Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Time loses meaning, bleeding together into a strange, sick mix of waiting and torture. There’s pain and boredom, and the brief spikes of adrenaline when my cell door opens.
I mark the passage of minutes not by meals—if you can call the gray gruel food—or by the rhythm of guard rotations, but by the scrape of stone and Kier’s murmurs on the other side of the wall.
It’s become my only escape.
When the pain wraps too tight around my ribs to breathe, when the silver sears deep enough I swear I can feel it in my bones, I press my fingers through that small, jagged opening and wait for Kier to touch back.
Sometimes we talk.
Sometimes we don’t.
Sometimes it’s just the quiet rasp of his breathing, or the warmth of his fingertips against mine, or the low rumble of his voice murmuring nonsense just to keep the silence from swallowing us both whole.
It’s strange how quickly I’ve come to rely on him—this smart-mouthed nomad with too many scars and not enough self-preservation.
And it terrifies me.
I know what trusting someone can cost you. I know better than to let someone in. It’s why I’ve forced myself away from the wall, curling on my mattress as I stare in the dark at the door to my cell.
I need to prove to myself I don’t need him. I begin to name all those who’ve wronged me.
Jim, Bob, Zella, Thaddeus…
I shift, trying to alleviate the weight of the silver around my wrists, my ankles, my throat. My skin is blistered and bleeding. My head throbs. My wolf stirs sluggishly inside me, too weak to do more.
I’m beginning to doze when the psychic shockwave hits like a physical blow, tossing me across my cell.
“What the fuck!?”
I push to my knees, shaking my head against the ringing in my ears. Every supernatural creature within a thousand miles will have felt whatever the fuck that was.
My wolf stirs for the first time in days, lifting her head with hope.
Free, she whispers. The Grand Alpha is dead.
The knowledge arrives with absolute certainty, hitting me with the same devastating clarity as the power shift itself. That kind of psychic disruption only happens when an alpha of immense power dies violently.
Did Ryker kill him? Or someone else?
“You feel that?” Kier asks.
“The whole supernatural world felt that.” I push to my feet, shuffling over to the wall.
“You okay?”
I rub my head. “Yeah. You?”
“Ready for my five o’clock massage but otherwise fine.”
From the corridor outside, I hear shouting. Multiple voices, all talking at once, their words overlapping into chaos. I press my ear to the door, straining to catch fragments of conversation.
“—can’t be right—”
“—felt it too, that had to be—”
“—get out of here before—”
The guards hurry past my cell, leaving behind the sour tang of panic. In the days since my capture, I’ve never heard the guards sound anything but coldly professional. Now they’re falling apart.
This can’t be good.
“You hearing this?”
“Yeah. Guards are spooked, and it sounds like it’s about more than the death of the Grand Alpha.” Kier resumes his scratching at the wall. “Think your pack tracked you down?”
I want to believe that, but doubt gnaws at me. If Ryker had found this place, there would be violence. Alarms. The sound of battle echoing through stone corridors.
Instead, there’s just nervous conversation and the pacing of unsettled guards.
Hours pass. The arguing grows more frequent, more heated. I catch fragments as different groups move through the corridor.
“—should evacuate while we still can—”
“Our orders were to maintain position—”
“What orders? From who? Dead men don’t give commands—”
I lean down to the hole and begin to scratch, searching for a piece of rock big enough to use as a weapon. “This might be our chance to escape.”
“I know.” Something clatters through our hole.
“What this?” I reach into the crack, pulling out a metal shard. In the dim light from under the door, I can see it’s part of a broken buckle sharpened to a crude point.
“The woman who empties our waste buckets left this for me,” he explains.
“Kier, you should keep this. You might need—”
“No,” he cuts me off. “You take it. When they come for you, you’ll know what to do.”
I finger the sharp tip, testing its strength. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Seriously. If anyone asks, tell them I gave you flowers and chocolates instead.”
I almost smile. He’s given me his only weapon, his one advantage in this hellhole, without hesitation.
That he cares enough about my safety to leave himself defenseless catches me off guard.
Something warm and unexpected unfurls in my chest. When was the last time someone put my wellbeing before their own? I can’t remember.
The chaos in the corridor continues for hours. Guards rushing back and forth, radios crackling with contradictory orders. Some guards seem to be abandoning their posts entirely, while others argue about duties and chains of command.
Through it all, Kier and I wait, looking for our opportunity to strike. But luck isn’t with us. The facility may be in disarray, but our cells remain locked, our silver restraints still burning against our skin.
As the hours pass, the chaos gradually subsides. It seems someone has taken control.
“Have they left us?” I ask Kier, who’s still working on the stone next to my head. He stops scratching.
“No. It sounds like someone’s taken control again.”
“Damn.”
Whatever routine may have existed is now gone, and mealtime passes without any sign of the woman who usually comes to feed us.
I manage to doze fitfully, exhaustion finally overcoming adrenaline. When I wake, there’s a shadow under my door.
Fuck.
I slip the metal piece into my pocket, settling back against the wall.
Keys jingle, the lock turns and my door swings open to reveal three figures silhouetted against the dim corridor lighting.
I stiffen as a familiar scent touches my nostrils.
Zella.
