Chapter 3
Kendra's POV
My skin sizzles where the silver touches it, smoke curling up.
Pain wracks my whole body, but I bite down hard on my lip and don't make a sound. I just stare at Chase.
"Feel that? Don't look at me like that." Something about my stare seems to get to him. He looks away, turns to Garrett, who's just pulling himself up off the floor. "Lock her in the dungeon. Silver cage. When the Royal enforcer gets here tomorrow, tell him she went feral and killed Irene."
I'm still on the floor, staring up at Chase's fake, wounded face. Whatever grief I had left turns into something cold, something that wants to kill.
"Chase, you'd better pray I die in that cage. Because if I don't, I'm going to grind every bone in your body to dust."
The dungeon is dark, damp, thick with the smell of rust and rot.
They lock me in a silver cage, wrists and ankles chained to the bars. The silver's already eaten through my skin down to bone, and the smell of burnt flesh fills the small space.
But all I can see is Irene, lying in the wreckage.
Light footsteps break the silence. I lift my head and see Ivy through the bars.
She's not wearing the white dress today. She's got on a different coat instead, something dressy, and I recognize it instantly. It was Irene's favorite.
"Well, look at you. The great Kendra, reduced to this." Ivy stands outside the cage with a handkerchief pressed to her nose, not even trying to hide how much she's enjoying this.
I look at her like she's already dead. I don't waste a word on her.
My silence pisses her off. The fragile act drops, and something twisted crosses her face. She grabs a barbed whip from the guard behind her and cracks it against the bars.
The wind off it catches my cheek, leaving a line of blood.
"Still playing high and mighty? You think going off to the Royal Pack washed that filthy rogue blood out of you?" Ivy leans in close, her voice dropping to something almost gleeful. "You want to know what Irene looked like right before she died?"
My hands curl into fists so tight my nails cut into my palms. Blood drips onto the silver floor, hissing into smoke.
Ivy looks pleased with herself. She laughs. "She was screaming your name while Garrett was tearing her arm off. Begging us to spare you. Said you didn't know anything. Real touching. Real stupid, too."
"I'm going to kill you." I don't blink.
"Kill me? Look at you. You can barely stand." Ivy looks like she just heard the funniest thing in the world. "You think Garrett's the only one who wanted her dead? You think Chase really just looked the other way?"
She pauses there, savoring it, watching for the crack in my face before she drops the real blow. "Bet you didn't know. That knife Garrett used on Irene's heart? Chase laced it with wolfsbane himself. Went through a lot of trouble to get his hands on it. All to prove himself to me."
My mind goes blank.
Chase. Laced the poison himself.
He wasn't just standing there watching. He helped kill her.
"He thinks you're an idiot. Feed you a few sweet words and you'll roll over for him like a dog." Ivy's laughing now, drunk on it. "Irene looked at him the same way, right before the end. Couldn't believe he'd actually hand Garrett that knife. Three days from now, once the enforcer gets here, I'm sending you to join her."
I let my head drop, hair falling over my face.
So that's it.
Everything I gave them, everything I felt, all of it was a joke to them.
Love. The good of the pack. Just excuses to cover up how selfish and vain they really are.
I start laughing. Quiet at first, then louder, until it's echoing off the dungeon walls, something wild creeping into it.
Ivy's laugh cuts off. She takes a step back, uneasy. "What's funny? Have you completely lost it?"
I lift my head. My eyes, once amber, are a deep, burning red.
Something dark and violent starts building around me.
I was born a rogue because my blood traces back to a Lycan King who lost his claim to the throne, a bloodline so unstable it edges on madness, but carries enough power to tear the world apart.
For Chase's sake. For Irene's, so she'd never have to choose sides because of me.
I don't have to anymore.
Irene is dead. So is my heart.
