ELLIE’S POV
The rogue’s blood still stained the stone floor beneath him.
He knelt in chains now with his arms bound behind his back with silver-threaded cuffs, head bowed low, his breathing shallow but steady. Jovani’s guards had hauled him into the lower chamber beneath the east wing, where stone walls echoed every breath like thunder. The torches along the walls did little to warm the cold that settled there and maybe that was the point.
He hadn’t spoken a word since they dragged him from the woods.
I stood in the corner, arms folded tightly across my chest, the cut along my ribs still aching beneath the bandage. Jovani stood near the door, silent, unreadable, arms crossed as his second-in-command questioned the man again.
“Who sent you?” Beta Dane’s voice cracked like a whip. “Answ
