The Fallen Moon: Predestined Sin

Chapter 2: A Heart Caged in Silver

I didn't sleep.

The bars of the silver cage frosted over before dawn. I knelt in the dead center of the cage, pressing my knees against the freezing steel floor for four straight hours. It wasn't that I couldn't change my posture. I simply refused to let myself get comfortable. Comfort breeds weakness. And weakness gets you killed.

As dawn neared, footsteps sounded. They were heavy—boots grinding over gravel, accompanied by the clanking of bone bells.

A female werewolf appeared before the cage. She had an ash-gray braid, a face covered in totemic tattoos, and deerskin robes with a ring of bone bells dangling from her waist. Her cloudy eyes stared at me as if I were livestock before slaughter.

"Stand up."

I didn't move.

"I said, stand up. The Alpha said you cannot die, but he didn't say you couldn't starve, thirst, or suffer a little torment."

I stood up. My knees had gone numb from kneeling so long.

The old witch doctor stared at the mark on my wrist for a long time, her lips curling into a dry, withered sneer. "The mark of the Moon Goddess. Three hundred years."

She leaned in close, her bone bells clashing right beside my ear. "The princess from three hundred years ago—she believed her Alpha would stand against the entire pack for her. Do you know how she died in the end? Her Alpha bound her to the pyre with his own hands, all to appease his people's rage. When the Goddess's mark burned, it was no different from ordinary skin. Sizzling. Reeking."

She straightened up and laughed bitterly. "So don't put your faith in destined mates, hunter. In this territory, the Alpha's power reigns supreme over the Goddess's jokes. And as for him, he is not a man who would ever surrender power for a woman."

She unlocked the cage door. "Get out. Prisoners work."

She made me wash bandages. Three massive basins were piled high with bandages soaked in blood and pus, and the surface of the washboard was plated with a thin layer of silver. With every scrubbing and wringing motion, the silver scraped against the raw burns on my wrists. The pain shot up my arms and plunged straight down my spine.

I didn't stop. The old witch doctor sat on a stone bench, sipping her herbal tea, her bone bells jingling softly with her movements. She was waiting for me to beg.

A young werewolf stepped out from the shadows of the trees. A scar sliced down his left cheek from his brow to his jaw—inflicted not by a claw, but by a dagger. The drunkard whose wrist Caine had crushed last night was his younger brother.

"Washed them clean, did you?" He raised his foot, the toe of his boot violently kicking over my basin of freshly washed bandages. The white cloths spilled across the ground, rolling into the mud. He grinned, revealing his fangs.

"The Alpha said you cannot die. But he didn't say... you couldn't wash them again."

His name was Reg. I didn't look at him; I simply bent down, picked up the muddy bandages one by one, tossed them back into the basin, and began to wash them again. His grin faltered for a fraction of a second. Grunting, he turned and stalked away.

At sunset, I was marched back to the silver cage. A chipped clay bowl sat inside, containing half a serving of plain porridge and a piece of dark rye bread. The guard escorting me glanced at the bowl, then cast a look toward the main tent. He said nothing, locked the door, and left.

I stared at the porridge. The mark on my wrist was warm. It wasn't the searing agony of silver, but a constant, low heat. Like a bonfire lit on the other side of a vast forest. You couldn't see the flames, but you could feel the warmth.

I picked up the bowl. The porridge was cold, and so was the bread. But my hands were remarkably warm.

By the third day, my wounds had festered. The finger sliced by a bone fragment had grown red and swollen.

Today's labor was hauling stone. These were waist-high blocks of granite typically carried by two people, but I was forced to carry them alone. Reg personally selected the sharpest piece of stone for me, its jagged edge pressing hard against my ribs, grinding into the exact same spot with every agonizing step.

By the sixth trip, my swollen finger had turned a deep purple. On the ninth trip, the jagged stone slipped from my grip, crushing down onto my left foot. I collapsed onto one knee. Mocking laughter erupted around me.

Reg squatted in front of me, squeezing my infected finger. The pinch wasn't hard, but his placement was precise—right on the center of the swollen infection. Blinding pain exploded, turning my vision white for a split second.

"Weren't you acting tough last night? Rocks too heavy for you?"

I didn't answer. If I opened my mouth, a scream would escape. And I refused to scream in front of them.

"Enough."

The voice sliced through the trees. Instantly, all laughter died.

Caine Bloodspear stood at the edge of the construction site. When he appeared in the sunlight, the surrounding temperature seemed to plummet. Reg released my finger immediately, stepping back three paces.

"Alpha. I was merely supervising the labor..."

"Does your supervision include kicking over freshly washed bandages? Does it include assigning the sharpest rocks to a single worker?"

Reg's face paled. "She is just a prisoner, a fake mate, Alpha! You said so yourself..."

"I know exactly what I said. Sentry duty at the watchtower. One month. Starting now."

Reg bowed his head and walked away. As he passed me, his icy glare felt like the edge of a blade.

