Chapter 3 - Caitlynn
Waking up felt like clawing through mud.
The first thing she became aware of was a pounding headache—followed by the dryness of her mouth. Had she not known better, she’d have sworn she was hungover. Her limbs were heavy, uncooperative, like they belonged to someone else.
She forced her eyes open.
The ceiling above her was wrong. It was not the water-stained tiles of her apartment or the fluorescent lights of the bakery.
She blinked a couple of times in an attempt to focus on her whereabouts.
This ceiling was high and ornate, with dark wooden beams that looked like they’d been there for centuries.
She turned her head—slowly, because moving fast made her stomach lurch—and took in the room.
The bed she was lying in had a carved wooden frame that probably weighed more than her entire apartment’s furniture combined. Heavy velvet curtains framed windows that stretched from floor to ceiling, and beyond them...
Mountains.
Snow-capped peaks against a sky so blue it hurt to look at.
Caitlynn pushed herself up. The room tilted, then steadied. She pressed a hand to her forehead and tried to remember how she’d gotten here.
It came back to her like the flashes of a dream.
The apartment. The glowing mark on her wrist. The knock at the door. Two strangers telling her she’d been selected for something called a mate ritual. The door exploding inward. Hands grabbing her. Lights exploding.
She looked down at her left wrist.
The mark was still there. But it had changed. No longer glowing gold, it now looked like silver lines raised against her skin—delicate, intricate, like someone had drawn on her with light and it had scarred over.
She touched it. The lines were warm under her fingertips.
“What the hell is happening?”
Her voice came out rough. How long had she been out? Hours? Days?
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood. Her knees wobbled, but she kept her balance. She was still wearing the jeans and sweater from her apartment—flour-stained, rumpled, smelling faintly of yeast and her own fear-sweat.
The door across the room looked heavy. Expensive. The kind of door that belonged in a castle, not... wherever this was.
She moved to it slowly and turned the handle. The fact that the door was unlocked surprised her more than anything else.
They’d kidnapped her, drugged her, brought her to some compound in the mountains... and they hadn’t locked the door?
She stepped into the hallway.
It was long and lined with more doors—at least a dozen on each side. Though a few were closed, most doors were open—and from those doors came eager chatter and laughter.
She stood frozen as people emerged from the doors—the look of excitement visible in their every movement. A few glanced at Caitlynn, then quickly looked away. Clearly, she thought, they did not deem her worthy of a second glance.
For some reason, she once again felt like the kid in the orphanage, waiting for a family to pick her.
One of the women—tall, with dark hair pulled into an elegant twist—paused near Caitlynn. She was looking at her phone, scrolling through something, and nearly walked past without noticing.
Caitlynn grabbed her arm.
“Hey. What the hell is going on?”
The woman laughed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” Caitlynn gestured around. “What is this? Where are we? Why?”
The woman tilted her head and studied Caitlynn. At last, she answered—in a slow voice, as though she thought Caitlynn to be a rather slow child. “Beaumont. The Alpha’s territory. That’s where we stay after the lottery, until the mate ritual is complete.”
The words landed but didn’t make sense. Lottery. Mate ritual. Luna. Pack.
None of it sounded real.
“You’re insane,” Caitlynn said flatly. The woman froze, then sniffed. At last, a small smile broke out over her face, one that quickly turned into a wide grin.
“And you’re human.” The woman looked her up and down. “You won’t last past the first trial. Might as well save yourself the humiliation and quit now.”
She walked away, heels clicking on the polished floor.
Caitlynn stood there, heart pounding, trying to process what she’d just heard.
Mate ritual. Trials. Sent home after failing.
That last part stuck in her mind like a fishhook.
Sent home.
She didn’t care about the rest—didn’t care about alphas or lunas or whatever insane fantasy these people were living. All she cared about was getting out.
And apparently, all she had to do was fail.
Which would be easy enough, as she was clearly the only sane one here.
