Seraphina’s POV
The first thing that hit when consciousness crawled back was the sll.
Human waste. Unwashed bodies. Fear so thick it coated the back of my throat like oil. I gagged, my stomach lurching as the full assault of odors invaded my senses.
I was lying on sothing cold and rough. Stone, maybe concrete. My body ached everywhere, but it was a distant, muffled pain—like my nerve endings had been wrapped in cotton. The wolf poison. Still working its way through my system.
*Ayla?*
Nothing. Not even a whisper of her presence. The silence in my mind was terrifying, like losing a limb I’d never realized I needed.
I forced my eyes open, blinking against the dim light filtering through a barred window high above. The cell was small, maybe twelve feet by eight, with walls that looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in decades. Dark stains I didn’t want to identify marked the concrete.
But the worst part wasn’t the conditions. It was the people.
At least a dozen other prisoners huddled against the walls, their clothes torn and filthy, their faces gaunt with hunger and terror. Though I caught the scent of a few wolves mixed in. All of them looked broken.
A woman in the far corner rocked back and forth, her arms wrapped around her knees. She couldn’t have been older than twenty, but her hair was already streaked with premature gray. She muttered sothing under her breath—a prayer, maybe, or just aningless words to keep the silence at bay.
Two n sat near the door, their backs pressed against the wall. One had a bandage wrapped around his head that had turned brown with old blood. The other kept glancing at the door with the kind of watchful terror.
Before I could ask anything, the sound of heavy boots echoed from sowhere beyond the cell door. The effect on the other prisoners was imdiate. Everyone shrank back, pressing themselves against the walls as if they could disappear into the concrete.
The rocking woman stopped mid-motion, her eyes going wide with fear.
"Please," soone whispered. "Not again."
Keys rattled in the lock. The door swung open with a screech of rusted hinges that made my teeth ache.
Two soldiers entered.
"Webb," the taller one called out, consulting a piece of paper. His voice was flat, bored, like he was reading a grocery list.
The man with the head bandage went pale. His companion grabbed his arm.
"No," the friend whispered urgently. "Hide. Don’t go."
But he was already standing, his whole body shaking. "That’s... that’s ."
The soldiers stepped forward. One grabbed his arm while the other unlocked a set of shackles from his belt.
"Please," he begged as they clamped the tal around his wrists. "I don’t know anything—"
The shorter soldier backhanded him across the face, cutting off his words. Blood trickled from his split lip.
"Save it for upstairs," the soldier said.
They dragged him toward the door. His friend lunged forward.
"Where are you taking him? When will he be back?"
The tall soldier paused in the doorway, a cruel smile spreading across his face. "He won’t be."
The door slamd shut. The lock turned with finality.
Screams echoed down the corridor, growing fainter and fainter until they cut off abruptly.
Then silence.
My stomach dropped. I tried again to reach for Ayla, desperate for even a hint of her strength, her courage. But the wolf poison had built a wall between us that I couldn’t break through.
*Think, Sera. There has to be a way out of here.*
I studied the cell more carefully. The door was solid steel with a small barred window. The lock looked new and expensive—not sothing I could pick even if I had the tools. The walls were thick concrete, and the only other opening was the barred window near the ceiling, too small and too high to be useful.
Without my wolf strength, without Ayla’s enhanced senses, I was just human. Weak. Vulnerable.
Hours passed. More soldiers ca. More prisoners were taken away.
Each ti the door opened, my heart hamred against my ribs. Each ti they called out a na that wasn’t mine, relief and guilt warred in my chest.
None of them ca back.
By the ti full darkness settled over our cell, only eight of us remained. I pressed myself against the wall, my heart racing. Around , the remaining prisoners huddled together like sheep sensing wolves.
The footsteps stopped outside our door.
Keys rattled. The lock turned.
The door opened, revealing three soldiers this ti instead of two. The one in the middle wore sergeant’s stripes and carried himself with the confidence of soone used to being obeyed.
He stepped into the cell, his cold gaze sweeping over us before settling on .
"Seraphina."
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