My stomach twisted into a tight knot. My mouth filled with acrid, burning bile before I even had a chance to realize what was happening. I swallowed. It was in vain. A sharp spasm arched my body on the straw mattress, forcing my nails to claw into the chaff.
The world tilted. The ceiling of the cell drifted sideways, and the grey stones of the walls began a slow rotation.
"Not here... please, not here," I croaked into the void.
My voice sounded foreign, cracked. The smell of stagnant dampness, which I had grown used to over these weeks, suddenly struck my nostrils with the force of a blacksmith's hammer. Rot. Mold. Death. Every nuance of the stench became distinct, pronounced.
I lunged upward. My palms slid across the slimy floor. Black spots danced before my eyes, weaving into bizarre patterns. I had to get out. Air. I just needed a little air.
The corridor was no better. A draft dragged the smell of burning torches past me. My throat tightened. I pressed a palm to my stomach, feeling something shifting deep inside. Something cold. Something foreign.
A white blur flickered ahead. Ella. She was lugging a massive laundry basket, hunched under its weight.
"Ella!" I took a step, stumbled, and grabbed a protrusion on the wall. "Wait..."
She froze. Her shoulders tensed; the basket in her hands trembled. She didn't turn around.
"I... I don't feel well," I squeezed the words through gritted teeth. "Help me get to the well. I need water..."
Ella spun around sharply. Her face, usually soft, now looked as if carved from cheap grey stone. She scanned my pale skin, my bitten lips, and the hand convulsively clutching my stomach.
"Stay back, Alina."
"Please, I'm just... my head is spinning."
"I said stay back!" She stepped toward the opposite wall, literally pressing her back against it. "I have work. Everyone has work."
"But we... only yesterday we talked about—"
"Yesterday was yesterday." Ella adjusted her grip on the basket, her knuckles turning white. "Now, you reek."
"Of what?" I froze, my hand stopping mid-air before reaching her shoulder.
"Of trouble," she spat the word and almost ran down the corridor, circling me in a wide arc. "Don't come near me again. Don't you dare."
The words stung worse than the spasm in my stomach. I remained standing in the gloom, listening to the fading rhythm of her boots. A void opened in my chest—cold and sticky, like lake water in November.
I had to move. If the guards saw me like this, they would think I'd caught the fever. Or something worse.
I trudged along the wall, barely moving my feet. From around the corner, near the kitchen, a dense, oily cloud drifted out. The smell of roasted meat. Grease. Garlic. Blood.
My stomach did another somersault. I barely managed to dive into the narrow opening of an abandoned pantry before my insides spilled onto the dusty floor.
I retched for a long time, agonizingly, until nothing remained in my chest but a dull, cutting pain. I sank to my knees in the dust. The rag that served as my dress was instantly soaked in filth, but I didn't care.
"The blood of kings... It shall continue in pain."
Madame Isabelle's words surfaced in my memory, as clear as a death sentence. I closed my eyes, pressing my forehead against the cold wood of an old shelf.
"No," I whispered into the darkness. "Not this. Not from him."
My stomach pulsed again. This wasn't sickness. The mark on my neck, hidden under my hair, was burning. It lived a life of its own, sending short jolts of electricity down my spine.
Was it a child? A little monster that would drain me from the inside?
Terror seized my throat, but deep down, beneath layers of panic, something else stirred. A strange, frightening warmth. My blood. His blood.
"You will destroy me," I hugged myself, rocking back and forth. "You are destroying me already."
The silence of the pantry began to weigh on me. Dust filled my nose, making it hard to breathe. I felt as though I were being buried alive in this heap of old junk.
Suddenly, the bond inside me flared to life. A sharp burst of someone else's irritation pierced my consciousness. Cale.
He was close. Too close.
I froze, afraid to even breathe. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird breaking its wings. The air in the room suddenly grew heavy, electrified.
The creak of a door.
A shaft of light from the corridor cut through the pantry's gloom. A massive figure filled the doorway. A shadow fell over me, swallowing me whole. The smell of smoke, cold metal, and wet fur displaced all other scents.
The Alpha.
I didn't look up. I stared at his heavy boots, caked with dried mud. He didn't move. He simply stood there, looking down at my hunched silhouette.
"You're hiding here," Cale's voice vibrated, making the pebbles on the floor tremble.
I remained silent, clutching my shoulders tighter.
"Get up."
"I... I just need a minute," my voice broke into a whisper.
"I said—get up."
Cale stepped into the room. The space around him instantly constricted. He grabbed my elbow and jerked me to my feet. My head spun; I swayed, instinctively clutching his leather doublet.
He immediately seized my wrists. His fingers were like shackles—icy and undeniable.
"Look at me."
I raised my head. His face was right there. The hard lines of his mouth, the scar cutting across his brow. But his eyes... his eyes were different. The pupils had dilated, almost completely drowning the iris in black.
Cale drew in a sharp breath. Once. Twice. His head tilted slightly, as if he were listening to a sound only he could hear.
"What is wrong with you?" His voice lowered, taking on a dangerous, insidious depth.
"I'm just... unwell. The smell from the kitchen was too strong..."
"Lie," he cut me off mid-sentence, squeezing my wrists until they cracked. "Your scent."
I held my breath.
"It has changed, Alina."
"I don't know what you mean. I'm just sick. The castle is damp, and Ella said—"
"I don't care what a servant said." He moved even closer, his chest brushing mine. "You smell different. Bitter. And... sweet."
He sniffed again, this time trailing his nose along my neck, right over the mark. I let out a cry as his breath scorched my skin.
"Your wolf... does he feel something?" I tried to pull away, but he only pressed me harder against the shelving.
"My wolf wants to flay the skin from your body to get to what is hidden inside." Cale abruptly released my hands and gripped my face, forcing me to look directly into his darkened eyes. "What did you do? Who did you see?"
"No one!" I gasped. "Madame Isabelle... she just..."
"What did she say?"
"That I am weak. That I won't survive..." I faltered, feeling a tear roll down my cheek.
Cale froze. His gaze moved to my stomach and then back to my eyes. There was no pity in that look. Only a primal, predatory realization. An obsession that made my blood run cold.
"You aren't sick," he muttered, a growl bleeding into his voice. "You're changing."
"No..."
"You smell like mine. More than ever before."
He ran his thumb over my lower lip, smearing the blood from where I had bitten it. His face contorted into a strange, almost painful grimace.
"Cale, let go, it hurts..."
"There will be more pain," he leaned into my ear, his whisper searing my skin. "You're going nowhere now. Not even in your thoughts."
He stepped back, but I still felt his presence as a physical weight. Cale looked at me as if he saw not a human, but a rare trophy he intended to lock in a golden cage.
"Go to your chambers," he commanded. "And don't you dare go near the kitchen. Or the other servants."
"I have work to do," I tried to reclaim some shred of dignity, wiping my face with my sleeve.
"Your work now is to breathe," he turned, his cloak billowing and kicking up a cloud of dust. "And to protect what you carry."
He left without looking back. I remained standing in the darkness of the pantry, listening to his heavy footsteps echoing down the corridor.
My hand moved instinctively to my stomach.
"It can't be true," I whispered, but deep inside, at the very core of my being, the bond responded with a low, triumphant rumble.
The trap had snapped shut. And this time, the walls of the trap were made of my own flesh.