Caine looked down at me. "Stand up."

"I can't."

He stared at me for three long seconds. Then, leaning down, he swept me up into his arms. The movement was far from gentle, carried out as if he were transporting cargo. Yet, his palms precisely avoided the injury on my left foot and my infected right finger.

The old witch doctor materialized from somewhere, the totemic markings on her face contorted with anger. "Alpha! She has only been kept in the cage for two days..."

"She is dying. You are violating my orders."

"I didn't know she was..."

"Now you do. If there is a next time, I will find another witch doctor."

He carried me into his main tent.

The interior was incredibly sparse—only a tactical map table, a few wooden chairs, and a simple cot. An old dagger hung on the wall, its hilt worn smooth from use. Caine laid me on the cot; the wool felt ten times softer than the cold steel floor of the silver cage.

"Your hand." He reached out, gently turning my wrist to expose the finger that had turned a bruised shade of purple. His brow knit together. "When did this happen?"

"Yesterday."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"To whom?"

He didn't answer. Turning away, he retrieved clean bandages, a jar of ointment, and a small silver blade from an iron chest. My body tensed at the sight of the silver.

"It's to drain the wound," he said, noticing my reaction. "The infection has reached the base of your finger. Without draining it, the salve won't work. You'll lose the finger, then your hand, and eventually, your life."

He knelt beside the cot, taking my right wrist in his hand. His palm was massive, and his fingers were completely steady.

A werewolf's body temperature is two degrees higher than a human's—a detail I knew by heart from the hunter archives. But cold data had never warned me that when those extra two degrees seeped through his fingertips and into my pulse, my heart would beat so erratically.

The blade descended. A microscopic cut was made, and dark, blackish-red pus welled up. He used his thumb to spread a generous amount of ointment over the incision. His thumb was incredibly rough, lined with thick calluses formed by countless battles. As they scraped against my skin, they sparked a bizarre, tingling sensation that mixed with the cool relief of the salve.

My breath caught in my throat. It wasn't just from the pain, but from his heat, his long lashes, and the tight set of his jaw. And above all, it was because the mark on his left wrist was burning in perfect, rhythmic unison with mine.

Damn it. An Ashton hunter does not harbor feelings for the enemy. But my body seemed to have forgotten that rule entirely.

"Keep it dry for three days," he said, standing up and tossing the jar of ointment into my lap. "Apply it once a day.

This is yours."

It was a high-grade healing salve refined from Moondrop flowers. On the hunter black market, a tiny jar of this was worth a set of silver-plated armor.

"Why?" I asked. "You said I wasn't your destined mate. You called it a curse. You locked me in a silver cage and told everyone to treat me like a prisoner. Yet, you leave warm food for me, rip away the collar of my clothes when someone touches me, crush a wolf's wrist for stepping out of line, and now you use high-grade salve for a single finger. Why?"

His expression remained unchanged. "Your life belongs to me. Until I decide how to dispose of you, you cannot die, you cannot be injured, and you cannot be touched by anyone else. This is the law of the Alpha: the spoils of war are mine alone to handle."

That word again. But as he spoke, he didn't look me in the eye. He stared at the old dagger hanging on the wall, his voice as flat as someone reciting a routine patrol report. Yet his left hand—bearing the mark of our bond—was unconsciously clenching and unclenching.

I stared at that hand and smiled. It was the smile of a hunter who had finally spotted the tracks of her prey.

"Understood. The spoils of war."

He summoned a young werewolf, ordering him to "return the prisoner to the cage, and let no one near her along the way." The guard maintained a strict three-pace distance from me the entire time, treating me like a bomb about to detonate.

When I returned to the cage, the sun had just slipped below the horizon.

A brand-new wool blanket sat inside, folded neatly. Resting atop the blanket was a single white flower—a Moondrop flower. Its petals were still glistening with dew, radiating a faint silver shimmer in the moonlight and dispersing a sweet, clean fragrance.

Moondrop flowers only grew beneath the silver oaks, a location that required at least a one-hour trek from the camp.

I picked up the flower. Its petals were as white as snow. They looked exactly like the ashes that had fallen on my face six years ago on that full moon night, when I crawled out of my burning family manor.

Caine Bloodspear. You killed my parents. You stripped me of my dignity in front of everyone. You locked me in a silver cage. You call me your spoils of war. Yet, you give me food, you give me medicine, you give me flowers. You are making it so I don't know how to hate you.

And if I don't know how to hate you, it means my entire past six years have been a joke.

Only later did I learn that in werewolf tradition, the Moondrop flower is a silent language between mates, translating simply to: I am here. No words are required. No promises. One only needs to place a silver-white flower where the other can see it. It simply means: I am here.

Caine Bloodspear, you walked an hour along the mountain trail to pluck a Moondrop flower from beneath the silver oaks, left it in my cage, and then called me your spoils of war.



You absolute liar.