Chapter 71: The Dungeon’s Chains

Chapter 71: The Dungeon’s Chains

Fianna's pov

The dungeon smelled of damp stone, rust, and old fear. The kind of scent that seeped into your skin until you couldn’t tell where it ended and you began.

I sat against the wall, the cold biting through my torn cloak. The chains binding my wrists to the iron rings above me burned with the faint shimmer of silver—just enough to weaken, not enough to kill. Derek knew what he was doing. He didn’t want me broken. Not yet.

He wanted me contained.

The walls sweated with moisture, water dripping from cracks in slow, steady rhythms. My wolf paced inside me, restless, snarling. Every drop felt like a countdown. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

We don’t belong here, she growled, her voice rough with fury. We should be ripping out throats, not sitting in chains like prey.

I closed my eyes, forcing calm I didn’t feel.
We survive first. We kill later.

My wolf bared her teeth, but she quieted, coiling low, waiting.

I tried not to think about Kael. Tried not to let the image of his face—the one I swore I’d buried—rise from the dark. But he came anyway, unbidden. His cold eyes the night he sentenced me. His hand crushing my throat. His voice, harsh and final: I wish I had never married you.

The words still cut, even now, even after everything.

I dug my nails into my palms until I felt blood. That girl was gone. Fianna had died once already. I had risen from the ashes stronger, sharper. I wasn’t weak anymore. I wasn’t his broken Luna.

I wasn’t anyone’s.

The sound of footsteps shattered my thoughts.

Slow. Deliberate. Metal boots striking stone. My pulse betrayed me, quickening even as I forced my body still. The wolf inside bristled, fur on end, a growl rumbling low in her chest.

He wanted me to hear him. To feel him. To dread him.

The door screeched open. Torchlight spilled into the cell, slicing through the dark and throwing his shadow across me.

Derek.

He filled the doorway, tall, broad, power rolling off him in waves. His ice-blue eyes caught the torchlight, gleaming like steel freshly drawn from the forge. He stepped inside without hesitation, without rush, as though the dungeon itself bent to his presence.

My chains rattled when I shifted against the wall, but I lifted my chin. If he wanted fear, he’d starve on me.

“Still awake,” Derek said softly, his voice carrying like velvet laced with blades. He crouched in front of me, his gaze sweeping over my face, my raw wrists, my still-burning defiance. “Most wolves scream by now. Some beg. Some break.”

“And you enjoy watching them?” My voice was sharp, colder than I felt.

“Enjoy?” His lips curved faintly, almost a smile. “No. But I learn.”

The silence stretched, heavy and taut. His eyes bored into mine, searching, stripping me bare in ways the chains never could.

I swallowed hard, refusing to look away.

“You burn,” he murmured, his hand lifting. He touched my cheek with the back of his knuckles, his skin hot against my cold flesh. “Even in chains, you burn. Like the Moon set her fire inside you.”

My wolf roared, slamming against my chest, demanding I tear his throat out. I clenched my jaw until my teeth ached.

“I don’t care what you see,” I whispered, forcing steel into every word. “I’m not yours.”

He tilted his head, his smirk growing sharper. “Not yet.”

I jerked against the chains, the silver biting deep. The pain was sharp, bright, grounding. His eyes followed the movement, glinting with amusement.

“You hate me,” Derek said softly, almost musing. “Good. Hate is sharp. It cuts cleaner than love. And I’ll teach you how to wield it.”

“I don’t need your lessons,” I spat.

For a moment, silence. Then his smile vanished. He leaned close, his voice a razor against my ear.

“Kael will come for you,” Derek whispered. “I’ll let him. I’ll drag him here, and I’ll break him in front of you. And when his blood runs across this floor, you’ll finally understand who you belong to.”

The promise sank into me like ice water.

Before I could reply, he straightened and turned for the door. At the threshold, he glanced back, his eyes glowing faintly in the torchlight.

“You’ll call me Alpha before the end.”

The door slammed shut. Darkness rushed back in, swallowing me whole.

My breath trembled, but I forced it steady. My wrists ached. My skin burned where he’d touched me. My wolf howled inside, furious, wild.

But I didn’t break. I wouldn’t.

I leaned my head against the wall, my silver eyes glowing faintly in the dark. Derek thought his dungeon would cage me, that his words would twist me, that his power would bend me.

But all he had done was sharpen me further.

And when Kael came—whe
n war finally reached this place—Derek would learn that chains could not tame fire.