Her Silver Wolf

Chapter 1: The Silver Scar ​Five years, seven months, and three days. That’s how long it’s been since I last breathed clean, poisoned air. In this hellhole, every inhale tastes of rusted iron, stale sweat, and the coppery phantom of old blood. ​The Red Cell Block is a joke. It’s not red; it's gray, stained with the misery of a thousand lost souls, and it’s the worst prison in the Eastern United States, specifically built to house supernatural "anomalies" like me. A cage for the daughter of a crime lord who can control the very metals that hold her captive. ​They call me the Ferro kinesis Freak. A witch-born oddity, the perfect bargaining chip and prized weapon for my father, Viktor Volkov. He thinks I’m broken, but I’m not. I’m just waiting. ​I trace the thick, jagged scar that splits my right palm, a silvery constant in the gloom. It burns when I think about him. ​Kaelen. ​He was my father’s bodyguard, my first love, and a wolf with eyes the color of a winter sky. He was also the only person who ever looked at me and saw me, not the power I wielded. We were stupid. We fell in love. We got caught. ​My father, in his infinite mercy, decided that I needed a lesson in loyalty. He shoved my hands into a vat of molten silver and commanded his men to brand Kaelen in front of me. I broke. I used my power. I dragged every metallic object in a ten-foot radius into a swirling shield around us. And then, I used the very dagger Kaelen had hidden in his boot—the forbidden one, the one dipped in liquid silver—and I drove it into his shoulder, directly over his heart. ​I didn't kill him. I couldn't. Instead, I used my metal control to sever his supernatural connection, his scent, and his ties to the pack. It was the only way to make my father think Kaelen was worthless and let him live, but I also doomed him to a life of perpetual solitude as a rogue. ​The iron door to my cell groans, bringing me back to the present. The sound is music to my ears—a high E-flat. I focus on the vibrations. The hinges are weak, the locking mechanism a simple latch. ​"Volkov," the human guard grunts, his nose wrinkling at the smell of my unwashed cell. He doesn't look at my eyes. No one does. "You're needed in the Pit. A high-value buyer wants to see the anomaly perform." ​I don't move immediately. I count to three. Then I stand, my bare feet touching the cold stone, and walk toward the bars, the silver scar in my palm throbbing with an ancient, forbidden magic.