Chapter 3

When the door was thrown open again, the glaring morning light temporarily blinded me. Several guards stormed in and hauled me up from the dirt floor.

They roughly forced that torn, blood-drenched wedding dress over my head.

Outside, the pack square was deafeningly loud.

Hundreds of werewolves from the pack had already gathered. In the dead center of the square sat a black prison cart hitched to six massive black wolves—the very transport meant to escort me to the border to be sacrificed up to the vampire army as a blood slave.

Flanked by two guards, I was marched step by step toward the cart.

With every footfall, the ribs Kaelen had broken last night and my severely bruised knees sent piercing agony through my body, making cold sweat break out across my skin. Yet, I kept my spine perfectly straight, refusing to let out a single whimper.

Kaelen sat on the high platform overlooking the square. Today, he wore the dark gold robes symbolizing the supreme authority of his Alpha title. Beside him sat Selene, dressed to the nines, smugly stroking her pregnant belly.

His gaze didn't fall on me. Instead, it shot straight over the crowd, fixated on the Cold Courtyard at the far end of the square—its periphery now reduced to scorched earth, but the building itself still standing.

That door, sealed with the soul ward, remained tightly shut.

"It's time, Alpha," urged the vampire envoy sent to oversee the exchange, his tone impatient. "If you can't bear to part with this cursed little girl, our Lord said we can take the pregnant woman beside you instead. The blood of a pregnant woman always tastes much sweeter."

"Insolent!" Kaelen whipped his head around, explosive killing intent erupting in his eyes. The crushing pressure of a supreme Alpha forced the vampire envoy to stumble two steps back in fright.

Kaelen stood up and marched to the edge of the platform. His patience had clearly reached its absolute limit.

"Lyra!" Kaelen's voice, laced with raw Alpha power, echoed across the entire square, making everyone's eardrums throb. "How much longer are you going to play dead?! Your own flesh and blood is about to be locked in a cage and sent to the vampires as a blood slave! Do you not even dare to step out and take one last look?!"

Pin-drop silence engulfed the area. The entire pack held their breath, staring in the direction of the Cold Courtyard.

No response.

Kaelen's face darkened to the extreme. His chest heaved violently, the sheer brutality in his eyes practically solidifying into something tangible. He felt his absolute authority had been challenged like never before. In front of the entire pack, that woman actually dared to ignore him like this!

"You think I really wouldn't dare?" Kaelen growled through clenched teeth.

With a vicious wave of his hand, he pointed at the Cold Courtyard and roared an order at the captain of his guard. "Go! Smash that door down! If she insists on hiding, then even if she's a damn corpse, you will drag her out today to watch her daughter be given away!"

"But... Alpha, it still has the Luna's soul ward on it..." the captain hesitated.

"I said, tear it down!" Kaelen roared.

A squad of Lycans immediately took the order and charged toward the Cold Courtyard.

Standing by the prison cart, I watched the scene unfold with icy detachment.

The moment had finally arrived.

Heavy, muffled thuds of battering echoed from the courtyard.

Up on the platform, Kaelen gripped the railing with a white-knuckled hold. His unblinking eyes were locked onto that door.

He had to be imagining how it would play out—the look of terror and humiliation on Lyra's face the second that door broke down. He was likely plotting exactly how he would publicly humiliate her, making her pay the price for her seven years of cold defiance.

Accompanied by a deafening crash, the door that had been sealed shut for seven years finally shattered into pieces.

Kaelen's eyes lit up. He even took an involuntary step forward, his breathing instantly turning ragged.

"Go bring her out," Kaelen commanded, a nearly imperceptible tremor of anticipation in his voice.

The guard captain led a few men and dashed into the dark room.

One minute, two minutes, three minutes...

Time seemed to freeze completely.

The entire square was dead silent. Everyone craned their necks, waiting for the once-breathtakingly beautiful Luna to be dragged out.

Yet, ten minutes passed, and there was absolutely no movement from within.

"What the hell is going on?!" Kaelen roared in agitation. "Does it take this long to drag one woman out?!"

Right then, the guard captain stumbled backwards out of the doorway.

His face was deathly pale, his entire body trembling violently.

"Alpha..." The captain tripped and scrambled his way to the foot of the platform. "Alpha... she's not... the Luna isn't in there..."

"What kind of nonsense are you spouting?!" Kaelen completely lost it. He lunged forward, grabbed the captain by the collar, and hoisted him clean off the ground. "What do you mean there's no Luna?! Where else could she be?!"

"The Luna... she's dead..." the captain's teeth chattered uncontrollably.

"In the room... there's only an ice coffin filled with blackened, poisoned blood and a skeleton... The Luna... is dead!"

Dead silence.

Kaelen's pupils shrank to pinpricks. His mind completely shut down in that instant.

"What... what did you say?" Kaelen's voice was so hollow a passing breeze could have blown it away. He loosened his grip, letting the captain slump limply to the ground.

Standing by the prison cart, looking at Kaelen's face completely drained of all color, a breathtakingly bright smile finally broke out on my lips.

"He is absolutely right, Father."

My crisp voice rang out exceptionally clear across the deathly silent square.

"Mother is dead. She died seven years ago, right after being forced to drink that bowl of abortion poison you personally bestowed upon her. She was never throwing a tantrum. She just... became a corpse."