Chapter 1 Prologue
Author’s Note: This chapter contains mature and disturbing themes, including violence, abuse, and trauma. Reader discretion is advised.
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Darkness swallowed the room whole.
Elara lay curled on the cold stone floor, arms wrapped around herself as if that alone could keep her together. The air was stale and heavy, yet she could not stop trembling. Every small shift sent sharp flashes of pain through her leg, bent at a wrong angle, swollen and useless. She did not try to straighten it anymore.
Her throat burned. Three days without food. Without water. A sound reached her through the fog, familiar voices beyond the door.
“Get her cleaned,” a man muttered. “She’s not fit to look at.”
Another chuckled. “Well, she’s still breathing.”
Elara’s fingers curled into the dirt. Her stomach twisted, not with fear alone, but with knowing. Knowing what night meant in this place.
The door slammed open.
Light tore into the room, cruel and blinding. Elara hissed and turned her face away, pressing her cheek to the cold floor.
Footsteps approached, unhurried, confident.
“Well,” came a familiar voice, smooth as a blade, “you’ve made a mess of yourself, sister. Or should I say mate?”
“I am not your mate,” Elara hissed through gritted teeth.
Draven crouched beside her. She could feel him even before his fingers brushed her jaw, tilting her face upward. His touch was wrong. Not rough, not kind but possessive.
“Look at you,” he murmured. “Father would be disappointed.”
Her breath hitched despite herself.
“Anyway,” he said softly. Too softly. “Did you miss me?”
Silence.
“Answer me?” His hand tightened in her hair, forcing her head back as pain flared..
“No,” she rasped.
The blow came fast. Her vision burst white as her face struck stone. Warmth spilled from her lip, metallic and thick.
Behind him, laughter rippled through the doorway.
Draven rose slowly, irritation flickering across his features. “See?” he said to the others. “No gratitude. After everything the pack tolerates.”
He looked back down at her, eyes cold and assessing.
“You forget your place, Elara. You don’t belong here.” His gaze flicked briefly to her legs, to the faint shimmer beneath her skin, the mark she couldn’t hide when she was weak. “Not fully.”
One of the men snorted. “They never do.”
Draven smiled, thin and sharp. “Exactly. Too witch to trust. Too wolf to cast out cleanly.” He leaned closer to her. “You exist because my father was foolish enough to feel pity and it cost him his life.”
Elara gathered what little strength she had left and spat at his boots.
The room went still.
For a heartbeat, Draven only stared. Then he laughed quietly, wiping imaginary dirt from his sleeve. “See?” he said calmly. “This is why rogues skin creatures like you alive.” Turning to face the men, he smiled. “Let’s get going, shall we? She’ll be brought to us when she is properly groomed.”
With that, they left.
Elara sat alone, tracing the scars on her body with shaking fingers. Since Hector’s death, the pack had treated her like nothing more than filth. An outcast. She had cried until there were no tears left. Now there was only emptiness. Her head throbbed where Draven had struck her. For a moment, she could almost hear her father’s warm and gentle voice calling her his ‘darling princess.’
Nine Years Ago
A ten-year-old Elara giggled from her perch on Hector Northwood’s lap-the Alpha, the man she called Papa.
“Papa… am I an outcast?”
He blinked in surprise. “Who told you that, honey?”
“No one,” she muttered, staring at her small hands.
“Elara,” he said softly, lifting her chin until their eyes met. “You are my daughter. My darling princess. Don’t ever forget that.”
He kissed her forehead, his warmth chasing away every shadow. “No one will ever hurt you as long as I’m alive.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Author’s Note
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