Chapter 3

The cellar reeks of damp stone and old blood, and the silver chains humming on the walls make my wolf shrink to the back of my chest.

This is the second time they've locked me down here.

The first time is still fresh.

I'd caught Ivy sneaking into Kaelen's den in the dead of night. Found her curled up in his bed, in nothing but his shirt, her scent smeared all over his sheets.

She cried and said her wolf did it. Sleepwalking, she called it. Trauma from her rogue pup years. She didn't know why her paws had carried her across the border into Silverpine. She just felt safe near his scent. She didn't mean it.

My parents and Kaelen swallowed every word.

Kaelen even told her, all soft and gentle, that her wolf was welcome near his any time she got scared.

Back then I was drunk on the mate bond. I wouldn't let a single unmated she-wolf inside a mile of his den. No female warrior on his guard rotation. Nothing.

So I shifted halfway and raked my claws across Ivy's face.

And my parents dragged me down here.

Seven days. One bowl of raw scraps a day. Not enough for a wolf my size to hold her form.

They didn't unlock the silver door until my wolf was ready to eat itself alive and I choked out an apology.

This time, they're clearly not stopping at starvation.

My father walks in with a switch in his hand. Kaelen follows two steps behind him.

The second the switch clears the doorway, my wolf lets out a whine so sharp it rattles my ribs.

Silver-soaked. The whole thing.

"Thirty would've been fair. But Ivy begged me to go easy on you, so I'm using the switch instead of the cat-o'-claws. That means fifty."

Crack.

The first strike lights my whole back on fire.

Not just skin. The silver goes deeper than skin. It burns straight down into my wolf-soul and she howls inside me, clawing at the walls of my chest trying to get away from it.

He hits me a dozen times.

The welts split one after another. Silver starts eating into the open flesh and I can smell my own blood cooking.

Every strike after that comes with a burn that goes numb and then wakes back up, over and over.

I remember them saying Ivy begged for the switch.

Silver-soaked. She soaked it herself, probably. Sat there dipping it and imagining every stripe on my back.

"Apologize to your sister!"

"Are you going to apologize or not?!"

He doesn't get the answer he wants, so he just hits harder.

By fifty, my back and arms are one open wound. Skin peeled up in raw strips. Blood running down my spine, hissing where it hits the silver still burning in the cuts.

My wolf has gone quiet. Not dead-quiet. Cold-quiet.

I can feel her looking through my eyes at the male who fathered us, and she's not looking away.

I curl up in the corner and drag air into my lungs.

My father drops the switch on the stone and walks out.

His parting shot: "Stubborn to the bone."

Kaelen crouches in front of me.

He doesn't even flinch at the smell of silver-burn coming off my back.

"Ivy sent salve and a clean shirt down for you. She's never been anything but good to you, Selene. You're her older sister. I'm about to bond her into this pack as family. We should be looking after her. Why do you have to keep making her the villain?"

"Just apologize and be done with it. Stop dragging every wolf in this pack through your drama."

He shakes out the shirt Ivy sent and lays it across my raw back.

The fabric touches my open wounds and my whole body locks up like I've been shoved into a vat of pure silver dust.

The lining. She lined it with silver thread.

Every fiber of it hisses against my skin. My wolf finally breaks and howls inside my chest, loud enough that I bite down on my own tongue to keep it in my head.

I fold in half and drop into a ball.

"Goddess, dramatic. Ivy goes white every time her wolf hurts and you don't see her rolling around like a wounded pup."

Kaelen stands up with a look like I disgust him and walks out.

I finally get my breath back.

I claw the shirt off my shoulders with what's left of my strength and shove it into the corner as far from me as I can get it.

My wolf presses her nose against the inside of my ribs and I can feel her looking up at the small barred window near the ceiling.

A sliver of moonlight is coming through.

It lands right on the silver still burning in my back.

And where the moonlight touches me, the burn goes quiet.

Not healed. Just quiet. Held.

My wolf lets out a long, low breath inside me.

Two more moons, I tell her. Two more moons and we're gone.

She rests her chin on her paws and waits with me.