The Silent Luna’s Revenge: Shadow of the Monster

Chapter 13: The Alpha’s Inspection

I sat in the dark, knees to my chest, trying not to think about the hunger. Every time I breathed, the cold air felt like needles in my lungs. My stomach was a knot of cramps, and my skin felt like it was covered in a layer of thin, frozen oil.

I’d been counting the drips of water from the ceiling for hours. Seventeen hundred and forty-two. I was bored, I was freezing, and I was pretty sure I was going to die in this hole.

He’s coming, Keira murmured.

She’d been quiet for a while, now, she was stretching. I could feel her claws scratching against my ribs from the inside.

Outside, the camp went dead. The guards, who had been laughing about some girl in the kitchens for the last hour, suddenly shut up. The silence was so thick it made my ears ring. Then came the footsteps. Every strike of his boot against the stone sounded like a hammer hitting an anvil.

I didn't look up. I stared at the dirt under my fingernails, my heart doing a frantic, ugly dance against my ribs.

"Look at me."

His voice was a wreck. Low, rough, like gravel being ground under a heavy boot. It didn't sound like a command; it sounded like a physical weight pressing down on my shoulders.

I raised my head.

He was a mess. A jagged, white scar split his left eyebrow, and his hair was a dark, tangled forest that hadn't seen a comb in weeks. His tunic was torn at the shoulder, revealing a slab of roped muscle and a map of old, silvered burn marks on his neck. He looked like a man who’d spent the last decade fighting a war he was too tired to win.

But it was his eyes that caught me. They were the color of stagnant river water.

Gods, Keira breathed. The shock in her voice was so loud it made my head ache.

She wasn't just watching anymore. She was vibrating. I could feel her heat flooding my veins, a sudden, frantic pulse that made my skin itch.

Look at those shoulders, Aria, she hissed. Look at the way he carries his weight. He’s not a boy. He’s a goddamn predator. I want to bite him. I want to see if he bleeds as dark as he looks.

Shut up, shut up, shut up, I thought, my pulse hammering in my ears.

My instincts were screaming at me to crawl into the corner and disappear. But Keira was doing the opposite. She was pushing forward, trying to get closer to the bars of our cage, sniffing the air like a starving animal.

Silas crouched down. It wasn't a graceful movement. His knees popped, and he moved with a slight stiffness, like his joints were as tired as his face. He brought himself level with me, so close that I could see the individual bristles of his beard and the dirt etched into the lines around his mouth.

"Kai says you have a scroll," he said. He sounded annoyed, like I was an interrupted nap.

I reached into my dress. My fingers were shaking so hard I could barely find the parchment. I held it out, my arm trembling.

He took it. His hand was massive—thick fingers, calloused palms, and skin that felt like it was radiating heat from a furnace. When his thumb brushed my knuckles, a jolt of electricity slammed into me. I flinched, jerking my hand back as if I’d touched a red-hot coal.

He didn't even blink. He just tore the scroll open, his eyes moving fast over Viktor’s frantic handwriting. He read it once. Then again. His jaw tightened, the muscles there bunching like coiled snakes.

"Viktor is dead," I whispered. My voice sounded thin and pathetic in the face of his silence. "Caleb killed him. I’m the only one who knows how."

Silas looked up. His gaze was heavy, like a physical blow to the chest. "You're a long way from home, little bird."

"And I don't plan on going back to that den of vipers." I snapped, the anger finally flickering through the fear.

He laughed. "You think my pack is better? We’re the ones who got kicked out of the 'vines.' We’re the ones who eat what we kill or we starve. You wouldn't last a week in the mud."

He reached out. Before I could move, his hand clamped onto my chin. His grip wasn't gentle. He forced my head back until my neck burned, staring into my eyes with a ruthless intensity.

Bite him, Keira urged. Taste him.

I ignored her, focusing on the "emptiness" inside. I pushed the void forward, hiding the wolf, hiding the fear, hiding everything behind a mask of cold, dead nothingness. I wanted him to see a hollow girl. I wanted him to think I was broken beyond repair.

He frowned. His thumb traced the line of my jaw, his calloused skin dragging against my bruise. He was sniffing the air, his nostrils flaring. He was looking for the wolf.

But all he found was the void.

Confusion flickered in those flat, river-water eyes for a split second. He let go of me so abruptly I hit my head against the stone wall.

"You're a mess," he muttered, standing up. His knees popped again. He looked down at me with a mix of disgus. "You're starving, you're covered in filth, and you smell like a pack I spent twenty years trying to forget."

He turned to the door, his heavy boots echoing like gunshots in the small cell.

"Kai!" he barked.

The younger wolf appeared in the doorway, looking nervous.

"Clean her up," Silas commanded, not even looking back at me. "Feed her. Give her something that isn't slop. If she hasn't died of fright by tomorrow, I’ll figure out where to bury her."

He walked out, his shadow retreating from the room, leaving the cell feeling colder and smaller than before.

I sat there, clutching my chest, trying to get my heart to stop trying to escape my ribs.