Chapter 3 CHAPTER 3

ROSIE'S POV

A strangled gasp clawed its way up my throat as consciousness returned. The damp dungeon was cloaked in heavy silence, broken only by the ragged sound of my own breathing. Liquid fire raced across my shoulder blades where the scourging had ripped my flesh, and the rusted iron cuffs had rubbed my wrists completely raw. Merely shifting my weight sent a blinding flash of agony down my spine.

By dawn, the cell doors shrieked open. The enforcers didn't speak; they simply seized me by the armpits, uncaring as my scabs tore open.

"Please... where are we going?" I rasped, my bare feet dragging across the cold flagstones. Hadn't they extracted enough blood?

They hauled me upward, out of the dark, and forcefully hurled me onto a polished marble floor. I hit the ground hard, my injured back screaming in protest. Blinking against the glaring light, my blood ran cold. This was the grand council room—the absolute highest court of the pack, a stage reserved for the worst traitors.

Tiered seating surrounded me, packed shoulder-to-shoulder with the elite. Every face was twisted into a grotesque mask of revulsion. Tracing their stares, my eyes locked onto the dais. There sat the Alpha, radiating fury. Next to him was Frank, his jaw locked in stone. And beside Frank sat my twin sister, Harper. She looked down at my bleeding, pathetic form, her eyes gleaming with a sickening cocktail of triumph and sheer disgust.

Why? My soul wailed. I gave up my life to save yours.

The Alpha’s booming voice rattled the glass in the windows. "Rosie. You are hauled before this assembly for the crime of attempting to prostitute yourself to my heir, fabricating a sacred bond to elevate your filthy status. What is your defense?"

"No," I croaked, pushing my trembling body onto my hands and knees. "It isn't a lie. I didn't seduce him. The pull... it was real. We are destined. I swear it."

A chorus of vicious, barking laughter erupted from the galleries.

"Silence!" the Alpha roared, the sheer force of his aura forcing my chin to the floor. "You dare spit on the Goddess with your delusions in this very chamber?"

"It's the truth," I sobbed, the tears burning my dirty cheeks.

Frank descended the steps of the dais, his boots clicking ominously. The man who had once shown me gentle pity now looked at me as if I were a rotting carcass. "You call this truth?" he spat, his voice echoing with absolute malice. "Your very existence is a plague. The thought of my soul being tethered to a convicted rat makes me violently ill."

He turned to the lead enforcer and snatched the leather whip from the man's belt.

My breath hitched. "Frank... no..." I scrambled backward, my battered hands slipping on the polished stone.

"Allow me to personally remind this delusion omega of her actual worth," Frank sneered.

He didn't hesitate. The leather cracked through the air and sliced directly across my already ruined back. A blood-curdling shriek ripped from my lungs. I collapsed completely, curling into a tight, miserable ball as he brought the lash down again, and then again. The physical torment was blinding, but the absolute devastation of being publicly butchered by my own fated mate shattered whatever was left of my spirit.

"Pathetic," Frank murmured, tossing the bloodied whip onto the floor beside my face.

Through my blurring, tear-soaked vision, I heard the Alpha address the sneering crowd. "This vermin is a cancer to our society. She requires a harsher lesson."

"Execute her!" a councilman shouted from the back.

"Death is a mercy she hasn't earned," the Alpha decreed coldly. "Transfer her to the Darmos Institute. Let her rot among the savages and predators. If they tear her apart, so be it. If she survives, she will learn to kneel."

Ice flooded my veins. Darmos wasn't just a school; it was an unregulated slaughterhouse for the continent's most violent, uncontrollable shifters. Sending an omega there was a guaranteed death sentence.

"No! Alpha, I beg you!" I screamed, choking on my own blood as the guards seized me again. "I'll be a slave! I'll do anything! Just not there!"

"Remove this trash from my sight," the Alpha commanded, turning his back.

I was hauled out of the estate like a sack of butchered meat and violently shoved into the back of a running transport vehicle. A single, battered duffel bag containing my meager possessions was tossed in after me. They had already packed my things. This had been their plan all along.

The entire journey was suffocatingly quiet. I curled against the door, shaking uncontrollably, every bump in the road sending fresh waves of agony across my back.

When the brakes squealed to a halt, the driver ripped my door open and yanked me out by the collar, throwing me onto the gravel shoulder. My bag hit the dirt beside my head.

"Try to stay alive until tomorrow, rat," he mocked, a cruel smile stretching across his face before he climbed back in and sped off.

I stayed in the dirt for a long time, terrified that if I stood up, I would truly be stepping into my grave. But the biting wind forced me onto my feet. Looming before me were the massive, jagged iron gates of the Darmos campus. Swallowing the metallic taste of fear, I limped toward the administration block.

The matron at the registration desk looked me up and down, her nose wrinkling at the scent of my blood and fear. She shoved a brass key across the counter without a word.

"Top floor. Room 408," she clipped out. "It's the only bed left."

My trembling fingers hovered over the key. "Is... is the dormitory separated by gender?"

She finally looked up, her eyes flashing with pure contempt. "No. And if you have a problem with it, you can sleep in the woods with the ferals. Next."

I dragged my duffel bag up four flights of stairs, my vision swimming from blood loss and exhaustion. The heavy steel door marked 408 felt like the entrance to a tomb.

You just have to survive, I chanted mentally, my hands shaking so violently I could barely fit the key into the lock.

I pushed the heavy door inward and instantly froze, the breath leaving my body.

Pinned against the far wall of the dimly lit dorm was a towering, heavily muscled male with pitch-black hair. A scantily clad female was pressed flush against him, her hands tangled in his hair as they kissed with aggressive, feral intensity.

At the sound of my ragged gasp, the male slowly broke the kiss. He turned his head, fixing me with a pair of glacial, silver-blue eyes. There was zero embarrassment in his expression—only predatory, lethal irritation at the interruption.

"What the hell is standing in my doorway?" his voice rumbled, deep and heavy with absolute authority.

I clutched my frayed bag against my chest like a shield, shrinking back. "I... the front desk sent me. I'm assigned here."

The female turned, looking me over with a predatory smirk. Her eyes flashed with cruel amusement. "Well, look at that," she purred, tracing a finger down the male's chest. "Looks like they threw a bleeding little chew toy into your cage."