A shadow stirred in the corner as I crossed the threshold. The smell of damp grain and wet stone filled my nostrils, displacing the stench of expensive tobacco and wolf sweat that had soaked into my skin in Cale's chambers.
"You're late."
Ella didn't step into the light. She remained back there, behind the stacks of empty barrels, in the deep darkness where water dripped.
"The patrols were tightened. I had to wait by the laundry until the Betas passed."
I took a step forward. My fingers, still trembling after what had happened an hour ago in the Alpha's bedroom, fumbled for the edge of a cold table.
"You shouldn't have come," my friend's voice sounded like the creak of old leather. "If he finds out..."
"He's busy. Drinking with the councilors. Ella, I need..."
"What do you need?" She stepped forward abruptly. The dying candle stub on a crate illuminated her face. Her eyes were wide, her pupils two black holes. "Look at yourself."
I looked down at my gray dress. Dust, a wine stain on the hem. My fingers involuntarily touched my neck. The mark beneath my collar pulsed with a dull, aching pain, like a glowing coal embedded in my flesh.
"He doesn't stop," I breathed in a whisper. "He takes everything. Every thought. When he looks at me, I feel my own bones becoming subject to him. Ella, I'm going insane."
"Don't come closer."
She recoiled before I could even raise my hand. Her back hit the stonework. The dull thud echoed in my chest.
"I just wanted..."
"You smell like him, Alina. Sharp. Bitter. You reek of the Alpha so much it makes my teeth ache."
"It's not me!" My voice broke into a rasp. "It's what he's done to me. He pours his will under my skin. Today he forced me to stand and watch while he punished that omega... I couldn't even close my eyes. My hands wouldn't lift."
"Enough. I don't want to know."
Ella covered her ears with her palms, crumpling her dirty bonnet.
"You have to help me. There's an old cart in the stables, the one that hauls hay from the village..."
"You want us to be strung up at the gates?"
"We'll leave before dawn. Cale sleeps soundly when he's been drinking. If I can just dampen the bond for even an hour..."
"The bond can't be dampened," Ella broke into a shout but immediately bit her lip, glancing around. "You are cursed, Alina. The pack is talking about it. 'The Cursed Mark.' Those he marks that deeply don't come back. You are his thing. Living, but a thing."
"I'm your friend. We worked in the bakery together. We shared a single crust of bread when the winter pushed us toward the forest."
"That bakery is gone. And that version of you is gone, too."
I took another step. The floor was ice-cold; the chill seeped through the thin soles of my shoes, making my toes go numb.
"Look at me. Just look at me."
I reached for her shoulder, hoping for that familiar warmth that had always saved me from nightmares. Ella flinched as if struck by a whip. Her face contorted into such a mask of disgust and horror that it took my breath away.
"Don't you dare touch me. If Cale catches your scent on me... if he decides I'm inciting you to rebel..."
"He won't know."
"He knows everything!" She was nearly gasping for air. "To him, you are a leash. Through you, he sees every one of us. You're like poison now. One touch and you're a corpse."
"So, this is it?" An icy alienation spread through my chest, displacing the last remnants of hope. "You're just leaving me here? In this cellar? With him?"
"I want to live, Alina. It's that simple. I want to wake up in the morning, scrub the kettles, and know my head won't be separated from my shoulders for someone else's stupidity."
"This isn't stupidity. It's slavery."
"For you, it's slavery. For us, it's order. Go away."
In the deep shadow behind the racks of rancid oil, something crunched. A sharp, distinct sound of a snapping splinter. I froze. Ella clamped her hand over her mouth, her eyes nearly bulging out of her head.
"Who's there?" My voice sounded surprisingly steady.
Jake stepped slowly out of the darkness. His leather guard armor glinted dully in the candlelight. His hand rested habitually on the hilt of a long knife, but his posture was relaxed. Too relaxed.
"Eavesdropping, then?" I narrowed my eyes.
Jake didn't answer immediately. He glanced at Ella, who had shrunk into a ball, and then turned a heavy gaze toward me. There was no malice in his eyes. Only that same helpless pity that hurts worse than any blow.
"The patrol passed by five minutes ago," he said. "If I hadn't led them off the scent, they'd be breaking into this cellar by now."
"Thank you for your concern," I spat the words out. "Planning to report to the Alpha?"
"Why? He'll figure it out anyway once you return."
"Did you hear what she said?" I pointed at Ella. "She's afraid of me like I'm the plague."
Jake nodded, never taking his eyes off me.
"She's right about one thing. You are his territory. And for trespassing, we kill on the spot."
"I'm not territory! I'm a human being!"
"Here?" Jake gave a crooked smirk. "Here, you're either a wolf or prey. And you... you're something in between. A leash, just like she said."
Ella seized the moment. She darted past me, nearly knocking over the candle. Her footsteps quickly faded on the stairs leading to the kitchens. The silence of the cellar became absolute, broken only by the rhythmic dripping of water.
"She's going back to her bowl," Jake muttered after her. "And it's time for you to go upstairs."
"You don't understand," I gripped the edge of the old oak table, feeling splinters dig into my skin. "He's breaking me. Every evening, when the door closes..."
