Chapter 1
Helena's POV
The air in the pack house had always smelled of pine and comfort. Tonight, it reeked of blood and shattering trust. It was a metallic, coppery scent that clung to the back of my throat, thick and nauseating, the unmistakable odor of my world ending.
I pressed my ear against the cold, polished oak door of my father's private study, my heart drumming a frantic, terrified beat against my ribs.
I had been woken not by a gentle shake, but by a chilling, strangled scream, a sound I now knew was my father's last.
The voices that followed were the hammer blows that broke my soul.
"You know what, Alpha," the first voice sneered, dripping with a cold, triumphant malice that turned my blood to ice. It was Romie, my secret lover. "It's actually a pleasure to watch you die," he said.
My breath hitched, tears instantly welling up, but they were not tears of fear yet—they were of utter, mind-shattering shock.
My Romie? The man whose kiss was the most exquisite thing I had ever known?
"Yeah, it is," a second voice… Daphne, my father's most trusted maid—hissed with predatory glee.
Romie continued, his voice a hammer blow of hatred. "My plan was to torture you until you begged for death. But now, I'm left with no choice but to take revenge on Helena."
My world crumbled. I couldn't breathe. Revenge on me? I heard my father's weak, gurgling gasp. "Don't hurt Helena. She's special."
Then came a sickening, wet sound…the sound a powerful wolf makes when his life force is extinguished by silver. Then, silence. Utter, damning silence.
Ava, who had crept out behind me, clamped a desperate hand over my mouth, her body shaking violently. "We have to run, Princess. Now!"
The door to the study burst open, not inward, but outward, slamming against the stone with impossible force. Standing in the doorway, bathed in the red glow spilling from the room behind them, were Romie, Daphne, and Raph, my father's three most trusted retainers.
They were drenched in my father's blood, their faces twisted in victorious, savage smiles.
Romie's eyes, the same mesmerizing eyes I had gazed into hours ago, fixed on mine. His lips curled into a slow, cold sneer of ownership.
"Well, well, well," Romie purred, taking a slow step toward me, his stance radiating the primal, terrifying authority of a newly crowned Alpha. "It seems the Alpha's little liability woke up just in time for the curtain call."
He motioned toward the corridor behind us, where the pack warriors, now his warriors, were already securing the entrances. "Get her. And be gentle. She's not going to a cell, not yet. She's mine."
Ava screamed, yanking me backward, desperate to escape. We broke into a desperate, frantic sprint out of the pack house and into the cold night air.
The freedom was a fleeting, intoxicating rush, but the frantic thudding of paws behind us made it clear: the escape was doomed.
"There! My car!" I gasped, pointing toward the heavy wooden gates where my new Mercedes sat, a cruel, useless birthday gift.
A chilling sound, the metallic snap of a rifle bolt, thundered behind us. Then, a sudden, searing crack of a gunshot.
Ava cried out, her hand violently ripping from mine as her body collapsed in a heap.
"Ava!" I dropped to my knees, the horror overriding the instinct to flee. Blood bloomed instantly on her back, staining the pale courtyard stone. "No... no!"
Her eyes, glazed with pain, found mine. "Go, Helena… Run! My Wolf will protect me…"
But Romie's warriors surged around us, closing the circle. Their shadows blocked the moonlight.
Raph, Romie's Beta, appeared, his face a mask of unexpected agony. Ava was his mate. Raph gently, reverently, scooped Ava's injured body into his arms, rushing her toward the infirmary, leaving me utterly alone and defenseless.
And then, Romie was standing over me.
His face was hard, the mask of the ruthless Alpha complete. "Did you really think you could escape me?" he sneered, his gaze sweeping over my trembling body, possessive and cruel. "Take her. Lock her up in the darkest hole in the dungeon. But first, clean her up. She's mine to use tonight."
The guards dragged me, scraping my skin raw on the stone, until I was deposited, shaking and sobbing, in the dank, stinking darkness of the dungeon.
But my respite was brief. Moments later, I was hauled out, washed, and dressed in a sheer, humiliating slip, and dragged back to Romie's luxurious suite. The opulence was a stark contrast to my broken state.
He slammed the door shut, trapping us.
"Romie, please, don't! I beg you!" I pleaded, tears streaming down my face.
"You don't call me by my name," he scoffed, his body radiating lethal intent. "I am your Alpha, your captor. Isn't this what you always wanted?"
"Not anymore," I sobbed, looking away, desperate to shield myself from his eyes. "Not after you murdered my father."
He erupted into bitter laughter, a cold, sharp sound. "Did you think I ever liked you? Your father killed mine, who was the true Alpha, and took this pack. I was ten years old. From an Alpha's son to a slave. I never forgot." His face darkened, a true reflection of the revenge-driven monster. "I'm doing the same thing to you, Helena. From Alpha's daughter to slave. I will use you until I'm satisfied."
He ripped off his clothes and my flimsy garment. I cried out, my pleas swallowed by the heavy silence of the room. The physical violation was secondary to the deep, shattering trauma of his dominance.
The mate bond, the phantom spark I had felt for him, screamed in agony against the violation of the present moment. I was a vessel for his revenge, his power, and his raw, conflicted lust.
When it was over, he sat up, panting, his face etched with a strange mixture of satisfied lust and profound self-loathing.
"Get out," he ordered, his voice raw.
I felt a surge of defiant, self-destructive strength. I sat up, clutching the sheets to my chest. "You dare not, Romie! You can't have me and throw me away like trash. You'll make me Luna!"
He roared with laughter. "Luna? You better know your position! You're a slave, and I'll only use you to satisfy my urges and nothing more. "Now, get out!" He grabbed my arm and dragged me, leaving me humiliated and sobbing before the sneering guards.
"Go lock her back in the dungeon," he commanded.
I was dragged back into the cold, stinking darkness. Romie had proven his hatred, but his own conflicted need for me was terrifyingly clear.
Just as the dungeon door slammed shut, I saw a familiar face pressed to the bars… Maiden Daisy, her eyes full of desperate, secret urgency. She pressed a tightly folded piece of parchment into my hand, her voice a barely audible plea: "Princess, you must run. The address is a safe house. Your father had a plan. Go before dawn, or you will die."
The metallic click of the lock sealed my fate, but the piece of paper felt like a tiny, fragile spark of hope in the suffocating blackness.