She turned and walked down the hallway in the opposite direction, without any idea where she was going.
The mansion was bigger than she’d expected. Hallways branched into more hallways. Staircases curved up and down. Everything was wood and stone and old money, the kind of place that should have been on a historical registry somewhere.
What surprised her most was the fact that it was never empty. Wherever she went, she passed other people. Men and women who looked at her with varying degrees of curiosity and hostility.
She just kept walking, keeping her head down to avoid the open hostility in their eyes.
The front entrance was easy to find. Massive double doors that opened onto a circular driveway. She walked through them without looking back.
No one stopped her.
What looked like a small town spread out before her—buildings clustered together, pathways winding between them, mountains rising in the distance.
She walked past more people. Past a training yard where men sparred with movements that looked too fast to be real. Past a garden where children played, their laughter bright and sharp.
She walked on for a few minutes before realizing that people were still watching her. She shifted uncomfortably.
Wanting to get away from the staring eyes, more than anything, she walked faster.
A wall stood in front of her. Relief coursed through her when she noticed that no one hovered near it.
Here, she figured she would get some solace.
The air near the wall shimmered strangely, almost hypnotizing her, and she moved forward without being fully aware of her movements.
She lifted her hand and reached out to touch the wall, though she could not tell why she was doing this.
Pain exploded through her body.
It wasn’t like being hit. It was like being torn apart from the inside. Every nerve screaming at once. Her muscles seized. Air was expelled from her lungs violently.
She flew backward and hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from her chest.
For a long moment, she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Just lay there gasping, staring at the sky, feeling her entire body tingle and burn.
“That looked painful.”
A woman appeared above her—and Caitlynn tried to focus. She was pretty, with dark hair and brown eyes. No hostility visible here.
She held out a hand.
Caitlynn stared at it, then took it. Let the woman pull her to her feet.
“What the hell was that?” Her voice came out shaky.
“The boundary. It’s warded.” The woman dusted off Caitlynn’s shoulder like they were old friends. “No one can leave until the ritual is complete. It’s for protection. And tradition. And about a dozen other reasons that would take too long to explain.”
“Protection from what?”
“From rogues. From enemies. From candidates who try to run.” The woman smiled. “I’m Olivia, by the way. Kahn’s sister.”
“Kahn?”
“The Alpha.” Olivia tilted her head. “You don’t know anything about this, do you?”
“I was kidnapped three days ago.” Caitlynn’s hands were shaking. She shoved them in her pockets. “I don’t know what a rogue is. I don’t know what an alpha is. I don’t know what this is. Are you… Is this like some paranormal thing?”
“It might be from your point of view. We’re shifters,” Olivia corrected gently. “Werewolf shifters.”
“I don’t really care about semantics. I want to go home.”
“I know.” Olivia’s expression shifted to something softer. Almost kind. “But you can’t. Not until the ritual runs its course. The magic is binding. If you try to leave before it’s complete...” She gestured at the boundary. “Well. You felt what happened.”
Caitlynn’s chest tightened. “So, I’m trapped.”
“Temporarily.”
“That’s still trapped.”
Olivia didn’t argue. “The best thing you can do is play along. Go through the trials. Eventually, one candidate will be chosen, and the rest will be released. Then you can go home and forget any of this happened.”
“How long?”
“Depends on the trials. A few weeks, maybe.”
A few weeks. Trapped in this place with people who looked at her like dirt, with no way out. No control.
The familiar panic started climbing up her throat. She’d felt this before—in foster homes where the locks were on the outside of the doors. In placements where she wasn’t allowed to leave without permission. That suffocating feeling of walls closing in.
“I need to sit down,” she managed.
Olivia guided her to a bench near the garden. Caitlynn sat and dropped her head between her knees, breathing slowly.
In. Out. In. Out.
She’d survived a lot in her life. She’d survive this, too.
