Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Violet
I wake to the acrid smell of iron and damp stone. My head is throbbing, and when I try to move, metal bites into my wrists. The chains rattle as I jerk forward, panic flooding my chest.
“Violet?” My mother’s voice cuts through the fog in my head.
I blink hard, forcing my eyes to adjust to the dim light. We’re in a cell. The walls are rough rock, slick with moisture, and the only illumination comes from a single torch flickering in the corridor beyond the bars.
My mother sits slumped against the wall opposite me, her wrists bound by chains identical to mine. Her hair hangs limp around her face, and bruises bloom along her cheekbone.
“Are you okay?” she asks. She sounds exhausted, like every word costs her something vital.
I nod, though I’m not sure it’s true. My throat feels raw, like I’ve been screaming, and my wolf is eerily quiet. Too quiet. Like she’s been muzzled.
The panic rises again, sharp and suffocating. I yank at the chains, flinching at the way they sear my skin. “We have to get out of here. We have to—”
“Violet.” My mother’s voice is firm despite its weariness. “Calm down.”
“Calm down?” My laugh comes out brittle. “They chained us up like animals!”
“I know.” She closes her eyes. “But there’s no escaping our fate now.”
The finality in her words steals the air from my lungs. I force myself to breathe, counting each inhale and exhale like she taught me when I was small. Back when she still touched me with something resembling gentleness.
It’s one of the few memories I have from before the massacre.
“That’s it,” she murmurs. “Breathe through it.”
My chest still heaves, but the rhythm steadies. The panic doesn’t leave, but it becomes manageable. Barely. I stare at the chains binding my wrists, then at my mother across from me. The silence stretches between us, heavy with all the things we’ve never said.
“Are we really hybrids?” I whisper just loud enough for her to hear.
She stares straight ahead at nothing. “Yes.”
My breath hitches. “Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice breaks, but I keep going. “Why did you mate with him? With the man who built his entire legacy on hunting down our kind?”
Finally, she looks at me. Her eyes are hollow. “The best place to hide is in plain sight. No one would have ever suspected the alpha’s mate and stepchild.”
She looks old suddenly. Older than I’ve ever seen her. The proud, strict woman who raised teenaged me with ice in her veins has faded into someone I barely recognize.
My heart twists painfully. “You always wanted me gone. Is that why? Because I was a hybrid? You hated me because of that?”
Her head lowers. When she speaks, her voice is filled with defeat. “I didn’t hate you, Violet.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“I was trying to keep you safe.” She looks up again, and there are tears in her eyes. Actual tears. “I saw your father die in front of me. Your brother. I had to be harsh. We were living among the enemy.”
I want to argue, but the words stick in my throat.
“And when I found out about your fated mate bond…” She trails off.
My stomach drops. “How did you know about that?”
“I saw Darius looking at you when he came to the main house for your eighteenth birthday. I saw the change in his expression. The longing.” Her lips press together for a moment. “His wolf was in his eyes. I knew, Violet. I knew what you were to each other. So, I sent you to Europe the next day.”
My head swims. She sent me away because of Darius. Because she saw what I couldn’t see.
“I was never going to call you back home,” she continues. “But Alaric, that murderous bastard, wanted you here.”
My chest lurches as confusion wars with fear. “Since Darius knew I was his fated mate, did he try to keep me from leaving?”
A part of me whispers that he wouldn’t have. That he never wanted me to begin with. But another part, a desperate, foolish part, wants to believe he would have fought for us.
My mother’s upper lip curls. “I will never allow you to be with that man, Violet. I would never have allowed it. His family has your family’s blood on its hands.” She pins me with her eyes. “It was Zion who killed Trevor.”
Both names shock me, but all I can see in my mind is Trevor. My brother. The boy I barely remember but whose absence has shaped my entire life.
“Those monsters came to our settlement,” my mother says, her voice shaking with rage. “Zion wanted someone. A girl he’d had his eye on. We all paid the price for that. And he made it look like we were the monsters.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Zion killed my brother.
My mother pulls at her chains, the metal scraping against the rock wall. “Darius is just like them. You would have found out sooner or later. The moment he learned you were a hybrid, he would have killed you. He’s no different from the rest of his family.”
Tears drip down my face. Darius doesn’t want to publicly claim me as his mate because being with his stepsister is already taboo enough.
If that is such a problem for him, if he cares more about his position as alpha heir than being with me, then my being a hybrid would be the final reason he needs to walk away.
