𝐀𝐔𝐑𝐎𝐑𝐀
The world fell from beneath me, his words echoing in my head like some sick song.
"You actually fell for that."
Nothing made sense anymore, and I doubted it ever would as I watched my brother callously throw a playful hand over Reuben's shoulder.
"Come on now, Benny, don't be so cruel. You know how weak her heart is."
But Reuben's eyes only twinkled brighter. "I can't help myself. She is fucking dumb—literally."
They all burst into bouts of laughter, the other Gammas shifting back to join in.
All I could do was watch, my chest aching with a pressure so crushing it stole my breath. Still, I took a step towards him. This had to be some type of joke. This could not be happening.
Reuben noticed, his laughter seizing just as another howl ripped through the night sky. This one was familiar, a chill snaking up my spine.
The wolf broke through the clearing, shifting back in one fluid, graceful motion as she ran toward the rest of them, her blonde hair fluttering in the wind. She wrapped her arms around Reuben, slamming her lips against his.
My body seized. My legs hit marble, the impact jarring my teeth, but I couldn't feel the pain. All I could see was the blonde hair tangled in Reuben's fingers and the way he melted into her like she was his entire world.
They pulled apart slowly, their breaths mingling in the cold air. She turned in the circle of his arm, a cruel, shimmering smile lighting up her face as she looked down at me. She cooed, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. "Why the long face, sister?"
I stared at her—Caspian's twin and my adopted sister, Sonya.
"You look so surprised," she continued, her eyes hardening into flint. "Did you honestly think a Beta like Reuben would actually want a human?"
She stepped forward, Reuben's hand sliding down to rest possessively on her hip. My heart withered in my chest.
"Maggots like you never take a break, do you?" she sneered. "You steal our father, latch onto him like some leech until his real children meant nothing, and when he is gone, you go for my fated mate. Typical."
The air in my lungs froze, the words resounding in my skull like a bell.
Mates. Fated mates.
The world tilted sideways. Everything I'd believed—every whispered promise, every stolen touch—had been a performance. A trap baited with tenderness.
Sonya's smile sharpened to a blade's edge as she turned to Gavrin, her voice bright with cruel finality. "The deal is on, Zeta. The maggot is yours."
Gavrin's gnarled fingers tightened on my arm, and I felt the bile rise again in my throat.
Caspian stepped forward, his shadow swallowing what little moonlight touched the altar. "Let's begin the ritual, then. No point in dragging this out."
His voice was distant, muffled, as if I were underwater. My body moved without my permission as hands grabbed me—Gavrin's on one side, a Gamma's on the other—forcing me to my knees before the altar. The marble bit into my skin, but I felt nothing. I was nothing. Just a hollow shell where a person used to be.
Gavrin leaned in close, his stale breath hot against my ear. "Finally," he wheezed, his voice thick with anticipation. "Finally, you're mine."
Something snapped but it was not my heart, that had already shattered into dust. This was visceral, something feral that had been caged too long.
My hand shot up, fingers tangling in Gavrin's stringy, thinning hair. I yanked with everything I had left—all the rage, all the betrayal, all the years of silence forced down my throat.
The hair ripped free with a sickening sound, strands and scalp tearing away in my fist.
Gavrin's scream pierced the night, high and animalistic. He stumbled back, one hand flying to his bleeding scalp, the other—
The crack echoed through the clearing before the pain registered.
My arm bent at an impossible angle, white-hot agony exploding from elbow to fingertips. The scream that should have torn from my throat died silent in my ruined voice, emerging only as a choked, airless gasp. I crumpled forward, cradling my broken arm against my chest, vision swimming with black spots.
"Bitch!" Gavrin shrieked, still clutching his bleeding head. "You fucking—"
"Enough." Caspian's voice cut through the chaos like a whip crack. He stepped closer, looking down at me with something that might have been disappointment. "I expected better from you, sister. Then again, Father always did say you had that fight in you, despite everything."
He crouched beside me, his face filling my darkening vision. "But that's what we're here to fix, isn't it? To finally teach you your place. Strip."
