up at the clock above the kitchen door: 7:04. The next shift of guards will replace them at 7:30, right as the morning meal ends.

A bowl lands in front of me, set down with a slap. The woman who serves it wears a butcher’s apron and has forearms roped with muscle, the veins blue against flour-dusted skin. She doesn’t speak, just tilts her chin to indicate the spoon. The bowl is filled to the brim with what looks like barley porridge, thick as wet cement and flecked with shreds of meat and carrot. Steam curls from the surface, carrying with it the promise of salt and animal fat and maybe, just maybe, a tiny reprieve from the hunger that’s been gnawing since yesterday.

I hesitate for half a breath—everyone’s watching, and this, apparently, is a test. I pick up the spoon, grip awkward with the cuffs, and take a careful mouthful. It’s hot enough to scald, the texture gelatinous but not unpleasant, the flavor heavy with marrow and clove. I chew, swallow, and then spoon up another bite, pretending not to notice the eyes tallying every move.

Somewhere to my right, a voice cuts through the noise: “Not so tough when she’s chained, is she?” A chorus of snickers, then the scrape of a bench as someone stands. I keep my eyes on the bowl, counting the seconds until the comment burns itself out. It does, eventually, replaced by the familiar drone of pack conversation: trades to be made, shifts to be covered, the endless ladder of insults and retorts that keeps the hierarchy humming.

I finish the bowl in slow, deliberate bites. The food does nothing to warm me, but it settles the wolf—at least for now. I set the spoon down, angle the empty bowl so it won’t tip, and sit back with my hands in my lap. The cuffs dig into bone, but I ignore it.

I force myself to look up again, this time slower, letting my gaze move from table to table, from warrior to omega to kitchen staff. Cataloging, ranking, learning the topography of this new battlefield.

I catch the kitchen girl watching me again. This time, she doesn’t look away. She just tilts her head the tiniest fraction, as if to say, See? You’re still breathing.

The room’s noise has nearly returned to normal, but there’s a new undercurrent now—a layer of speculation, of anticipation. I can’t tell if they’re waiting for me to break, or if they want something worse.

The guards make a show of checking the clock, then begin herding the tables toward an orderly exit. Warriors first, then omegas, then the kitchen staff. I’m left to the last, sitting at my table with the taste of marrow still in my mouth and the sound of boots echoing in the hall.

When the room is nearly empty, the girl from the kitchen approaches with a rag and a wooden tray. She gathers my bowl, wipes the table, and pauses just long enough to whisper: “Don’t let them see you flinch.”

She’s gone before I can reply, swallowed by the swing of the kitchen door.

The guards are on me a second later, hands on my shoulders, steering me up and out. As I pass the main table, Scarface leans in again and says, not softly, “See you at training, Stray.”

I give him nothing, not even a blink.

The hall outside is colder than before. The cuffs burn like a brand. My hands shake, but only a little.

This is how it starts, I think.

I catalog every exit, every face, every word spoken. I add the kitchen girl to the list of things I might someday need.

And as the guards walk me back to my cage, I tell myself: it’s just another pack, just another cage, just another day.

I can survive this, too.