The ride to the Obsidian Pack territory was a blur of humiliation. I wasn't permitted to sit on the plush leather seats of Alpha Kaelen's armored SUV. Instead, I was shoved onto the floorboards at his feet, my wrists bound in silver-lined shackles that hissed against my skin, suppressing the tiny spark of spirit I had left.
Every time the vehicle hit a bump, my head jolted against his knee. He didn't flinch. He didn't pull away. He sat like a statue carved from obsidian, his scent filling the small space—that intoxicating mix of rain and steel that should have been my comfort but was now my cage.
"Please," I whispered, my voice raspy from the auction house dust. "Kaelen, listen to me. I didn't hurt Selene. She was... she was the one who—"
His boot pressed down on my shoulder, pinning me to the floor. The pressure was firm, a silent command for my silence.
"Do not utter her name with your lying tongue," he said, his voice a low vibration that I felt more than heard. "I saw the reports. I saw the footage of the east wing collapsing. You were the only one who made it out of that corridor. You left her to be crushed while you ran for the tunnels."
"That's not what happened! The guards shoved me—"
"Enough!" The car swerved slightly as his aura flared. The sheer weight of his Alpha command made my lungs seize. "Your father told me everything, Elara. How you envied her. How you hated her for having the wolf you were denied. He told me how you tried to poison her tea a month before the attack."
I gasped, tears of frustration stinging my eyes. Poison? Silas had lied about that, too? My father had spent nineteen years making me a pariah, and now he was making me a monster to cover his own tracks.
"My father hates me because I am a reminder of his mistake," I choked out. "He lied to you."
Kaelen leaned down, grabbing a fistful of my hair and forcing me to look up at him. His blue eyes were swirling with dark shadows—the mark of a wolf on the edge of a feral break.
"Silas is a respected Alpha. You are a wolfless bastard sold at a black market auction," he sneered. "Who do you think I believe?"
He let go of my hair with a jerk. "We are here."
The SUV came to a halt. The door was ripped open by a tall, stern-looking man—Kaelen's Beta, Malikai. He looked down at me with a mixture of pity and revulsion.
"Is this her, Alpha?" Malikai asked.
"This is the murderer," Kaelen corrected, stepping out and dragging me by the chain connected to my collar.
I stumbled out onto the gravel, my legs weak. I looked up and gasped. The Obsidian Pack house wasn't a house; it was a fortress built into the side of a jagged mountain. It was beautiful, terrifying, and cold.
A crowd had gathered—warriors, women, even children. Word had traveled fast. They knew their Alpha had found his fated mate, and they knew he had brought home a criminal.
"Look at her," a woman hissed from the crowd. "She doesn't even have a scent. She's a freak."
"She killed the Golden Luna," another whispered. "She took our Alpha's happiness."
Kaelen didn't stop to address them. He marched toward the main entrance, dragging me behind him. I tripped on the stone stairs, my knees skinning against the rock, but he didn't slow down. The bond between us hummed, a cruel irony; I could feel his agonizing grief, a deep, hollow ache in his chest that called out for Selene. It was so loud it almost drowned out my own pain.
He didn't take me to the grand hall. He didn't take me to the Alpha's quarters.
We descended.
The air grew damp and smelled of earth and old blood. We passed the lower levels where the warriors trained, down into the bowels of the mountain. Finally, we reached a heavy iron door guarded by two massive wolves in human form.
"Open it," Kaelen commanded.
The door creaked open to reveal a cell. It was small, with a single stone bench and a thin, moth-eaten blanket. A single torch flickered on the wall outside the bars.
Kaelen unclipped the lead from my collar but kept the silver shackles on my wrists. He shoved me inside. I fell onto the cold floor, the silver burning into my skin.
"This is your throne, Elara," he said, standing in the doorway. "You will stay here. You will eat what the dogs leave behind. And every day, I will come here to remind you of what you took from me."
"Kaelen, please," I sobbed, reaching for the bars. "I'm your mate. The Moon Goddess—"
"The Moon Goddess made a mistake!" he roared, his voice shaking the very foundations of the cell. "And I will spend the rest of my life correcting it. You are not my mate. You are my penance."
He turned to the guards. "No one speaks to her. No one feeds her without my permission. If she tries to use the bond to influence me, tell me immediately. I will sever it myself if I have to."
Severing a bond... it was a death sentence for the weaker party. For a wolfless girl like me, it would shatter my soul.
Kaelen turned on his heel and walked away, his heavy boots echoing against the stone.
I sat in the darkness, clutching my bruised ribs, the silver shackles humming against my skin. I thought of Leo. I thought of the way he used to tell me that my name meant 'Light.'
"I'm sorry, Leo," I whispered into the silence. "I don't think I can find the light here."
Suddenly, a small sound came from the corner of the cell. A pebble rolled across the floor.
I froze. "Who's there?"
From the shadows of the neighboring cell, a pair of golden eyes flashed.
"So," a gravelly, feminine voice whispered. "The Alpha finally brought home his 'little bird.' Tell me, girl... do you want to know the secret of how Selene really died?"
My heart stopped. "What did you say?"
"I said," the voice chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. "The Alpha is mourning a ghost that never existed."