Chapter 2

After they left, the only sound in the medical room was the soft beeping of the heart monitor.

I lay with my eyes closed, replaying everything I had endured here.

The Shadowsilver poison had already spread into my nervous system.

The entire right side of my body had gone completely numb, as if submerged in ice water.

Suddenly, Sienna walked in wearing an oversized men's shirt.

It was Maddox's shirt—still carrying the thick scent of cedar that belonged to an Alpha.

She approached my bed.

"How are you feeling? I was so worried about you." Sienna smiled, then pressed her finger hard against my wound, where black blood was seeping out.

"Ah! It hurts—" Sharp pain shot straight through my skull.

"You know," Sienna pressed harder, "Maddox was just telling me how disgusting he finds you, lying here like this. He said once the Moon Goddess Ceremony is over, he's going to formally strip you of your Luna title."

"Are you done?" I wrenched her hand away.

Sienna froze for a moment.

"If you're done talking, get out. Looking at you makes me sick!"

Those words set her off completely.

She yanked a silver dagger from her sleeve and pressed it against my throat.

"Don't you dare act so high and mighty with me! Do you think you're still some noble Luna? You're nothing now—just a piece of trash your own mate won't even look at!"

"If I so much as twitch my hand, by tomorrow the whole pack will know you conspired with the hunters to murder me!"

Just then, footsteps sounded outside the door.

Sienna's reaction was instant. She flipped the dagger, slashed a shallow cut across her own arm, shoved the blade into my hand, and collapsed onto the floor.

"Ah! No—please don't—"

The door burst open with a violent kick.

Maddox rushed in. The moment he saw Sienna on the floor and the blood on her arm, his pupils narrowed into dangerous slits.

He lunged forward and kicked my hospital bed over.

I crashed hard onto the floor. The IV needle tore violently from the back of my hand, blood welling up instantly at the puncture site.

A mouthful of black blood surged up my throat. I opened my mouth and spat it out—it splattered across the cold floor, an ugly, alarming sight.

"Rayna! You are utterly beyond redemption!" Maddox roared. "Sienna came here out of kindness to see you, and you dare to hurt her?!"

He pulled Sienna protectively behind him.

"The doctor said it was just a minor scratch. Why are you trembling like this—who are you trying to convince?"

"Do you think this pathetic self-harm act will cover up your betrayal of the pack?"

I lay sprawled on the floor, watching this pair perform with such conviction.

Air was being squeezed out of my lungs bit by bit, and yet I couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"What are you laughing at?" Maddox's brow furrowed, as if my reaction had struck some raw nerve.

I braced my broken arm against the floor and slowly lifted my head.

"I'm laughing at how stupid you are." I stared straight into Maddox's eyes, enunciating each word. "Don't bother coming to bother me again."

Maddox's face turned instantly livid.

He strode over, seized my throat, and hauled me halfway off the ground.

The breathing tube that had been in my nose slipped loose and clattered to the floor.

Suffocation crashed over me. I gasped violently, unable to draw in a single breath, my vision darkening at the edges.

"You dare speak to me in that tone again?"

[Warning: Host's vital signs deteriorating rapidly.]

The System's mechanical voice echoed through my mind.

Through the dizziness of asphyxiation, I lunged forward and bit down hard on the hand clamped around my throat.

Maddox let out a muffled grunt and flung me back onto the floor.

The pain that tore through my back nearly knocked me unconscious, but I kept my eyes locked on him—no trace of fear in them.

"Have you lost your mind?!" Maddox's fury twisted into something like a mocking laugh, and he moved to close in on me again—when Sienna, still in his arms, suddenly let out a pained moan and went limp, slumping to one side.

His expression sharpened instantly, his rage swallowed in a heartbeat as he bent to steady her.

"Sienna? What's wrong?"

Sienna shook her head weakly, but clung tightly to him.

"Lunatic." He ground the word through his teeth, gathering her into his arms.

"Move her to the underground water cell. No one is to bring her medicine without my order."