The command slammed into me like a physical blow. My hands moved against my will, trembling fingers reaching for the torn fabric of my dress. I fought it—fought with everything I had—but my body belonged to him now. The Alpha-order was absolute.
"That's it," Caspian murmured, his voice silk over steel. "You see now, don't you? How powerless you really are against me. How completely I own you."
He stood, circling me slowly as my shaking hands fumbled with the fabric. Each movement was agony—my broken arm screaming, my body betraying me with every inch of skin exposed to the cold night air.
"Did you honestly think I'd let you sever the pack-bind?" He laughed, the sound void of warmth. "That I'd allow you to escape? Even after Gavrin has you, you'll still belong to me in some capacity. That's your fate, Aurora. A human in a werewolf world—you were never going to be free."
My fingers stilled for a fraction of a second, my heart hammering so violently I thought it might burst. The pressure built behind my eyes, my vision swimming red at the edges.
"No one is on your side," he continued, his voice almost gentle now, which made it so much worse. "After everything humans did to us—creating wolfsbane, harvesting our blood, stealing our power for their pathetic experiments—you deserve this. You deserve every second of what's coming. I might even let him ravage you while we all watch."
My blood slowed to a crawl in my veins. My dress slipped lower, and something inside me fractured. My heart stuttered, then began to race erratically, each beat slamming against my ribs like a caged animal. I gasped, the compulsion warring with my body's limits, and something warm dripped from my nose.
Blood. It splattered onto the white marble, dark drops spreading like accusations.
"Cas," Reuben's voice cut through the haze, uncertain for the first time tonight. "I don't think she can take the pressure of the Alpha-order. Look at her—your aura alone is crushing her."
Sonya's laugh was sharp. "Good. Let it."
But I caught something in Reuben's expression—a flash of regret, his jaw tightening. But it was probably my fractured mind playing cruel tricks on me. My vision blurred further, more blood streaming from my nose now. My heart beat so fast it felt like one continuous vibration. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't—
The dress fell to my waist, my bra in full display, and still the order demanded more. My fingers moved toward the clasp, jerking like a puppet on strings, but my heart—
It stopped.
Not slowed. Not stuttered. Stopped.
The world went silent. No heartbeat. No breath. Just a vast, empty nothing expanding in my chest where life used to be.
Then it slammed back—one violent, arrhythmic thud that sent lightning through my veins. Another. Each beat was more erratic than the last, until they blurred into a continuous seizing that wasn't a heartbeat at all, but the death throes of an organ pushed past its limit.
My body went limp. I collapsed forward, the marble rising to meet my face. The impact should have hurt, but I felt nothing beyond the terrible, consuming wrongness in my chest. Darkness crept in from the edges of my vision, thick and absolute.
Somewhere above me, Reuben's voice cut through the void. "Fuck—Cas—"
The horror in his tone almost sounded real.
Footsteps thundered around me. Hands grabbed at me, rolling me onto my back. Through the narrowing tunnel of my sight, I saw faces swimming above me—Caspian's, his expression carefully blank; Sonya's, twisted with something between satisfaction and alarm; Reuben's, eyes wide and jaw slack.
And Gavrin, pushing through them all, his bleeding scalp forgotten as he peered down at me with those hungry, yellowed eyes.
"She'll wake up in a cell," Caspian said, his voice detached, clinical. "Hopefully by then she'll be tame."
Gavrin's gnarled hand reached toward my face, fingers trembling as they hovered over my cheek. His cracked lips pulled back in what might have been a smile, facing Caspian.
"Good," he wheezed, the word crawling into my ears like insects. "I didn't risk my hide to get you that core for some wild cat, I prefer my humans tamed.
Core?
The word echoed in the dying light of my consciousness, strange and significant in a way I couldn't grasp. But then the darkness rushed in completely, merciful and final, swallowing me whole.
The last thing I felt was cold marble against my skin. The last thing I heard was Reuben's voice, distant and fractured: "She's not breathing—"
Then nothing.