Chapter 2 CHAPTER 2

ROSIE'S POV

"Excuse me?" The syllables dropped from Frank’s mouth like shards of ice.

The sprawling banquet hall plunged into a suffocating, terrifying stillness. Hundreds of predatory gazes pinned me to the spot, but my vision was tunneled entirely on him—the male I had secretly prayed for. The one my soul was screaming for.

"What kind of sick, twisted joke are you trying to pull?" The disgust twisting Frank's handsome features was absolute. The warmth I thought I had seen in his eyes yesterday was gone, replaced by pure, unadulterated revulsion. It felt as though he had driven a silver blade straight through my ribs.

"I... the bond," I stuttered, my vocal cords seizing. I desperately searched his face for a hint of the gentle man from the courtyard. "I felt the pull. I know you felt it too..."

"Shut your mouth!" he snarled, taking a deliberate step back as if my very presence might infect him. "A disgusting, low-born criminal claiming to be my destined? You are out of your absolute mind."

"Frank, please... you were the only one who showed me kindness..." I pleaded, my chest caving in under the weight of his hostility.

"Kindness?" He let out a barking, hollow laugh that grated against my ears. "I looked at you the same way I look at a wounded, pathetic stray cur on the side of the road. It was charity, you delusional freak. Nothing more."

Laughter erupted—ugly, booming sneers that bounced off the grand stone walls. My soul fractured, the fragments slicing me from the inside out.

"But we are bound..." I whispered, the words tasting like ash.

"Never!" His roar shook the chandeliers. "Listen to me, you piece of trash. If the Goddess herself crawled down and forced my hand, I would still choose your sister to sit beside me! I, Frank, outright reject this farce of a mate bond! I would rather die than claim you!"

My lungs forgot how to draw air. Harper.

Right on cue, my twin glided out from the sea of mocking faces. She didn't look at me with pity; she looked at me like a pest she had finally squashed. "Honestly," Harper purred, her tone laced with poisonous delight. "The deity above clearly made an error. A disgraced rat like you isn't fit to lick the mud off his boots, let alone bear his mark."

The hall vibrated with howling jeers. I was drowning in an ocean of scorn, suffocating on their amusement.

"Get out of my hall before I have you thrown out like the garbage you are," Frank spat, his eyes devoid of anything resembling a soul.

I didn't walk; I bolted. I threw myself into the freezing embrace of the night, my lungs burning as I blindly sprinted away from the echoing cruelty.

Why? Why me? The question tore through my mind, unlocking the very nightmare I had spent years burying.

Harper and I used to be two halves of the same soul. Until the monster moved into our home. Our uncle. A tyrant who bruised our skin and terrorized our nights. While I learned to shrink and endure, Harper's rage had boiled over.

The memory flashed violently behind my eyes: the struggle in the dark, the sickening thud, and my uncle's lifeless body on the floorboards. Harper’s hands, stained and trembling. Someone had spotted her fleeing the room.

When the pack leadership demanded justice, my identical twin had fallen to her knees, clutching my legs. "They'll execute me, Rosie," she had sobbed, her tears running in thick rivers. "They'll string me up. Please, we share the same face. Say it was you. I swear I'll never forget it."

I had looked at her terrified, weeping face and made the ultimate sacrifice. I confessed to a slaughter I didn't commit. I claimed it was self-defense against my own kin. The Alpha spared my life but stripped my humanity. I plummeted from an honorable lineage to the absolute bottom of the pack hierarchy. I became the punching bag. The slave.

And the sister I gave my life for? She walked past me in the corridors like I was an invisible ghost, happy to step on my throat to elevate herself.

I staggered blindly through the pack territory, stumbling like a wounded animal. The whispers of the patrolling wolves sliced through the frigid air.

"Look at the rejected trash weeping." "Did the murderer actually believe the future Alpha would taint his bloodline with her?" "Must be a curse from the Goddess."

By the time I dragged my exhausted, shivering frame back to the servant's quarters, the darkness was absolute. But salvation wasn't waiting for me. Two towering enforcers blocked the doorway, their expressions carved from stone.

"The Alpha demands your presence," the larger one grunted, his meaty hand clamping down on my bruised bicep like a vice.

"No—wait, what is happening? Let go of me! I didn't break any rules!" Panic flared, burning hot in my throat as they dragged me away from the dormitories and down toward the subterranean holding cells. The stench of copper and ancient misery clogged my nose.

"Please! I haven't done anything!" I thrashed wildly as we entered the dim, freezing dungeon, but my malnourished frame was no match for their brute strength.

They slammed me against the jagged, icy stone wall, securing heavy iron cuffs around my raw wrists. I sagged against the chains, my vocal cords tearing as I sobbed for a mercy I knew would never come.

"The Alpha left explicit instructions to remind you of your station," the lead guard sneered, uncoiling a thick, leather scourge.

Before I could even brace myself, the air cracked. Fire exploded across my back, slicing through the thin fabric of my tunic and biting deeply into my flesh. The agony radiated through every nerve ending, bowing my spine backward as a blood-curdling shriek ripped from my throat.

"This," the guard snarled over my wails, the whip whistling through the damp air once more, "is the only reward a defiant, worthless omega will ever receive."