Bride of the Beasts

Chapter 5: Deep in the Maze

ANWEN'S POV

I stirred as my body met something hard, cold, and rough beneath my back.

Voices hovered nearby, low and tense, like men arguing through clenched teeth. Their words blurred together, but the tone alone told me I was the subject of their dispute.

The murmurs cut off the moment I whimpered. Sharp, searing pain lanced through my side when I tried to shift, forcing me to go still.

For a heartbeat, I lay still, letting the pain ebb just enough to breathe. Then I forced my eyes open.

The world above me was a blur of shifting shadows and torchlight. As my vision steadied, the shapes sharpened into towering walls of dark stone, carved with spirals and jagged lines that seemed to writhe in the flickering glow.

The air hung thick with the scent of damp earth and old blood. Narrow corridors branched in every direction, twisting away beneath stone walls so high they blocked out the sun.

This… this looked like a maze.

Air slipped from my lungs as recognition settled in.

The Minotaur’s labyrinth. The infamous maze encircling the fortress of the Triarch Kings—a place from Mama’s stories, where no one ever made it out once they entered…

If they survived the Whispering Woods first. The enchanted forest meant to confuse and trap trespassers.

I swallowed hard and tilted my head back—just enough to see the boots near my shoulders. Three pairs, arranged in a loose semicircle around me.

My gaze traced upward, panic coiling tighter with every inch.

Legs. Broad shoulders. Shadows stretching, merging with the flickering torchlight.

And then... their faces.

Fenric stood to the left, exactly as I remembered—amused silver-grey eyes, that ever-present smirk, and the scars across his face doing nothing to settle my nerves.

Brammon stood to the right, broader, his brow furrowed as if weighing whether I was about to die… or simply faint again.

And between them stood someone new.

He was taller than both of them, leaner in build but no less imposing. Of the three, he carried the most aristocratic air. No scars marked his skin, no tattoos broke its surface—only faint, glinting scales traced along his neck and crept toward his jaw. Long, wavy copper hair fell loosely to his shoulders, brushing a high-collared coat and catching the torchlight in muted strands of fire.

My chest tightened as my gaze reached his eyes. Amber.

This third man was the dragon. There was no mistaking it.

He was the one who had snatched me from the sky, the one who had stolen my escape.

And now, I am trapped here with them. In the cruelest fate imaginable.

Despair crashed over me all at once, crushing the fragile thread of hope I’d been clinging to. A broken sound slipped from my throat. Then another.

Before I could stop it, I was sobbing helplessly and uncontrollably against the cold stone.

Brammon knelt beside me, and instinct drove me to squirm away. The movement sent a sharp, tearing pain through my side, but I kept trying.

“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” he said.

I didn’t listen. I couldn’t. I forced myself another inch, teeth clenched against the pain.

Brammon clicked his tongue and glanced up at the others. “Hold her,” he ordered. “I need her still.”

Before I could react, hands were on me.

Fenric’s grip clamped down on my shoulders, forcing me flat against the stone. At the same time, the dragon pinned my legs, his hold solid and immovable.

“No! Let me go!” I cried, thrashing, trying to twist free—but it was useless. They were far too strong. Every movement sent fresh waves of agony through my body, draining what little strength I had left.

Slowly, helplessly, I stilled.

Brammon lifted my tunic, exposing my stomach to the cold air.

Panic surged. Are they going to start with their twisted plans… right here?

“No!” I screamed, twisting uselessly in their grip. “Take your hands off me.”

Brammon’s head snapped toward me. “Silence!”

His voice rattled the walls, through the stone, through the air, straight into my bones. The sheer authority in it—the terrifying certainty that he didn’t need my obedience, that he could simply take it—froze the sound in my throat.

My voice broke. I bit down hard on my lip, forcing the cry back, choking on my own sobs as tears blurred my vision. My body trembled, but I didn’t move.

“That’s it. Try to relax,” Fenric murmured above me, his voice almost soothing—which somehow made it worse. “Take a deep breath. This is going to hurt.”

I didn’t have time to ask what he meant.

Brammon’s palm pressed down on my injured side. I felt the heat from his touch first. It was too intense and too sudden to be natural.

And then... pure agony.

It was white-hot and blinding. It tore through me as if something inside me had been seized and twisted. I felt my bones shift, pull, grind against each other in ways they were never meant to. It was as though my body was being forced back into shape by sheer, brutal will.

I couldn’t hold it in anymore. The scream that ripped from my throat was raw and uncontrollable, my body arching despite their grip.

I was breaking. And somehow… knitting back together.

I didn’t understand—only that it hurt too much to think, too much to exist.

The world fractured at the edges, my vision dimming as I teetered on the brink of unconsciousness, desperate for it—craving the escape it promised.

Then suddenly, it stopped.

The pressure vanished. The pain receded, leaving behind a dull, throbbing ache that felt almost unreal compared to what had come before.

Fenric and the dragon released me. My body curled instinctively as I rolled onto my side, gasping for air. Each breath came ragged and sharp, my throat burning from the screams, my whole body trembling with exhaustion.

“There,” Brammon said, straightening. “You’re fixed.”

I stayed curled on the cold stone for a few more moments, shaking, trying to remember how to breathe.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then the dragon’s voice cut through the silence.

“Get her up.” His voice was steel-edged and commanding, it sent a fresh wave of dread curling through me.

Fenric’s arm slid around my waist and lifted me. I didn’t protest. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. My limbs felt like water, my mind like fog. Like a marionette, I stood only because he held me upright.

The dragon moved closer, its shadow swallowing me whole. His amber eyes drifted over my face—mud caked and cracking against my skin. Then slowly, they traveled downward, studying me with a quiet, unsettling intent that made my stomach twist in fear.

“I want to see,” he said. “I want to see if she’s suitable for breeding.”

He folded his arms, his gaze never leaving me. “Strip her.”