Chapter 2: The Vessel

**Sera**

The leather straps cut straight into my collarbones.

I woke with my mouth tasting of bile and cold ash. The ceiling above me was familiar—the rough, soot-stained cedar rafters of the attic. They hadn’t burned through. The damp wood had only blackened, trapping the smell of wet charcoal and scorched straw in the freezing air.

I tried to turn my head, but thick buckled straps held my chest, thighs, and wrists flat against the frame of the replacement iron cot.

"She’s awake," a voice whined from the shadows near the chimney.

Camilla sat on a wooden stool, wrapped in a heavy fox-fur shawl, holding a silver hand mirror to her face. Even in the gray daylight filtering through the roof slats, I could see what had upset her. The smooth, blooming pink of her cheeks was gone. In its place was a dull, grayish pallor, and fine, flaking dry patches had cropped up around her nostrils and mouth.

"Look at me, Mother," Camilla complained, tossing the mirror onto the pine table with a clatter. "My skin is flaking like dry bark. If Lord Cassian sees me like this, he won’t look twice. It's hideous. She did it on purpose."

Footsteps clicked on the spruce floorboards.

Luna Beatrice stepped into view. Her fine wool gown was spotless, her gray-streaked hair tied back in an intricate braid, but her face was tight with cold, venomous fury.

She stopped beside the cot. She didn't say a word.

Her right arm swung in a sharp, practiced arc.

*Crack.*

The back of her ringed hand slammed across my left cheekbone. The force of it snapped my head sideways against the iron frame. A sharp white ringing erupted in my ears, followed by the dull, iron throb of splitting skin. Warm blood trickled down my lip.

"Do you think you are clever, Seraphina?" Beatrice’s voice was dangerously low, vibrating with Alpha pressure that made the hair on my arms rise. "Do you think burning our roof makes you free?"

"Let me go," I rasped, my throat raw from inhaling smoke. "Please... just let me die in the woods."

"Die?" Beatrice let out a short, ugly bark of laughter. She leaned down until her face was inches from mine, the scent of expensive rosewater battling the stench of my burned skin. "You do not have permission to die. Do you have any idea how much work went into keeping this body breathing?"

She jabbed a sharp, manicured finger directly into the bruised hollow below my collarbone.

"You are not a person, girl. You are a vessel. Every breath you draw under this roof belongs to this family. Every drop of blood in these miserable veins exists for Camilla."

Camilla sniffled from her stool, picking up her mirror again. "Mother, don't waste time lecturing her. Look at the corners of my eyes. The gray is spreading. The Lycan Regent will cross the outer valley by midday. I need the transfusion now!"

Beatrice straightened up, smoothing the front of her gown. "Fetch the brass kit from the stair landing, Camilla. The large gauge."

"No," I pleaded, thrashing against the heavy leather bindings. The coarse straps tore into my raw wrists, grinding against the old, scarred needle punctures. "You took three vials yesterday morning before the fire. There’s nothing left. It will kill me."

"Then you should have thought of that before you ran into the brambles like a wild dog," Beatrice said without looking at me.

Camilla carried the heavy leather roll over, setting it on the table with a triumphant little smirk. She leaned over the cot, her peach-tinted eyes glittering with pure malice.

"You really thought you could run away and leave me to rot, didn't you, Sera?" Camilla whispered, her breath hot against my ear. "You always were a jealous, bitter little stay. But Father says after today, once the Lycan Duke signs the border pact and agrees to take me as his bride, I won't even need you anymore. We can finally toss your carcass into the river."

Beatrice unrolled the leather. The brass syringes and thick, hollow needles clinked together—a sound that made my stomach heave.

She didn't use a tourniquet this time. She gripped my left wrist in an iron hold, her nails digging into the bone, and jammed the wide bore directly into the swollen vein at the crook of my elbow.

The pain didn't bite—it dragged. A deep, hollow suction pulled straight from my core.

I screamed into the empty attic, the sound echoing off the charred rafters.

The glass tube began to fill. The dark burgundy liquid swirled inside the cylinder, shot through with that strange, luminescent silver light.

Camilla watched the glass fill with hungry, desperate eyes. "More, Mother. Fill two phials. I need my color back before the horn blows."

"Hush," Beatrice muttered, her eyes locked on the needle. "I know how much she can lose before the heart stops."

The cold crept into my limbs, heavy and black. My vision narrowed until the faces of Beatrice and Camilla dissolved into pale smudges. The room faded, the sound of the wind through the eaves turning into a low, mournful hum.

Deep within the frozen darkness of my mind, my wolf curled her paws over her nose, too weak to whimper, waiting for the end.