Chapter 3

Briar performed a textbook-perfect faint right in front of me.

The arc of her body falling backward was precisely calibrated—graceful enough to land squarely in the arms of the people who'd rushed over at the commotion.

Before anyone could even ask a question, Kael had already stepped in front of me—five fingers clamped around my throat, slamming me against the corridor's stone wall.

"Selene, did you hit her again?" His pupils blazed with the dark-gold pressure unique to an Alpha. "Do you actually think I won't lay a hand on you?"

I didn't even get the chance to deny it.

"Guards!" Father's roar erupted at the far end of the corridor. "Take her away—lock her in the dungeon. Punish her according to clan law!"

The dungeon. Damp, dark, and devoid of sunlight all year round.

This was my second time being thrown in here.

The memory of the first was still knife-sharp.

That night, I'd discovered Briar slipping silently into Kael's bedroom after dark. When I pushed open the door, she was perched on the edge of his bed, her clothes half undone.

I confronted them on the spot.

But Briar, eyes brimming with tears, offered her defense: she said she'd nearly been snatched by a rogue wolf as a child, which had given her severe sleepwalking. Subconsciously, she explained, she felt safe near Kael. It wasn't intentional.

My parents and Kael believed her without question.

Kael even told her gently that if she was ever scared, she could come find him anytime.

Back then, my love for him burned at its most intense. I'd been so possessive that I'd issued an order—no female was to hold a position anywhere in the Frost Clan's inner circle.

So that day I'd slapped Briar across the face without a moment's hesitation.

The price was seven days in this dungeon, with nothing but a bowl of cold porridge each day. They didn't let me out until I was so starved I could barely stay conscious—and agreed to apologize to Briar.

This time, they clearly didn't intend to stop at starving me for a few days.

The heavy iron door groaned open. Father walked in, a cane rod gripped in his fist.

Kael followed behind him.

"Per the Graves family code, the sentence is thirty lashes." Father's voice was frigid. "However, Briar took pity on you and begged me on her knees to use the cane instead of the silver whip. Since the cane is lighter than the whip, the count is raised to fifty."

Crack—

The first blow landed across my back. A livid purple-red welt swelled up instantly.

After a dozen or so, my skin split open.

Every strike after that came with a corrosive, bone-deep burn—mercury. The cane Briar had so "kindly" begged them to substitute had been soaked through with mercury.

I could barely hold my human form.

When the fifty lashes were done, my entire back and arms were a raw, bloody mess. Thin rivulets of blood traced my spine downward, pooling on the stone slab beneath my feet. My body had long since slipped beyond my control, warped into something half-wolf, half-human—a grotesque thing.

I curled up in the corner, gasping in great heaving breaths, shaking all over.

Father tossed the cane aside, dropped a single remark—"Utterly incorrigible"—and strode out.

Kael crouched down in front of me and unfolded a bundle of clothes.

"These are the fresh clothes and ointment Briar prepared for you. Selene, she's always been respectful toward you. As her older sister, you should be looking after her. Why do you insist on assuming the worst about her?"

He shook out the garments and "thoughtfully" draped them over my blood-soaked back.

The instant the fabric touched the open wounds—

It was as if my entire body had been plunged into boiling brine.

The pain hit so hard I curled into a ball in a single convulsion, my spine arching, my lengthened wolf-claws gouging into the cracks between the floor stones.

"Always so dramatic. Briar goes deathly pale from her episodes and still doesn't carry on the way you do." He stood up, tossed out that contemptuous remark, and walked away.

The echo of the iron door slamming faded slowly into nothing.

It was a long time before I clawed back even a thread of breath.

Moonlight filtered through the single narrow slit above, pale and silent.

I closed my eyes and silently addressed that moon—

Accelerate. I want to sever all connections faster.

Silver text materialized in the darkness:

Acceleration engaged. Tomorrow at noon, twelve o'clock sharp, all repercussions will descend.

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