He would reject me. Perhaps even kill me himself.
“Maybe you’re right,” I mumble.
But my heart screams that she’s wrong. Part of me disagrees desperately, clinging to the memory of his hands on my skin, the way he said my name like I was something precious.
I look at my mother through blurred vision. “What’s going to happen now?”
She sighs, and the sound is full of resignation. “They’re going to kill us, Violet. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
The term of endearment catches me off guard. I lower my head, pressing my lips together to keep from sobbing. Tears fall anyway, streaming down my face.
We sit in silence. The torch flickers, casting dancing shadows across the walls of the cell. I count my heartbeats, trying to ground myself in something tangible.
“How did Alaric never know you were a hybrid?” I finally ask.
My mother’s voice drops to a whisper. “I used my magic to control my scent. But you”—her voice breaks—“you were too young. The medicine I gave you subdued your wolf, your powers. Every dose was a risk.”
I think about all those years I felt broken. All those years I thought something was fundamentally wrong with me because my wolf was so weak.
“You poisoned me.”
“I kept you alive.” Her voice hardens, but her eyes are glistening. “Too little, and you’d be discovered. Too much, and you’d never shift at all. I walked that line for years, Violet. Every single day, wondering if I’d given you too much or not enough. Don’t you dare judge me for it.”
I want to scream at her. I want to rage and cry and demand answers for everything she put me through. But what’s the point? We’re both going to die anyway.
My wolf stirs weakly. She’s there, but muted. Whatever they used to bind us is working.
I stare at the cell bars. “Don’t worry. We’ll find a way out of here.”
My mother makes a sound that might be a laugh. “Always the optimist.”
“I’m not going to give up so easily.” I test the chains again, ignoring the way they burn my wrists the way silver sears a shifter. There must be a spell on them. Iron and magic, forged specifically to hurt creatures like us.
“Violet, stop.” My mother’s voice is sharp. “You’ll only hurt yourself.”
“Good.” I pull harder, and my skin tears. “At least I’ll feel something other than helpless.”
The chains hold firm. Blood trickles down my wrists, warm and sticky.
Footsteps echo in the corridor. I freeze. My mother’s head snaps up, her eyes wide and alert despite her exhaustion.
The steps grow louder, accompanied by the jingle of keys. Someone is coming.
My heart hammers against my ribs. I press myself back against the wall, trying to make myself smaller. My mother does the same, though her eyes never leave the cell door.
A shadow falls across the bars. Then, a familiar face appears.
Ryker.
“What are you doing here?” The words scrape past my lips before I can stop them.
Ryker stands on the other side of the bars, his face half in shadow. He looks tense, his jaw tight and his eyes darting back down the corridor like he expects someone to appear at any moment.
My mother frowns at him. “What do you want?”
Ryker holds up a set of keys, and the metal glints in the torchlight. “I’m here to get you two out.”
The world stops moving. I stare at him. My mother stares at him. Neither of us breathes.
“You…What?” My voice comes out strangled.
“I don’t have much time.” Ryker fumbles with the keys, trying one after another in the lock. “Your execution is in two days. Zion is pushing for a public one. He’s claiming hybrids tried to infiltrate the Alpha’s household.”
My stomach drops. Two days. That’s all we have left.
“The execution will be brutal.” Ryker’s voice drops even lower. “And humiliating. For both of you. They’re planning to make examples out of you.”
I can barely hear him over the roaring in my ears. “Brutal.” “Humiliating.” The words echo in my mind, painting pictures I don’t want to see.
“Why are you helping us?” The question bursts out of me. “Won’t you get in trouble? Your pack is allied with Alaric. You’ve always supported his goals.”
Ryker finally finds the right key. The lock clicks, and the cell door opens with a metallic groan. “I know what it looks like. But my father doesn’t believe in Alaric’s cause. The Ravenhood Pack has given safe harbor to many hybrids over the years.”
He steps into the cell, and I press myself harder against the wall. My wolf stirs weakly, but she’s still muted. Still trapped.
“How did you know?” My mother’s voice is sharp, cutting through the tension.
Ryker’s eyes flick to her. “My father recognized you the moment Alaric introduced you as his mate. Years ago. He knew what you were, but he chose to stay silent. Revealing you would have put everyone at risk. All the hybrids we’ve helped. All the lives we’ve saved.”
My mother’s jaw drops. “Your father knew?”