Kayla.
The moment I opened my eyes, I knew something was terribly wrong.
My vision was blurred at first, heavy with the remnants of unconsciousness, but the cold was unmistakable. It bit into my wrists. It wrapped around my ankles. It pressed against my skin with a metallic cruelty that made my stomach twist.
Chains.
Thick iron chains bound my hands together, the links cutting into my flesh every time I shifted. Before I could fully gather my senses, my body jerked forward violently.
I wasn't walking.
I was being dragged.
The ground beneath me was rough and uneven, stones scraping against my knees as I struggled to keep up. Around me were other girls, my age, some younger-looking, some older in their fear, but all bound the same way. The chains clinked together in a cruel rhythm, like a procession of prisoners marching toward a sentence already decided.
No one spoke at first.
Only the heavy boots of the guards and the rattling of metal filled the air.
I swallowed hard, forcing myself to breathe steadily. My head still throbbed faintly from whatever they had done to me before. Every step forward pulled at my shoulders. Every stumble earned a harsh tug from the guard holding the chain ahead.
After what felt like hours, the guards finally stopped, not because we were exhausted, but because they were.
One of them cursed under his breath and dropped the chain carelessly, stretching his arms as if this entire ordeal had merely inconvenienced him. Another wiped sweat from his forehead, laughing lightly with his companion.
We were nothing to them.
I lowered myself to the ground carefully, sitting among the other girls. The earth was damp and cold beneath me. My wrists burned. My legs trembled from the strain.
And then I began to hear them.
Their whispers.
Their fear.
It seeped into my ears, into my skull, until I could no longer block it out.
"I heard the Alpha triplets are ruthless," a fair girl said, her voice shaking despite her attempt to sound composed. Her hands twisted nervously in her chains.
"I'm scared!" another replied immediately. "Any girl that doesn't seem fit to be the Alpha's personal maid would be killed… or sent somewhere far away to labour."
Her words made my chest tighten.
Killed?
Labour?
"The wolves are so cruel," a dark-skinned girl whispered, tears sliding down her cheeks without restraint. "They killed my little brother without hesitation."
Her voice cracked on the last word, and silence followed. The kind of silence that suffocates.
I stared at the ground, my fingers curling against the iron around my wrists.
"We are just so unfortunate," another girl murmured bitterly. "The eighteenth-year interval fell during our turn."
My head snapped toward her.
Eighteenth-year interval.
That was it.
That was the piece my mind had refused to accept. I had heard about it before. Everyone had.
Stories passed down in hushed tones. Legends whispered by elders when they thought children were asleep. The pact between humans and wolves.
I had always waved it off casually.
Fiction.
Exaggeration.
A tale meant to scare young girls into obedience, but now…now I was sitting in chains, now I was surrounded by girls who had been taken from their homes.
Many years ago, the human clan and the wolf clan had been at odds. Blood had been spilled. Lives had been lost. To prevent a war that would have destroyed both sides, our emperor had agreed to a compromise.
Every eighteenth year.
Every young girl who was about to turn eighteen, or had just turned eighteen would be sent to serve the current Alpha.
A sacrifice disguised as service, a tradition masked as peace.
I had thought it was history.
Something that had faded with time.
But as the chains weighed down my wrists and the fear in the girls' eyes reflected my own, I understood the truth.
I wasn't listening to a story anymore.
I was living in it.
"Damn it!" The curse slipped out before I could swallow it back.
The word cracked through the tense silence like a whip, sharp and unexpected. Chains clinked as heads turned. Every pair of eyes around me, wide, hollow, frightened, shifted in my direction.
Even the guards glanced back.
For a split second, the air felt heavier.
I forced my expression to change immediately. The anger that had flared in my chest disappeared beneath a stretched smile. It wasn't warm. It wasn't genuine. It was something carefully placed over my face like a mask.
I even gave a small, awkward shrug.
A few of the girls stared at me as though I had lost my mind.
"She's weird," one of them muttered under her breath.
Another edged slightly away from me, dragging her chains with her, as if madness might be contagious.
I didn't respond.
Let them think I was strange.
I actually don't care.
We had been walking for three days, three endless, merciless days.
No food.
Barely any water.
Our lips were cracked. Our steps were unsteady. The chains felt heavier with every mile, biting deeper into skin that had long since stopped healing.
But I couldn't care less about hunger.
I couldn't care less about the ache in my legs or the raw skin around my wrists.
My mind was somewhere else entirely, focused, sharp and waiting.
The Alpha triplets.
Every whisper I had overheard about them replayed in my head. Ruthless. Merciless. Untouchable.
Regardless, I needed them close enough to touch.
Close enough to strike.
A single desire burned in my chest, hotter than the thirst clawing at my throat.
I would kill them, I would avenge my parents, I would gouge out their eyes without hesitation.
They took everything from me.
Now I would take everything from them.
But rage alone would not be enough.
I needed access.
I needed proximity.
I must get close to them.
I must qualify to work within their space.
I didn't need to be the main personal maid they would pick. I didn't need favor. I didn't need status.
All I needed was an opportunity.
A moment alone.
A weapon, even if it was something small. Something sharp.
That would be enough.
"You all are going to pay," I muttered under my breath, so low that only I could hear it.
The guard in front jerked the chain again, forcing me to stumble forward.
I didn't protest.
I didn't curse again.
I simply lifted my head and kept walking, my smile long gone, replaced by something colder.
They thought they were dragging a helpless human girl into their territory.
They had no idea they were leading their leader's executioner straight to their doorstep.