Chapter 017
1718 Words
Sienna's POV
His gaze landed on me the moment Clara pointed her finger.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird, frantic and hollow. I forced my face down, letting my eyes trace the damp, oil-streaked dirt to avoid the monster on the dais, because if I didn't look, maybe the heavy weight of his stare wouldn't crush me completely.
What was she doing here?
The realization turned my stomach, leaving a cold, oily slick of dread to settle in my gut. She hadn't just found me—she had orchestrated this whole nightmare, deceiving Kael and leading me straight into this industrial slaughterhouse.
My pulse spiked for the red-haired girl trembling beside me. She had risked everything to slide the ring into my palm, and now she was paying the price in blood. I stayed paralyzed, caught directly between the suffocating gravity of Duke’s presence and the desperate, useless need to save the only person who had shown me mercy.
"Sienna. Look at you. You’re shaking."
Clara’s voice drifted from several yards away, sounding light and sharp. I heard the rhythmic clack-clack of her heels against the metal dais like a hunter descending toward her prey. Her eyes weren't normal, glowing with a predatory, sickly light that made the oxygen in the room feel thin and toxic.
"I remember you having a much bigger mouth back at the pack," she added, her voice dropping to a condescending purr as she stopped inches from me. "It’s nice to see you finally learned how to keep it shut."
I didn't look up as the heavy iron chains bit into my wrists, leaving the cold metal to siphon the last of the heat from my blood. I inhaled deeply, allowing the smell of ozone and old blood to sting my throat before I forced my eyes to meet hers with a jaw locked so tight it ached.
"How did you even find this place, Clara?" I asked, my voice sounding small to my own ears like glass cracking.
"Please," she replied, a slow, cruel smile spreading across her lips. "I’ve always been part of the inner circle, but you were just too busy playing house to notice. Now, tell me what that little omega b***h just handed you."
I felt the ring humming against the skin of my forearm where it was hidden safely in my sleeve, pulsing with a steady, warm vibration that served as a rhythmic reminder of a world outside these walls. I kept my breathing shallow, keeping my arm completely rigid so the movement wouldn't betray the secret.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, my voice forced flat in a calm that cost me every ounce of my remaining strength. "The guards are seeing things."
I had to stay steady, because if I faltered, I was dead, and if I died, the girl beside me was lost.
"Don't lie to me, Sienna, because it makes you look desperate. If you won't give it up, I'll just have to take it."
Clara’s tone shifted from artificial sweetness to a jagged, uncontrolled anger, prompting her to raise her hand into the air in a silent, sharp command to the shadows behind her.
Before I could even blink, a scream tore through the hall.
The red-haired girl was thrown forward as the electrified wire lashed across her back, sending a violent violet spark to illuminate the room for a fraction of a second to cast long, twisted shadows against the rusted walls. The other omegas gasped and shifted back into the darkness, leaving their chains to rattle like a chorus of ghosts.
"Last chance, Sienna," Clara demanded, leaning closer until I could see the tiny, frantic twitch in her eyelid that proved she was losing her composure. "What are you hiding?"
"I told you," I spat back, feeling a hot, searing rage bubble up to drown out the fear. "There is nothing."
Another strike landed.
It was a wet, sharp sound followed by another scream that ran raw and breaking.
I looked past Clara toward the throne, where Duke sat in absolute, terrifying stillness. He didn't interfere or blink, watching the violence with a clinical detachment that made him feel less like a man and more like a machine measuring a reaction.
I wondered if this was the business he spoke of, or if this was a test.
Clara leaned in until her lips were brushing my ear, her breath running cold to smell of mint and copper.
"Tell me the truth, and I’ll make sure Damien wakes up," she whispered, her voice feeling like a virus crawling into my mind. "You want your mate back, don't you? You’re dying for it."
"Damien?"
The name hit me like a physical blow, forcing a single tear to escape and trace a hot, stinging path through the grime on my cheek.
The guilt emerged as a sudden, heavy shroud. It was entirely my fault, because if I hadn't broken the law or sought a way out, perhaps he wouldn't be lost in that silent sleep. I wondered for a dark second if suffering under Lucas would have been better than this.