She steps into my cell, her blonde hair catching the light from the corridor.
I glare up at her, hating the way her blue eyes gleam with cold satisfaction.
She’s dressed in combat gear—black tactical pants, a fitted jacket, silver weapons gleaming at her hip and thigh.
She looks every inch the warrior she’d pretended to be in Shadowmist, except now that facade has been stripped away to reveal the predator underneath.
Bitch.
Behind her stand two guards I don’t recognize. Larger than the usual facility staff, with the controlled movements of elite soldiers rather than prison workers. They carry themselves differently, and there’s a sweet sickness to their scent that wrinkles my nose.
They’re no normal wolves. There’s something not right with them.
“Lithia,” Zella greets, smiling pleasantly. “Enjoying the accommodations?”
I want to rip her throat out. The silver restraints prevent me from even standing, but the wolf in me snarls and paces, desperate to tear into the woman who betrayed everything we’d offered her.
“Like a fucking plague.” I force myself to meet her gaze, refusing to show the rage that threatens to overwhelm me. “Come to finish what you started?”
She chuckles, walking around my cell. “Not quite. I came because Thaddeus is dead, and someone needs to continue our important work.”
I bite my tongue to keep from asking what that work is. I know it’ll niggle her more if I give her nothing.
She glances over, and sure enough, her smile drops. “You’re not curious?”
I lift one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Not particularly.”
Her expression hardens. “You stupid little wolf. You have no idea what we’re working on here. How great our purpose is.”
I glance away, pretending to study the stone. “Doesn’t seem so great since you’re still making me shit in a bucket.”
She strikes, digging her claws into my scalp and hauling my head back. Our gazes meet, and I see a fervor in her eyes that I’ve never seen before. It sends a chill down my spine.
“Evolution,” she barks. “The supernatural world has been stagnant for centuries. Packs squabbling over territory. Councils debating endlessly while problems go unsolved. Our work is for the greater good.”
“Your work involves murdering and enslaving people.”
“We’re building a better world. A world where abilities are created rather than left to the whims of nature.”
“Who are you to play god?”
She lets me go, stepping back, and I nearly crumple forward, biting back a grunt of pain.
“I’m part of the solution, Lithia,” she says softly, almost reverently. “It’s the only way.”
I lift my head slowly, meeting her eyes.
“Why?” I rasp. “Why the seers? The weres? The witches, warlocks, the fae? Why collect us?”
Her smile sharpens. Something glints there, something jagged and fanatical.
“You still don’t see it, do you?” she murmurs. “This world—our world—wasn’t meant to stay as it is. Nature left us scattered. Incomplete. One gift here, another there, hoarded by bloodlines, limited by birthright.”
She paces slowly, hands clasped behind her back.
“But when you gather enough pieces…” Her gaze flicks to me, alight with something fever-bright. “You can start rewriting the rules.”
My stomach twists. My wolf snarls low inside, too weak to rise but strong enough to sense the danger coiling tighter.
“You’re insane.”
“No, I’m realistic.” She straightens, her fervor fading back into cold professionalism. “But I didn’t come here to debate philosophy with you, Lithia. I came to offer you a choice.”
“And that is?”
“Join us. Use your position and knowledge to help build a better world than the fractured mess Ryker and his allies will create.” She pauses, letting the words sink in. “Or be disposed of.”
The casual way she says it, disposed of, sends ice through my veins. Not killed. Not executed. Disposed of. Like I’m a piece of equipment that’s outlived its usefulness.
“Some choice.”
“It’s more than most get.” She turns toward the door, then pauses. “You have until tomorrow to decide.”
Tomorrow. My heart hammers against my ribs.
“Wait.” The word comes out harsher than I intended, desperation bleeding through.
Zella turns back with raised eyebrows. “Changed your mind already?”
“I want to know about Kitara. Where is she? Is she alive?”
For a beat I don’t think she’ll answer me.
“Your precious Alpha Female was dead.”
The casual cruelty of her words ignites rage in my chest. If I could shift, if I could break these restraints, I would tear her apart with my bare hands.
“I’ll kill you for this. For all of it. The betrayal, the lies, for Kitara. I will kill you.”
Zella laughs, the sound bright and genuine. “You know, I actually believe you would try. Your determination and loyalty are what make you such a valuable packmate. We could use you, Lithia. But if you’re not interested, then you’re a threat that needs to be put down.”
She moves toward the door again, her guards falling into step behind her.
“Tomorrow, Lithia. Think carefully. The world is changing whether you help or not. The only question is whether you’ll be part of the solution or part of the cleanup.”
They leave, the door slamming shut with a finality that echoes through the stone chamber. The lock turns with a sharp click, sealing me in with the weight of what she’s revealed.
Tomorrow.
“Kier?”
“I heard.” His voice is tight with anger. “Every fucking word.”
I close my eyes, breathing deep.
“What do you want to do?” he asks, resuming chipping at the stone.
It’s a good question and a necessary one.
“I’m going to burn her goddamned utopia to the ground and piss on the ashes.”
He chuckles. “Then I better get to work on getting us out of here.”
The world Zella wants to construct—ordered, controlled, built on the bones of the unwilling—can die with its architect.
But first, I have to survive long enough to make it happen.