Hazel’s POV
The cells smell like my mother’s nightmares.
Damp stone. Old blood.
I sit with my back to the wall, knees pulled to my chest, listening to Alaric’s screams echo down from the pack house. They’re muffled by distance, but I hear them. I feel them. The mate bond is a live wire in my chest, sparking with his pain.
Like mother, like daughter.
Vincent’s words. Ella’s smile. The elders’ eyes.
They want me to break. To cry. To confess.
I won’t give them the satisfaction.
“Hazel.”
The whisper comes from the cell next to mine. Hoarse. Broken. Familiar in a way that makes my ribs ache.
I crawl to the bars. Press my face to the cold iron.
In the dark, I see him.
My father.
He’s thinner than I imagined. Hair gone gray, beard tangled, wearing rags that might’ve been a
