Chapter 3

The path to the cemetery was rugged and treacherous, the snow thick enough to swallow my ankles. The open wounds on my back were freezing in the biting wind; every breath I took pulled at my torn flesh, igniting a tearing, agonizing pain.

But I didn't stop.

Just as I was about to step into the eerie pine forest bordering the cemetery, the sound of hurried footsteps crunched in the snow behind me. Dante had caught up. In his hand, he held a small box containing the pack's most precious healing salve.

He blocked my path. As he took in my trembling, swaying body, a fleeting flash of remorse—one he likely didn't even notice himself—crossed his eyes. But it was quickly masked by his usual lofty arrogance.

"Are you done throwing this tantrum?" Dante scowled, thrusting the box toward me like an act of charity. "I know I struck you a bit too hard earlier, but that was only because you were being so damn stubborn. Apply the medicine and come back with me. As long as you promise to behave yourself, accept Chloe, and be my concubine, I'll take back what I said about selling you to Lucian. This is your final chance."

He was absolutely certain I would take the medicine. In his mind, a severely injured, homeless female facing a rumored man-eating lunatic of a tomb keeper had no other choice but to submit to him.

I looked at him, suddenly realizing that this man was not only a hypocrite, but utterly pathetic.

"You must have a poor memory," I replied, not reaching for the medicine, not even bothering to lift my hand. "The deal has already been made, and I accepted the coin. I belong to Lucian now."

"Maeve! You... you're completely heartless!" Dante was utterly enraged by my words. He violently hurled the medicinal box into the snow, spilling the priceless salve all over the ground. "Fine! If you want to die that badly, I'll grant your wish! I can't wait to see if you'll come crawling back on your hands and knees, begging me like a dog!"

He stormed off in a furious rage.

I watched his retreating back, a cold sneer tugging at the corner of my lips. Turning around, I walked into the dead silence of the cemetery.

At the far end of the graveyard stood a dilapidated wooden cabin. The door was slightly ajar, spilling a faint, flickering firelight into the snow. I pushed the door open, and a pungent, overwhelmingly oppressive scent of pine needles mixed with cold steel instantly hit my face—his Alpha pheromones.

There were no lamps lit inside; the only illumination came from the dancing flames in the fireplace. A massive, towering man sat in front of the hearth, his back to me. He was shirtless, his heavily muscled back littered with a terrifying, crisscrossing network of scars. A black strip of cloth was tightly bound over his eyes, and his long, unruly hair tumbled freely over his shoulders.

This was Lucian. The blind, feral tomb keeper from the rumors.

Hearing the intrusion, he didn't turn around. His voice was hoarse and dipped in ice. "Get out. Before I snap your neck."

"I can't." I leaned against the doorframe. The extreme blood loss made my voice sound painfully weak and airy. "Dante sold me to you for a single coin. From this moment on, I am your mate."

Lucian's massive frame went entirely rigid. He slowly turned around. Even through the blindfold, I could feel an intensely sharp gaze lock onto me. He took a deep breath, scenting the heavy copper stench of blood in the air, and a slight frown marred his features.

"He beat you into this state, and then threw you to me?" It was impossible to read any emotion in his gravelly voice.

Before I could formulate a response, the world before me plunged into absolute darkness, and my body pitched forward, completely out of my control.

But the anticipated impact with the freezing floor never came. I crashed into a broad, burning-hot chest. Those icy, metallic pheromones instantly enveloped me, surprisingly soothing the violent, pulsing agony radiating through my body.

......

The next morning.

Dante hadn't slept a wink.

He sat on the Alpha's throne in the great hall, irritably rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Chloe walked over, carrying a tray of breakfast, and offered softly, "Dante, don't worry so much..."

"Shut up!" Dante snapped impatiently, cutting her off.

For some inexplicable reason, the look in Maeve's eyes while she was being whipped kept replaying in his mind, refusing to fade. That total, deadened apathy stirred an unprecedented sliver of sheer panic in his chest.

He had been so absolutely certain that Maeve would come crawling back in tears, begging for his mercy. Yet the sun was now fully up, and there hadn't been a single sound.

"Young Alpha!" A pack guard scrambled into the hall, looking utterly panicked.

"What are you panicking about?" Dante demanded, displeased.

"Lady Maeve... she actually went to the cemetery on the back mountain! She walked right into Lucian's cabin last night, and she still hasn't come out!"

"What?!" Dante shot to his feet, his heart constricting as if crushed by an invisible, brutal fist. She actually preferred to go to that feral lunatic rather than bow her head to him?!

"She's got a death wish!" Dante roared, abruptly swallowed by a massive tidal wave of panic and fury.

Ignoring everything else, he shifted into a massive black wolf, rocketing out of the main house like a bolt of lightning and sprinting blindly toward the back mountain.

"Maeve, you crazy bitch!"

However, when he frantically smashed open the wooden door of the cemetery cabin, the sight before him plunged him straight into a bottomless abyss of ice.