Chapter 2

　　Avery's POV

　　The door opened but the hallway light didn't spill in.

　　The air shifted first.

　　Wolves feel presence before sound. Even with the silver suppressants still lingering in my veins, my wolf stirred uneasily beneath my skin.

　　Whoever was there didn't speak. I couldn't see their faces. The room was still dark, and I hadn't moved from the corner of the floor where they had left me hours ago.

　　No food. No light. Just cold stone beneath my palms and the faint metallic scent of the silver bolts in the doorframe.

　　"Take her away."

　　Zara's voice.

　　My blood went cold before my mind could process it.

　　I scrambled to my feet, but hands were already on me. Pack guards, strong, scented with pine and iron. They grabbed me by both arms and yanked me upright so hard my shoulder screamed.

　　"Zara?!" My voice cracked. "What are you doing? Where are you taking me?!"

　　Nothing. No answer. They dragged me down the corridor, through the main hall, past ancestral pack carvings that once felt like home. My bare feet scraped across stone. My shoulder burned from their grip.

　　"Zara, please!" I screamed. "Stop — stop, please, say something — where are you taking me?!"

　　Still nothing.

　　That was worse than shouting. When Zara went silent it meant she had already decided. It meant she was past the point of enjoying the argument and had moved somewhere colder.

　　They dragged me out of the house and into the compound and the night air slammed into me. Damp forest, wet soil, wolf scent heavy in the breeze. Clouds covered the moon. No witness.

　　I twisted and pulled but their grip didn't shift even slightly.

　　"Drop her there."

　　They did. My knees hit the ground so hard I cried out. The gravel tore the skin from my shins. I felt the blood warm, immediate, before the pain fully registered.

　　Zara stepped forward into my line of sight. In the low light from the house behind her she looked like something cut out of shadow.

　　Arms folded. Expression calm. She was enjoying this the way people enjoy things they have been planning for a long time.

　　"Chain her hands apart," she said. "Let her feel what disobedience costs."

　　I screamed when the cuffs clamped around my wrists. Not just from the pain. From humiliation.

　　Iron cuffs snapped around my wrists. The metal burned faintly against my skin. Hooks in the stone wall pulled my arms wide apart, stretching my shoulders until fire shot down my spine.

　　"Zara." My voice broke completely. "You are my sister. Why are you doing this? What have I done to you?"

　　She crouched in front of me. Her wolf flickered behind her eyes. Cold and satisfied.

　　"You exist," she said simply. "That was always enough."

　　She stood back up and I dropped my head and I begged. I begged in a way I had promised myself I would never beg again.

　　"I would disappear, I would leave, you would never hear from me, never see me, I would be gone so completely it would be like I had never existed at all."

　　My voice was barely sound anymore. Just air and desperation.

　　She tilted her head. For one second I thought she was actually considering it.

　　"You will disappear," she said softly. "To the Alpha's House. You will stay exactly like this. No food. No water. Nobody is coming for you."

　　She turned and walked back toward the house without looking at me once.

　　One by one the lights in the windows went out.

　　Then the rain came.

　　It started soft. Just drops, scattered and cold. Then it came down all at once, heavy and merciless, soaking through my clothes in seconds. My hair plastered to my face.

　　The chains grew heavier with the water and the cuffs bit deeper into my wrists and I pulled against them with everything I had left, which was almost nothing.

　　"Help..." The word barely made it out of my throat. "Someone... please..."

　　The rain didn't stop.

　　My vision blurred. The world tilted sideways. The chains were the only thing keeping me upright as my body gave out completely.

　　My chin dropped to my chest, my weight fell forward, and the darkness that swallowed me was so total and so sudden.

　　I woke to an unfamiliar scent. Stone. Cold tile.

　　Stronger wolves.

　　My arms were tied behind me now, tighter than the chains had been, and there was thick fabric over my eyes. Black, complete, no light at all.

　　My whole body ached in the particular way that meant I had been unconscious long enough for the cold to settle into my bones.

　　Footsteps. Slow and pacing. Someone was already in the room.

　　I pushed myself upright too quickly and nearly collapsed.

　　"Who's there?" My voice came out shaking. "Please. Who's there? Please answer me, someone—"

　　A kick to my stomach cut the sentence in half. I folded forward and screamed.

　　"Shut up," a voice snapped. "Be quiet."

　　I knew that voice. Even through the blindfold and the pain and the fog of waking up on a stranger's floor. I knew it.

　　"Father?" I whispered. "Father, where am I. Please take this off, I can't see anything, what are you going to do to me."

　　His hand closed around my throat.

　　Not a slap. Not a shove. His full hand, fingers digging in, cutting off the air before I could finish the sentence. I choked. My whole body went rigid.

　　"If you ruin this," he said, very quietly, directly into my ear, "your life will not just be painful. It will be nothing. Do you understand me? Nothing."

　　I tried to nod. I couldn't tell if my head actually moved.

　　He leaned closer.

　　"You will not ruin this," he murmured into my ear. "You are Mia Morrow now. My youngest. You will accept the mating bond offered to you. You will smile."

　　My stomach dropped through the floor.

　　My breath hitched.

　　He yanked my head up by my throat.

　　"You spoil this," he continued softly, tightening his grip just enough to remind me he could break me, "and I let the pack believe you killed Mia. In a weakened pack, an accused wolf doesn't survive long."

　　"What did you—"

　　"Enough."

　　A different voice. Coming from the side of the room. Deep and cold and completely level, the kind of voice that didn't need to be loud because it had never once in its life needed volume to be obeyed.

　　My father's hand dropped from my throat instantly. Silence filled the room like water filling a container fast and total. Even my breathing felt too loud.

　　"Alpha Lucian," Father said, and I heard what happened to his voice when he said it. All the cruelty drained out and something small and frightened took its place.

　　"I... I brought her. My youngest. The one I promised. She is here."

　　A pause. Then footsteps.

　　Slow. Deliberate. And with them a sound I would not forget.

　　A stick. Tapping against the tiles. Once.

　　Twice. Coming closer.