"Don't tell me that."
"Why? Afraid to get dirty?"
Jake stepped closer. He smelled of steel and frost.
"Because there is nothing I can do. I am a guard. You are the Alpha's mate by right of blood and mark. If I interfere, I die. You die. And half the castle dies with us."
"So, you just watch?"
"Just watch. And hope that you survive."
I opened my mouth to reply, but the words caught in my throat. Suddenly, the skin on my neck burned. It wasn't an ordinary pain. It was a dry, ferocious heat, as if a red-hot brand were being pressed against my throat.
The mark flared. Inside my head, a growl erupted—not a sound, but pure emotion, commanding and undeniable.
Back.
My body jerked of its own accord. My fingers slipped from the table.
"Alina?" Jake took a half-step toward me, his hand momentarily lifting from his hilt.
"He... he's calling," I rasped.
The heat turned into a pulsing steel wire embedded in my spine. It tightened, yanking me by an invisible hook in my chest. My legs took a step toward the stairs. Against my will. Against all common sense.
"Resist," Jake whispered quickly, though there was no conviction in his voice.
"I... can't..."
I clawed at the collar of my dress, trying to tear away the invisible fingers squeezing my soul. The mark pulsed in rhythm with my frantic heart. Every beat echoed as a flash of pain in my eyes.
To me. Now.
A second step. A third. I tripped over the basket Ella had dropped and fell to my knees. The stone floor scraped my skin, but I felt no pain from the fall. Only that unbearable, itching command, burning away my identity.
"Alina, stop!"
Jake stood motionless. His face was a mask of stone. He watched me being broken, watched my spine arch under the weight of another's will. He watched—and did not move.
I tried to grab the leg of the table. My nails tore, leaving deep gouges in the wood. My body no longer belonged to me. It had turned into a compliant mechanism, operated from the castle's main tower.
"Help me..." I whispered, looking up at him.
Jake looked away.
"Go," he said hollowly. "Or he'll come down here himself. And then Ella won't stand a chance."
A new pulse of pain, so sharp the air left my lungs. I screamed, and the sound—strained and animalistic—echoed off the vaulted ceiling. The wire tightened to its limit.
I scrambled up. My legs moved on their own, fast and precise. I wasn't walking—I was running.
"Stop!" someone cried in my head with my own voice, but it was weak, drowning in the roar of blood.
I flew past Jake. He stood like a statue, watching me go with eyes full of helpless horror. I lunged for the stairs, barely touching the steps. The cellar walls blurred into gray smudges. Cold air hit my face, but I felt only the heat of the mark.
A step, another, a turn. Мое breathing became ragged and heavy. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Faster.
I burst into the ground-floor corridor. Servants cleaning tapestries scrambled out of the way, pressing themselves against the walls. They saw my face—pale, with burning eyes, a mask of total submission. No one dared block my path.
I couldn't stop. Even when my lungs began to burn from lack of oxygen, even when my leg muscles trembled with exhaustion. The steel wire dragged me upward, up the grand staircase, past snarling stone gargoyles, toward the heavy oak doors bound in iron.
I knew who was behind them. I felt his triumph, his cold, calculated fury flowing through our bond like molten lead.
My hands pushed the doors open of their own volition.
The room was dark, save for the fireplace casting long, distorted shadows on the walls. Cale sat in a massive armchair, his back to the door. He held a goblet, and I saw the firelight play across his fingers.
"You're late," his voice was quiet, but it hit me harder than if he had shouted.
I froze in the doorway, unable to move until he permitted it. My body shook with the tremors of the fading impulse.
"I..." words wouldn't come.
"Come here."
The bond slackened, returning control of my muscles to me, but I knew it was an illusion. The leash had simply grown longer.
I took a step across the carpet. My fingers convulsively gripped the edges of my gray dress. Behind me, the doors slammed shut, cutting me off from the rest of the world, from Ella who had betrayed me, and from Jake who couldn't help.
Cale turned his head slowly. His eyes glowed with amber fire in the gloom.
"Were you seeking comfort below?" He set the goblet on the table. "Among those who fear even their own shadows?"
I remained silent, staring at the floor.
"Look at me, Alina."
I raised my head. My neck was still burning, and an icy void gaped in my chest. Everything I had—my friends, my past life, my right to say "no"—had been left behind in that damp cellar.
"They hate you," he said, rising from the chair. His shadow fell over me, swallowing me whole. "And they fear you. Now you know. Now you understand that you have no one but me."
He stepped close, and I smelled the scent of his skin. He didn't touch me, but I felt his will as a physical pressure.
"Ella said..." I faltered, my voice trembling. "She said I was cursed."
Cale reached out and slowly, almost tenderly, traced a finger along the line of my jaw, moving down toward the mark. At his touch, my skin hissed, and the pain was replaced by a strange, terrifying numbness.
"She was wrong," he whispered, leaning toward my ear. "You aren't cursed. You belong. And the sooner you accept that, the less that leash will hurt."
I closed my eyes, feeling the last remnants of resistance drain out of me along with the cold sweat. In the silence of the room, the only sounds were the crackling wood in the hearth and the heavy, masterful heartbeat of the man who had stripped me of everything.