CHAPTER THREE

Lyra’s pov

I didn’t know how far they dragged me, through the mud, through the thick wild bushes but I felt every scrape, every pull on my bruised body. My bare feet skidded over damp leaves and jagged stones. My limbs were trembling so hard I could barely stay upright, and the pain in my head pulsed with every heartbeat.

The forest cleared after what felt like hours. And when my blurred vision lifted, I gasped.

A kingdom.

Tall dark walls wrapped around towers of black stone and gleaming steel. The smell of fire, iron, and free magic filled the air. There were guards—actual guards—clad in armor I’d never seen before, their chests stamped with a crest foreign to me. Banners flapped in the wind above the gates. Wolves padded past in both human and beast form, their movements smooth, predatory... disciplined.

This was no graveyard of mindless rogues.

I swallowed hard.

“… the new Shadowfang…”

Shadowfang?

I’d heard the word slip from the beta’s mouth before darkness took me, but I thought it was some legend, whispers of a dead rogue pack that had dissolved into madness after the last great war.

But this… this was a kingdom. Thriving. Hidden.

Did Father know? Is that why he told me to run here?

I didn’t have time to wonder.

A sharp pain coursed through my body before everything went black.

***

I woke up gasping.

Ice water soaked my hair, my thin dress clung to me like a second skin and cruel laughter echoed off the stone walls. My eyes fluttered open, stinging. I lay on cold marble, the grand floor of what could only be a throne room. Torches burned high above, casting flickering shadows on massive pillars carved with strange, ancient symbols.

“Wakey wakey moonstone bitch.” The one who had pinned me in the forest, taunted holding a bucket.

I barely lifted my head but observed the little I could see.

Guards lined the walls, silent but watchful. Predators.

And at the far end of the room, lounging on a black throne carved from obsidian and iron, sat the King.

The Beta’s voice droned somewhere beside me. “—found her on the southern ridge, deep within the boundary line. She crossed into our territory without resistance. Smelled like Moonstone. Said she was fleeing. King Ronan.”

Ronan.

Moonstone.

I flinched.

I dared not lift my head. My wet hair hung like a curtain, shielding my face as I coughed out water and dirt. But I felt him, his power pressed against my skin like a suffocating weight, heavier than the chains I’d worn my whole life.

“Look at me.”

The command went straight to my soul.

I lifted my head, trembling. My eyes met his and the world seemed to stop.

He was beautiful.

Devastatingly, monstrously beautiful.

Black hair falling in wild waves to his shoulders. A sharp, cruel mouth. Broad shoulders beneath dark armor trimmed with silver. But it was his eyes that caught me.

Gold.

A burning, unnatural gold, his wolf was at the surface.

I froze, terror rooting me in place.

His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply, stepping down from his throne like a predator curious about new prey. He stalked toward me, slow, deliberate, until his boots stopped just before my knees.

“So strange,” he murmured, voice low and rough sending a shiver through me. “There’s something odd about you... little Moonstone wolf.”

I tried to shrink back but there was nowhere to go.

He crouched before me, close enough that I could feel the heat of him, the scent of dark woods and spice filling my lungs.

“Bring forth your wolf,” he said softly.

I shook my head, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. “I can’t. I... I don’t have one.”

A pause.

His gaze sharpened to a blade. “Why?”

“S-Suppressants.” My voice cracked. “My family forced them on me since I was nine. To... to keep her caged. To keep me weak.”

His jaw clenched. His golden eyes burned brighter. He said nothing.

Instead, he circled me, slowly, like a beast deciding if his prey was worth devouring. Then he spoke again.

“Why were you in the forest?”

I swallowed hard. “I was... rejected. The Moonstone alpha king. He claimed my step sister in my place and exiled me. Then he ordered for a hunt and my head to please his new bride.” My voice broke. “My father freed me. Told me to run here. I don’t know why.”

He paused behind me. I felt his breath against my neck.

“There is something wrong with you,” he murmured. “Or perhaps... something very, very right.”

His hand slid into my tangled hair, curling tight. Not cruel. Not gentle. Possessive.

I gasped, frozen as he leaned close to my ear.

“You are mine now,” he said.

A ripple of shock broke through the room at his proximity to me because I was certain they didn't hear him. Gasps, murmurs, stunned silence. I heard the Beta curse softly under his breath.

My heart thundered, panic thick in my throat.

No. Not again. Not his slave.

But before I could speak, before I could scream my protest, the king—this Ronan—smiled.

Slow. Dark. Wicked.

His breath brushed the tip of my ear as he whispered:

“I will peel back every layer of you, little Moonstone wolf. I will strip you bare until your secrets pour from your mouth like blood. I will find out if you are a spy… or something far more dangerous. And if you lie—if you try to deceive me—I will break you piece by piece until you forget your own name.”

His grip tightened in my hair for one second, then released.

He stepped back.

And I could finally breathe.

“Take her,” he said, turning to the Beta. “She belongs to me now. My personal slave.”

My stomach dropped into darkness.

Laughter rippled among the guards.

The Beta gave a stiff nod, eyes flicking over me with something like pity or maybe amusement. Two soldiers hauled me to my feet, their claws nicking my arms as they dragged me from the throne room.

The King’s gaze burned into my back the whole way.

****

The halls of the castle were cold, dark, and endless.

They dragged me down winding corridors, past rooms that smelled of blood and steel, past warriors who sneered and leered. When they finally threw me into a dim stone chamber—the slave quarters—I barely caught myself on the wall.

I was shaking.

Bruised.

Terrified.

And worst of all… Claimed.

His.

The door slammed shut behind me.

But I wasn’t alone.

A low laugh came from the shadows. I turned and pain smacked across my face.

A slap.

A girl stood there, taller than me, her smile sharp as glass. Another female appeared beside her, grinning.

“Looks like we’ve got a new pet,” the first one sneered. “A Moonstone bitch... serving the King himself. Must be nice to whore your way into favor.”

The other laughed, shoving me so hard I stumbled into the stone wall.

“Careful, Tessa. If the King likes her, we don’t want to ruin that pretty face too much... yet.”

Tessa stepped closer, her nails grazing my throat. “You’ll learn your place, pup. And it’s below us.”

I tried to speak, beg them to stop but a boot caught my stomach and I folded to the floor, gasping.

Their laughter echoed around me as they left.

I curled into a ball, pain singing in every nerve.

But worse than the bruises, worse than the fear, was the knowing.

I was trapped.

His slave.

And he was going to break me.