I woke up to the smell of burning ash and cold stone.
My eyes snapped open, my combat instincts flaring before my conscious mind fully booted up. I didn't sit up immediately. I kept my breathing shallow, my body perfectly still as I let my other senses paint a picture of my surroundings.
I wasn't in the muddy ravine. I was lying on a bed so obscenely large and soft it felt like a cloud woven from silk. The air was dry and warm, heated by a massive, roaring fireplace carved from black obsidian on the far wall.
Nyx? I called inward.
Here, she responded instantly, her presence a comforting weight in the back of my mind. We are alive. And we are in the belly of the beast.
I slowly pushed myself up. My left shoulder, which had been brutally dislocated, throbbed with a dull ache, but the joint was back in place. Someone had reset it. More surprisingly, the agonizing crater in my chest from Xander's rejection was no longer a blinding fire; it had been reduced to a heavy, suffocating bruise.
The healing power of a Lycan mate's proximity. The realization made my stomach churn. I didn't want his healing. I didn't want another bond. I had just ripped myself free from one cage; I wasn't about to walk willingly into a gilded fortress.
I threw off the heavy velvet comforter and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I was dressed in an oversized, impossibly soft black linen shirt that smelled overwhelmingly of cedar and ozone. Kaelen's scent. It was so potent it made Nyx purr in my mind, a traitorous reaction I brutally squashed.
The heavy oak door at the end of the room creaked open.
I instantly dropped into a defensive crouch behind the bed, my hand blindly searching the nightstand for anything sharp—a lamp, a letter opener, a piece of glass. Nothing. The room had been meticulously sterilized of weapons.
A man stepped into the room. He wasn't Kaelen. He was tall, lean, and wore small, circular spectacles that made him look more like a scholar than a wolf. He carried a silver tray with bandages and a steaming cup of dark liquid.
When he saw me crouched behind the bed, glaring at him like a cornered feral animal, he froze.
"Ah," he said, his voice remarkably calm. He didn't drop the tray, nor did he bare his throat in submission, which meant he was high-ranking. "You're awake. The King wagered you would sleep for another twelve hours given the amount of tissue damage and silver exposure. I see you enjoy defying expectations."
"Who are you?" I demanded, my voice raspy from screaming during the rejection.
"I am Silas. Gamma and chief physician of the Shadowkeep." He slowly set the tray down on a heavy oak table near the door, keeping his hands visible. "I set your shoulder. I also cleaned the mud and... other people's blood... off you. You have three fractured ribs, a severe concussion, and a spiritual wound from a severed mate bond that would have killed any normal Omega within the hour."
He pushed his spectacles up his nose, his pale blue eyes studying me with clinical fascination. "But you are not a normal Omega, are you, Elena?"
My blood ran cold. Did he find out? I thought frantically. Did the wolfsbane wash off?
"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied smoothly, slowly standing up, though I kept the heavy oak bed frame between us.
"You had trace amounts of belladonna and concentrated wolfsbane in your bloodstream," Silas noted, picking up the steaming cup. "Most wolves would be violently ill from a fraction of that dose. You seem to be... marinading in it. Willingly."
He held out the cup. "Drink this. It will neutralize the remaining silver in your system. I promise it is not poisoned. If the King wanted you dead, he would have simply left you in the ravine."
I didn't move. I stared at the cup, then at Silas.
Before I could speak, the temperature in the room plummeted. The shadows in the corners of the massive chamber seemed to stretch and lengthen, crawling across the stone floor like living things.
"She won't take it from you, Silas."
The voice came from the doorway, deep, resonating, and dripping with dark amusement.
Kaelen leaned against the heavy oak frame. He was dressed in black slacks and a loose dark shirt that did nothing to hide the monstrous, coiled muscles of his chest and arms. His silver-white hair fell messily over his eyes, but those crimson irises burned through the gloom, locked entirely on me.
"She is a creature of deep paranoia and sharp edges," Kaelen continued, slowly walking into the room. The oppressive weight of his aura forced Silas to immediately drop his gaze and bare his neck slightly—a reflex of absolute submission to the Lycan King.
Kaelen picked up the cup from the tray. He walked over to the bed, stopping just out of my striking distance. He looked down at me, his massive frame making me feel infinitesimally small.
He didn't offer me the cup. Instead, he brought it to his own lips and took a slow, deliberate sip, his eyes never leaving mine. He swallowed, the muscles in his thick throat working smoothly.
He lowered the cup and held it out to me.
"No poison, little wolf," he rumbled, the corner of his mouth ticking up. "Now drink. You need your strength if you are going to survive what comes next."