Chapter 3: Serena’s POV
The Black Gold Casino, Garrett property, sat atop the convergence of the capital's sewers. The air down here always tasted of rust and rotting timber, but tonight the only thing I smelled was blood.
"Let him go."
I kept my hat brim low, voice cutting through the underground clamor with unnatural cold.
A handful of hulking enforcers froze mid-motion. In their center, Miles knelt on flagstones slick with mud and gore, a fresh trickle of red welling beside the gap where a tooth used to be.
"Well, well. The famous Little Rogue." The pit boss — a low-rank Alpha with a crosshatched scar across his face — exhaled a cloud of cheap tobacco smoke. "Your mongrel friend here got caught cheating our wheel. Garrett rules. Five hundred gold crowns, or his hands."
Five hundred crowns. Nearly a hundred slum families' winter stores. The fifty crowns I'd won hours ago wouldn't cover their bar tab.
"Rogue... don't... run..." Miles rasped.
I drew a slow breath. Couldn't fight here. The moment I showed speed or strength above baseline, the City Guard and the Noble Council would have me dissected by dawn.
My fingers closed around the heavy metal object tucked inside my rough linen jacket.
Ethan's Royal Army insignia. Pure silver, the Silver Crown of the realm etched beside the Hale battle-axe. This morning I'd planned to fence it on the black market for high-grade trauma salves for the refugees. Now it was the only leverage I had.
I slapped the badge onto the wine-stained table. Thunk.
The pit boss's pupils contracted.
"Hale family senior officer's badge. Worth a thousand on the black market easy. You leave it, he walks."
He weighed it in his palm. "Done. Forty-eight hours, little grifter. Sundown the day after tomorrow, eight hundred crowns principal and interest, or this badge lands on Count Garrett's desk. I doubt General Hale would appreciate learning his daughter stole the family colors."
"Pray your dirty fingers don't tarnish it."
I hauled Miles up, threw him over my shoulder, and walked out without looking back.
Cold night rain hit my face. Only when I confirmed no scent trailed us did I dump him in a flooded alley.
"Are you insane?!" I hissed. "You cheat Garrett house? Do you know what happens if I didn't have that badge? You'd be eating with your toes tonight!"
"Sorry, Rogue... messed up..." Miles clutched his swollen face, whining. "Heard the refugee camp's got chill-fever again. Medicines cost too much. Thought I could win..."
Looking at him, the rage evaporated like rain on hot iron. People like us, scrambling in the mud — we had nothing but rotten lives.
"Shut up." I scrubbed a hand through my hair. "Problem now: eight hundred crowns in forty-eight hours. If Ethan finds the badge missing, Father breaks his legs and hangs me from the city gate to dry."
Miles swallowed hard. "Actually... I heard something in the casino tonight."
"Talk."
"That Northvale convoy we heard about? Arrives tonight. Three wagons — northern treasures, chests of coin."
My eyebrows rose, eyes narrowing.
"Which road?"
"South Blackpine Highway. Main artery. But Rogue — fully armed escort, heavy numbers. You'd be suicide."
"Shut it. Find Auntie at the camp, get woundwort for your face."
I clapped his shoulder. Heavy escort complicated things, but for a gutter rat who'd danced on knife-edges since birth? Manageable.
One hour later. Blackpine Highway.
Rain had stopped. The woods still breathed wet earth and decay. I crouched in the crown of a massive black pine, skin coated in fresh-crushed bone-corroding grass juice — enough to sever any werewolf's scenting.
At the road's narrowest hairpin, I'd strung three tripwires. From branches hung wineskins stuffed with cheap spirits and hallucinogenic mushroom spores.
Anti-werewolf ordnance. One lungful and the strongest Alpha went glassy-eyed in seconds.
Clop. Clop. Clop.
Heavy hooves thundered from the bend.
I held my breath, fingers tight on the silver dagger.
Twenty-odd armored riders materialized. Center of the formation: a carriage drawn by four black thoroughbreds. Even at this distance, a scent slammed into me — high-altitude pine needles, mint, glacial ice.
Cold. Arrogant. Noble oppression made palpable, an ice pick driven straight through my nerves.
Interesting. I smirked internally. The fatter the sheep, the sweeter the mutton.
The lead rider's hoof hovered over the first tripwire.
I dropped from the canopy, a nightbird in freefall, severing the trigger lines mid-air.
Whumpf. Whumpf.
Wineskins burst center-mass. Hallucinogenic cloud mushroomed instantly.
"AMBUSH—!"
The captain roared, but his mount inhaled the spores, screamed, and folded into the muck horse and rider both.
"Work to do."
I laughed, channeling the drop's momentum into a black bolt straight for the prize carriage at the column's heart.
