Chapter 3 003

Maureen Laurent

I used to think love was gentle.

My mother warned me a hundred times. "Silas Vane is a wolf with ambition in his teeth, Maureen. He will smile while he eats your heart."

I laughed. Fought her. Screamed that she didn't understand love, that she was cruel for trying to tear me from the only boy who ever made me feel safe.

The last time we argued, she was eight months heavy with my little brother, hand pressed to her belly, tears in her eyes.

"One day," she whispered, "you will remember this moment and hate yourself for not listening."

I stormed out. Three weeks later she was dead. Silas's hands around my throat. His mother's cold laugh. Celeste's golden hair tangled in his fist while they planned to sell my family's land the same night they sold my corpse.

I never got to tell her she was right. I never got to say sorry.

Now I'm curled on a velvet chaise in a stranger's mansion, wearing nothing but a man's coat and a collar that burns every time I breathe too deep. And all I can hear is her voice: You should have listened, little star.

Lord Cassian snaps his fingers at the maids. "Clean her. Feed her. Dress her in something pretty."

The maids bow so low their foreheads touch the marble.

I want to scream. I want to claw his eyes out. But my body is shaking too hard, and the collar is laced with wolfsbane; every time I try to summon my wolf, agony shoots down my spine.

Two women drag me through perfumed corridors into a bathing chamber of black marble and gold veins. They strip the coat away. Cold air hits every bruise, every lash mark. Hot water pours over me. Rough sponges scrub until I bleed again. They don't speak. They don't have to. Their eyes say it all: another toy, another year, another corpse for the snow.

They towel me dry, oil my skin until it gleams, then dress me in a slip of white silk that ends mid-thigh and clings to every curve. No shoes. Just the collar and a thin silver chain clipped to it like a leash.

When they're finished, I look like a sacrifice. I feel like one.

Lord Cassian is waiting in the doorway, mask gone now. He's handsome in the way a blade is handsome-sharp, cold, eager to cut. His eyes rake over me and he licks his lips.

"Perfect," he murmurs. "The Hunt begins at moonrise tomorrow. Until then, you're mine to play with."

He steps closer, fingers brushing the crescent scar at my throat-the one my mother kissed every night and told me never to let anyone see.

"Such pretty marks," he whispers. "I wonder how many more I'll leave before Vuk tears you apart."

My stomach drops. He bought me because of it.

I try to step back, but the chain jerks me forward. He leans in, breath hot against my ear. "When I catch you-and I will catch you-I'm going to hand you over gift-wrapped. He'll never forget who broke you first."

I turn my face away. The slap that follows splits my lip. Blood fills my mouth.

He laughs, delighted. "Save that fire. You'll need it."

He turns to leave, tossing over his shoulder, "Lock her in the red room. No food. No water. Let her hunger make her sweet."

The maids drag me away. The red room: crimson walls, crimson sheets, chains bolted to the headboard and floor. They lock the chain to a ring in the ceiling so I have to stand, arms stretched high, toes barely touching the ground.

The door slams. Silence.

I hang from the ceiling by the silver chain. Every breath tugs the collar tighter against my throat.

Hours pass. Or minutes. Time is slippery when you're waiting to be hunted. My legs give out. The chain holds me up. My shoulders burn. My head lolls forward.

Eventually exhaustion wins. I fall into sleep the way you fall into a grave. And the nightmares come: my father's throat torn open, my mother curled around her swollen belly, Silas laughing, the crowd screaming "Witch!"

I jerk awake with a scream that rips my throat. Tears pour down my face, hot and useless. My body shakes so hard the chain rattles overhead. I hate myself. I hate that I'm still alive while they're dead. I hate that I ever loved him.

The door opens. "It's time."

Two guards unclip the chain. My arms drop like dead things. They drag me down crimson corridors, past mirrors that show a girl I don't recognize: hollow cheeks, silver eyes too big, collar like a brand of shame.

Lord Cassian waits in the entrance hall, dressed in black hunting leathers. He grins when he sees me limp and shaking.

"On your knees."

I don't move fast enough. His hand cracks across my face, then he grabs my arm and yanks me upright. "That's for later. I like my prey marked."

He clips a longer leash to my collar and yanks me outside into the freezing night. A sleek black carriage waits, pulled by six white wolves the size of horses. He shoves me inside, climbs in after, and we ride through snow and moonlight until the fortress rises ahead of us like a mountain carved from obsidian and nightmares.

The Northern Dominion. The Alpha Devil's house.

The second the gates open, something inside me fractures. His scent slams into me-wildfire, midnight snow, raw power. It floods my lungs, sinks into my blood, pools hot and shameful between my thighs. My wolf-drugged silent for weeks-stirs with a violent jerk that makes me gasp.

Cassian notices. His grip tightens on the leash. "Behave," he hisses. "Or I'll make you regret it right here."

The carriage stops. Guards drag me out into a massive open arena ringed with torches and high seats full of masked nobles. Below, the snow is already stained red. Bodies lie scattered like broken dolls. The Hunt has already started.

Cassian parades me along the front row like a prize, letting lords and ladies touch my hair, my arms, my face. Some pinch. Some laugh. I bite my tongue until it bleeds to keep from screaming.

Then the air changes. The temperature drops so fast my breath clouds. Every torch flares higher. A ripple of fear runs through the entire arena. Masked nobles drop their eyes. Guards fall to one knee.

Heavy footsteps. I don't want to look. I have to look.

He steps into the torchlight. Seven feet of pure power. Black robe hanging open, chest scarred and glowing faintly. Golden eyes burning like fallen stars. Fangs visible even from here.

Vuk Kael Lasković. The Alpha Devil.

He raises a crossbow and fires, once, twice, three times. Bodies drop silently in the snow. Then he stops. His head turns slowly. Our eyes lock.

The world falls away. My wolf surges forward so hard I stumble, leash jerking taut in Cassian's hand. Electricity explodes under my skin-every nerve ending screaming one word.

Mate. Mate. MATE.

I can't breathe. I can't think. I'm drowning in wildfire and moonlight and the sudden, violent certainty that I was born to burn in this male's arms.

Cassian snarls, yanking me closer. "What the fuck are you-"

Vuk moves. One moment he's thirty feet away. The next he's right in front of us, snow swirling around his boots like he summoned the storm himself.

He doesn't look at Cassian. He looks only at me. Golden eyes flare brighter.

"Take your hand off my mate." A pause. "Or I'll wear it as a fucking necklace."

Cassian's grip falters. Before anyone can blink, Vuk's hand shoots out, closes around the leash, and rips it from Cassian's fingers like it's tissue paper. The collar snaps open and falls to the snow.

Then I'm in his arms. One iron arm under my knees, the other crushing me to his chest. His skin is burning hot against my frozen body. His scent floods me until I'm dizzy, drunk, aching.

I should fight. I should scream. Instead my hands fist in his open robe and I bury my face against his throat, breathing him in like air after drowning.

The bond snaps tight between us-violent, irreversible, alive. He growls, low and wrecked, lips brushing my ear.

"Mine."

And for the first time since they killed my family, I'm not afraid. I'm home.