I looked at the red-haired girl whose breath was coming in ragged, wet gasps. She looked at me through a curtain of copper hair, her eyes clouded with agony as she gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of her head.
Don’t.
She was still protecting me.
"Wait," I whispered, letting my hand move toward my sleeve to end the screaming. "Fine. If it stops the whipping... I'll show you."
Clara’s eyes widened with a frantic, ugly greed.
"Do it now! I’m out of patience!" she screamed, her mask finally shattering into jagged pieces.
As she lunged forward to strike me, the air in the warehouse suddenly died.
The temperature plummeted as a wave of pure, dark energy burst from the dais—acting not as a sound, but as a pressure that made the floorboards groan. It was thick, heavy, and smelled of ancient stone and deep earth, rolling over us like a physical weight to pin our lungs completely.
"That’s enough."
Duke’s voice didn't boom, but it resonated through the very marrow of my bones. Every wolf in the hall let out a low howl of instinctive respect, their heads dropping in unison as if pulled by invisible strings.
"Clara," Duke said, his voice shifting as the clinical boredom vanished, replaced by a low, vibrating curiosity. "The girl is clearly more stubborn than you anticipated."
"My Lord, she’s nothing!" Clara said, spinning around with a voice that ran frantic and pitchy. "She’s a wolfless stray who is hiding something important, so let me just break her."
"Bring her to me," Duke commanded.
The guards moved with mechanical, brutal efficiency, unattering me from the line as the iron fell away with a heavy clatter to shove me toward the dais. Two pairs of massive hands grabbed my shoulders to force me down, leaving my head to hit the floorboards with a sickening thud that sent white sparks across my vision.
I couldn't see his face beneath the hood, but his presence remained a physical pressure that felt like being at the bottom of the ocean.
"Human," Duke said. "You have quite the spine."
He didn't wait for a response, leaning forward slightly until the shadow of his hood swallowed me whole.
"What did she give you? Tell me now."
I stared at the wood grain of the floor, tasting the metallic tang of my own blood while offering him nothing but silence.
Silence reclaimed the hall to run heavy and suffocating.
"Look at her... she isn't even flinching," an omega murmured from the shadows, her voice trembling with a mix of fear and awe.
"I'm telling you, my Lord," Clara hissed, pacing now as her fingers twitched at her sides. "She isn't human. I can’t feel her, but she’s dangerous—she’s a freak."
Before I could draw another breath, the dark energy coalesced.
It wrapped around my throat like a physical hand made of ice, jerking me upward until my legs dangled in the air while my fingers clawed uselessly at the invisible collar. My vision began to tunnel as the edges turned a bruised purple, leaving the world to narrow down to the sound of my own rhythmic, choking gasps.
Duke made a casual gesture to the guards, and the electrified wire lashed the red-haired girl again until her scream became the last thing I heard clearly.
"Tell me what I want to know, and the pain stops for both of you," Duke said, his voice sounding cold and hollow right inside my head.
I didn't beg, since I lacked the air for it, letting my eyes drift to Clara instead.
She wasn't smiling anymore, stumbling backward with a pale face and trembling hands as she pointed directly at me.
"What is that?" she breathed, her voice high and thin. "Look at her eyes! She’s a monster!"
My breath was completely gone, leaving my lungs to burn as if filled with lye. I stopped struggling and let my arms fall to my sides, brushing the ring in my sleeve one last time.
Damien, the curse is broken. Your true mate shall arrive.
The thought drifted through my mind like a dream, and a final tear slipped away as the world started to blur into a soft, grey haze. I looked at the girl on the floor, seeing blood everywhere.
I was ready to let go.
Then, the pressure vanished.
I dropped to the ground with a sickening c***k, leaving the air to rush back into my lungs so fast it felt like a blade. I lay there gasping and shivering as the darkness receded from the edges of my vision.
Duke was silent, standing over me with his entire posture changed to run tense and almost reverent. When he finally spoke, his voice emerged as a low, fractured rasp.
"The white wolf mark."
The beta leaning toward Duke gasped, his face draining of color completely. "That can't be right," he whispered.
"No," Clara stammered, her victorious mask completely shattered. "That’s impossible. She’s nothing!"
I looked up through the tangle of my copper hair, allowing my lips to curl into a devilish, bloody smile.
- Writer
