All Chapters of Bloodied Ashes: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Lira (POV)I can feel the silver in my blood now. Not just burning—but grinding, like microscopic shrapnel chewing through my veins, slicing every time my heart dares to beat. It hisses against my bones and ignites my nerves like a fire, threading itself through my muscles like barbed wire soaked in acid.It’s in everything. The chains digging into my wrists, fused with iron and blessed by cowardly priests. The collar locked tight around my throat, humming with old magic. And the carved symbols—cut into the skin just below my ribs—that pulse and weep with every breath I take. The skin there is flayed, blackened around the edges with dried wolfsbane, etched into me like a sigil of ownership. Like I’m livestock branded for slaughter. I’m suspended like meat left to rot—arms stretched above me, feet barely brushing the blood-slick floor of this makeshift stone coffin that they call a dungeon. The air is wet with old screams, thick with rust and rot and piss. The stone walls bleed conden

Lira (POV)The door groans open, grinding against the stone floor, and the torchlight spills in with a piss-colored yellow hue that slices across the room like a blade. I don’t lift my head; instead, I let them look. Let them see what they made.“Still breathing,” one of them mutters, his voice thick with something between awe and disgust. “This bitch doesn’t die easy.”“She’s not supposed to,” the other replies, his tone casual, like this is just another tedious chore. “Alpha wants her to remember, wants her to feel it. Over and over until she submits.”They step closer, and I can smell them—sweat, unwashed leather, and the reek of men who get hard from hurting things.The first kick lands in my ribs, a bone cracks sharply, and pain flares in my lungs. I grunt, but I don’t scream as my head jerks to the side, causing the silver collar to dig deeper into my skin as a new trickle of blood slithers down my neck, leaving a warm, thin trail.The second kick hits me right in my gut; the ch

Lira (POV)The celebration was for us. Or that’s what I was told, anyway.The bonfire outside roared high enough to kiss the moon, flames flickering like tongues licking at the stars. Tables buckled under the weight of roasted venison, blistered fruit dripping with honeyed spice, and wine so strong the scent alone could make your head spin.Laughter cracked the air like thunder. Werewolves in human form danced, drank, and touched like nothing could touch them.It was supposed to be our night. A night for the Alpha and his mate to confirm the mate bond. Me.There should’ve been blood vows under the moonlight, a ritual of binding, power offered and received, something to comprehensively deepen our bond besides what the initial meeting and marking with teeth do. Instead, there was him inside someone else, and me feeling it through the bond.But I was late, not on purpose. Draven had me patrolling the outer sectors that day—his twisted version of a gift. I was his “warrior queen,” he said

Lira (POV)I come back hard. The pain in my chest burns like a fire, my wrists scream, and my head throbs. I open my eyes, and my rage is sharp again.For a heartbeat, I can still smell lilac and smoke and slick heat. I blink hard, and the cell snaps back into place—stone, rot, blood, and him. He was still watching me like he had never moved.“I’d rather rot in this pit than come back to you, asshole,” I whisper, voice like rust and broken glass.Draven smiles widely, a hint of some twisted pleasure. “Lie to yourself all you want,” he murmurs. “I’m patient.”“No,” I rasp. “I’m as truthful as you are crazy.”He leans in, close enough that I feel the warmth of his breath. “You’ll beg, Lira. You think this is suffering?” His lips brush my cheek like a kiss as he whispers in my ear. “Your heat is coming, and when it hits… You’ll come crawling.”The last heat hit under a blood moon. I remember clawing at the ground, not from want but from madness, from needing something I hated. I remember

Lira (POV)The priest exhales like he is pleased, like my pain is proof that whatever ritual he is performing is working. Good. Let him be proud. I’ll carve that smile off him when I crawl out of this hole.He places the knife in the blood pooling on my stomach. The red thickens around it, and the blade begins to hum. Then he begins to chant.It’s not a chant.It’s a ritual.Each syllable slithers across the stone like something alive. The language scrapes my skull. Not words. Not even close. The sounds are shaped wrong. Like gravel soaked in ash. Like chains being dragged across bone.And deep inside, my wolf—what’s left of her—whimpers. She knows this tongue, and she’s terrified.He lifts the blade again. The next cut is longer. From my sternum to just above my navel. Shallow. Deliberate. Cruel. The blade sings as it moves, not slicing, but waking up.The smell of cut muscle hits me—a wet, metallic stench so thick I gag. The priest carves through my skin like a butcher cleaving meat