Chapter 3

Liv POV:

The dungeon reeked of rust and stagnant despair.

I was curled in the furthest corner of a cell that was barely large enough to stand in. The floor was damp, seeping a bone-deep cold into my limbs. But it wasn't the cold that made me shake.

It was the silver.

The bars of the cell were coated in it. The shackles biting into my ankles were pure sterling. For a human, silver is just jewelry. For a wolf, it is poison. It burns on contact, a slow, sizzling heat that leeches the strength right out of your marrow.

My skin where the shackles touched was seared raw, the flesh blistering. My healing ability, usually fast like all wolves, was paralyzed.

I coughed, and the taste of copper filled my mouth. Blood.

I had been here for three days. Or maybe four. It was hard to tell in the suffocating dark.

The heavy iron door creaked open. Light flooded in, blinding me.

"Comfortable, Olivia?"

I squinted against the glare. Isabelle stood there, holding a tray. The smell wafting from it made my stomach cramp violently.

It wasn't food. It was the sickly-sweet, cloying scent of Wolfsbane.

"Go away," I rasped. My voice was wrecked from screaming for my father on the first night.

Izzy laughed, the sound echoing off the stone walls. She signaled the guard to leave. Once we were alone, she walked up to the bars. She didn't look like a glamorous socialite now. In the dim light, her eyes were cold and predatory.

"Marcus is so disappointed in you," she said, tilting her head. "He's upstairs right now, discussing your execution with the Elders. He thinks you're a spy for the Red River Rogues."

"You... framed me," I whispered.

"Of course I did." She shrugged elegantly. "You're an Omega, Liv. You're nothing. But you have something I want."

She leaned closer, sniffing the air. "I can smell it on you. It's faint, buried under the fear and the dirt, but it's there. That pull. You're his Mate, aren't you?"

My blood ran cold. She knew.

"He doesn't know," she continued, answering my unspoken question. "Marcus is so arrogant. He thinks his Mate would be a warrior queen. A majestic Alpha female. Not... this." She gestured to my huddled form with disgust. "He can't smell past his own prejudice."

"Why?" I asked, tears leaking from my eyes. "You have everything."

"I want to be Luna," she hissed, gripping the silver bars. Her skin sizzled slightly, but she ignored it, her ambition stronger than the pain. "And I won't let a stray dog like you ruin my destiny just because the Moon Goddess made a mistake."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small vial. She poured the purple liquid onto the piece of stale bread on the tray.

"Eat up, Liv. It's Wolfsbane concentrate. It won't kill you fast. It just... weakens the wolf. Makes you delirious. Confused. So when Marcus comes to interrogate you, you'll just babble nonsense. You'll look exactly like the guilty, mad traitor he thinks you are."

She slid the tray under the bars.

"If you don't eat it," she whispered, "I'll have your father removed from the Council. Maybe he'll have a nasty accident on the stairs."

She smiled, straightened her blazer, and walked out.

I stared at the bread. My body was screaming for food, but my inner wolf was howling in terror.

Don't eat it. Please, don't.

But I thought of my dad. He was the only one who had tried to stop them.

I took the bread. My hand trembled. I took a bite.

It tasted like ash and burning sugar.

Hours later, the fever took me. I lay on the stone floor, shivering violently. Hallucinations danced in the corners of my vision. I saw Marcus, but his face was melting like wax. I saw Izzy, but she had the head of a snake.

The door opened again.

"Get up."

It was Marcus.

I tried to scramble back, but my limbs felt like lead. The Wolfsbane was working. My mind was a fog.

"I didn't..." I slurred, my tongue heavy. "I didn't do it..."

Marcus looked down at me through the bars. His face was granite. Hard. Unyielding.

"You look pathetic," he spat. "High on something? Guilt, perhaps?"

"Poison," I mumbled, trying to reach for him. "Izzy... poison..."

"Isabelle has been nothing but gracious," he snapped. "She begged me to spare your life. She thinks you can be rehabilitated."

He gripped the bars. "But I don't tolerate traitors, Olivia. And I don't tolerate weaklings."

He turned to the guards behind him.

"Bring her to the courtyard. It's time to end this."

My inner wolf whimpered one last time, curling into a ball in the deepest recess of my mind. She was dying. And so was I.