Bound by Moonlight

The whispers

Chapter Three: The Whispers

Kaia’s POV

They came for me before dawn.

The guards didn’t speak. They unlocked the cuffs, hauled me to my feet, and shoved me forward as if I were a burden. My muscles screamed from cold and stone, but I didn’t cry out. I wouldn’t give them that satisfaction.

They dragged me through tunnels and up into light that stabbed my eyes—blinding after days of dark. Orders fell around me, hard and simple.

“Clean the eastern wing. Floors, weapons, training gear.”

“No food until it’s done.”

“No talking. No eye contact.”

A bucket was shoved into my hands, cold water sloshing at the rim, and a rough rag that bit my skin until it bled. Warriors passed like weather—some sneered, some pretended I wasn’t there. The men who used to nod at my father now spat the word traitor and kept walking.

They muttered behind cupped hands.

“That’s her — the traitor’s pup.”

“Can’t even shift.”

“Surprised she’s still breathing.”

I bit my tongue until I tasted iron and scrubbed harder. My knees scraped raw. My palms split. My whole body burned. But I scrubbed because I would not let them see me fall apart.

---

It happened in the outer training grounds, where warriors sweat and power is measured in bruises. Head down, rag in hand, I wiped until the cloth was red with grit and the stone gleamed.

A voice slid across the yard—sweet, polished poison.

“Well, if it isn’t the wolfless girl of the pack.”

I didn’t have to look up to know who it was.

Mira.

She stood in white training silks, curls pinned back, that Luna-in-waiting smile stuck to her face like paint. Kaelen was a shadow behind her, silent, watching.

Mira’s eyes swept me—chains, dirt, bruises—and her expression lounged into mock pity. “You’ve fallen hard,” she cooed. “Remember when we stole bread from the kitchen? You used to be someone.”

I pushed to my feet. “Here to gloat?”

She stepped closer, heels ticking on stone. “I’m here to remind you of your place.” Her gaze flicked to Kaelen. “You had his loyalty once. Not anymore. He doesn’t look at you the same, does he?”

I met Kaelen’s face for one breath. He didn’t move. His jaw tightened like a cord.

Mira noticed. She leaned in, close enough that I could smell rose oil. “You’re lucky we let you live. If I were Luna already, you’d still be in that cell—only quieter.”

I held her stare, voice flat. “If you need to come down here to feel powerful, maybe you’re not Luna material after all.”

Her smile cracked. Before she could bite back, Kaelen cut in—soft, final. “That’s enough, Mira.”

She blinked, off balance. “I was just—”

“Let’s go,” Kaelen said.

They turned, but Kaelen glanced back once. For a second, his eyes weren’t hollow. There was pity. Regret. Maybe something worse—fear.

When he left, that old pulse returned beneath my ribs—warmer, stronger. Not a wolf. Not the pack. Something older and patient, waking at last.

---

They worked me until I stopped calculating time.

No matter how early I rose or how hard I scrubbed, it was never enough. Miss a spot and cold water poured down my back. Move too slowly and the guards found new ways to punish: kicks to ribs, a brick across my shoulders, punches so clean they left me gasping. They tossed bloodied blades into my hands and laughed as I cleaned them; iron bit into my palms and the scent of it crawled under my skin.

“Pick up your pace, traitor.”

“Lazy waste.”

“You should’ve burned with them.”

Sometimes they used me as a living dummy. Young wolves shoved me into the ring to practice holds. Fists hammered my ribs until I learned to breathe around the pain. “She doesn’t even scream anymore,” one laughed. “Like hitting a rag doll.”

I didn’t scream. I learned to hold my breath until the blows blurred, until my mind went somewhere quiet where my mother hummed and my father grinned.

At night I crawled back to the dungeon—no cot, just cold stone and cuffs. My hands bled in the darkness, and I curled into that small heat under my ribs—the ember of something unnamable.

Sometimes I whispered to it.

"Don’t leave me too."

Because that magic — whatever it was — was the only part of me they hadn’t taken.

Yet.

And in the silence of chains, I heard it again —

a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.