“For what it’s worth,” Olivia said quietly, “I’m sorry. This isn’t fair. None of it is fair.”
Caitlynn laughed. The sound came out bitter. “I’ve never been under the illusion that life was fair.”
“Come on,” Olivia said. “Let me help you get ready for the welcome ceremony.”
“Welcome ceremony?”
Olivia nodded. “You have to go,” she insisted. “And you have to let me help you get ready!”
Which was how, minutes later, Caitlynn found herself back in her cell—or room, as Olivia insisted on calling it. “The trials will choose a winner,” Olivia explained as she leaned over Caitlynn’s face with a black pencil.
“After each round, the ones who fall out get to go home. And then, of course, at the end… the last woman standing…”
Caitlynn grimaced. “What wins a husband?”
Olivia laughed softly. “Something like that.”
At last, Olivia was done with her, and she followed the petite woman down some stairs.
The great hall was exactly what it sounded like. Massive stone room with vaulted ceilings and banners hanging from the rafters. Tables lined the walls, covered in food that smelled better than anything from the bakery. Candles burned in iron sconces, throwing dancing shadows across the floor.
And people. So many people. Shifters, Olivia had called them. All wolves, she supposed. Whatever they were, they filled the hall, dressed in their finest, talking and laughing and celebrating.
The other candidates were there too, and Caitlynn watched them curiously. Were all of them werewolves—shifters—too? She supposed so, based on how shocked everyone was at a human’s presence. She stayed at the back.
Not a single one of them spared her a glance—instead, they were giggling, huddling together. She was just about to turn back to her own room when the room went deadly silent.
Caitlynn was still looking around when she suddenly felt it. An invisible force, pulling at her eyes, turning her toward the entrance.
Toward him.
There was no doubt that the man who entered the hall was the infamous Alpha.
Caitlynn studied him silently, suddenly forgetting everyone else around her.
It was as though they were the only two there.
He was devastatingly handsome. Easily over six feet, with hair that fell just past his collar and ice blue eyes.
She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. It was as though she was being pulled towards him, and she was powerless to stop it.
He was gorgeous. Annoyingly, infuriatingly gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous that men like him always were—the ones who knew it, who used it, who expected the world to fall at their feet.
She hated him, despite how irrational that sounded even to herself.
Yet her eyes followed him as he worked his way through the room, greeting candidates. Smiling. Shaking hands. Playing the gracious host while everyone watched with hungry eyes.
When he reached Caitlynn’s area, he paused.
His nostrils flared slightly. His eyes narrowed.
Then he looked directly at her, then he flashed her a sardonic smile.
“And you must be… the human.”
There was nothing really wrong with what he had said, and even his tone was reasonably polite. But the condescension underneath was unmistakable.
Every woman in the nearby group turned to stare. Some looked shocked. Others looked amused. One laughed.
Something in Caitlynn’s chest ignited.
She’d spent her entire life being talked down to. Being dismissed. Being told she wasn’t good enough, wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t worth the effort.
She was done with it. She stepped forward. Met his ice-blue eyes without flinching.
“Yes. I am human. My name…”
He held up his hand. “Sorry, sweetheart,” he said with a smirk. “I doubt you’ll be here long enough for that to be worth remembering.”
She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms.
“I’ll show you exactly what I’m worth.”
The room went quiet.
He looked surprised, though he schooled his features to neutrality quickly.
“Will you?” His voice dropped lower. “I look forward to it.”
He walked away.
Caitlynn stood there, heart pounding, fists clenched at her sides.
She’d meant to fail. Meant to get through the trials as quickly as possible and go home.
But that was before he’d looked at her like she was nothing.
She wasn’t running anymore. She was staying. She was going to get through every single one of these trials, prove she wasn’t the weak human he thought she was, and then she was going to walk out of here with her head held high.
Unlike the others, who were competing for his attention and the dubious honor of being his wife, she did not care in the least about winning. But he would know that she wasn’t nothing.