🦋Althea
He wasn’t old.
That was the first thing that struck .
I’d expected soone ancient, withered, monstrous. But he looked young—maybe Draven’s age, maybe younger. His skin was pale, almost luminous in the dim light, and his hair fell straight and black as midnight down past his shoulders.
He was beautiful—he should have been...
But his eyes.
Gods, his eyes.
Black.
Depthless.
They glead like wet stone, and when they swept over us, I felt them—cold and sharp and invasive, like he could peel back every layer of and see what I was made of.
He reclined on his throne, draped in black silk and furs, rings glinting on his fingers, a crown of twisted silver resting on his head.
And around him—
Won.
Beautiful, ethereal, dressed in sheer fabric that left little to the imagination. They knelt beside him, one holding a platter of at, another feeding him grapes, their movents languid and practiced.
He bit into the at, blood dripping down his chin, and smiled.
A chill clawed through my spine as I straightened.
One of the won leaned in, her lips brushing his ear, whispering sothing that made him laugh—a low, dark sound that echoed through the hall.
He raised a hand, a lazy gesture, and the won scattered like smoke.
Gone.
And then his attention turned to us.
The tributes.
Twenty of us, chained and broken, standing in the center of his hall like offerings on an altar.
He didn’t stand.
Didn’t need to.
His presence filled the room.
"Welco," he said, his voice smooth and cold, like silk over steel. "To My Labyrinth."
No one spoke.
No one dared.
He leaned forward slightly, resting his chin on his hand, studying us with an expression that was almost... amused.
"You’ve co a long way," he continued. "Through the Mist. Through the voices. Through your fears." His smile widened, his canine longer, sharper. "And you survived. Impressive."
His eyes moved slowly over each of us, lingering, assessing.
"So of you are strong. So of you are clever. So of you—" His gaze landed on , and my breath caught. "—are sothing else entirely."
I couldn’t look away.
Couldn’t breathe.
He tilted his head, his smile sharpening. "Tell , little tribute. What are you?"
I didn’t answer.
Couldn’t.
He laughed again, leaning back. "No matter. I’ll find out soon enough."
He clapped his hands once, and the sound rang through the hall like a gunshot.
Doors I hadn’t noticed before opened along the walls, and figures stepped out—servants? But they were wolves, not like the ones we had encountered outside. These ones looked better trained.
He waved his hand over us and within a blink, it all burst into chaos
The wolves lunged.
Their jaws clamped down on chains, on clothes, on limbs. The tributes scread, scattering in every direction, their terror sharp and animal.
But there was nowhere to run.
The doors had closed.
The hall had beco a cage.
One by one, the wolves caught them.
A young man tried to fight back, throwing punches that did nothing against fur and muscle. The wolf grabbed him by the shoulder, lifted him off his feet like he weighed nothing, and carried him away through one of the side doors.
Another sprinted toward the entrance we’d co through, but a wolf cut her off, catching her by the waist. She thrashed, screaming, but it didn’t matter.
Gone.
Another tribute dropped to his knees, begging, pleading for rcy.
The wolf that took him was almost gentle.
Almost.
I watched it all happen in fragnts—flashes of movent, screams cutting short, the sound of jaws snapping closed around fabric and flesh.
And I stood there.
Frozen.
Waiting.
My turn would co.
I knew it would.
I closed my eyes, fists clenched at my sides, trying to steady my breathing.
Just get it over with.
Just—
The screaming stopped.
The chaos faded.
Silence settled over the hall like a heavy blanket.
I opened my eyes slowly.
The tributes were gone.
All of them.
The wolves had vanished, dragging their captives through doors that no longer existed.
And I was alone.
Alone with him.
The High Alpha.
I blinked, disoriented.
The hall had changed.
It was smaller now. Closer. The towering ceiling had lowered, the endless columns had disappeared. The vast expanse of black marble had shrunk into sothing more intimate, more suffocating.
A room.
Not a hall.
A room.
And he was no longer at the far end, perched on his throne.
He was right there.
Just a few yards away.
Close enough that I could see the sharp angles of his face, the way his black hair fell over one shoulder, the rings glinting on his fingers as he drumd them against the armrest of his throne.
Close enough to see the way his smile curled—lazy, predatory, amused.
"There you are," he said softly.
My pulse hamred in my throat.
"I was wondering," he continued, tilting his head, "if you’d run. Or scream. Or beg."
I said nothing.
Couldn’t.
His smile widened. "But you didn’t, did you? You just... stood there. Waiting."
He rose from the throne, and the movent was fluid, unhurried, like he had all the ti in the world.
And maybe he did.
He took a step closer.
Then another.
I wanted to move. Wanted to run. Wanted to do anything but stand there like prey caught in a trap.
But I couldn’t.
My legs wouldn’t obey.
"Interesting," he murmured, his black eyes sweeping over , drinking in every detail. "I was starting to think that Morgana would not fulfill her vow to ."
My chest caved in at my mother’s na leaving her lips. I raked together all the bravery I could muster just for a single word. "What?"
His onyx eyes sparkled, and I could see my own reflection in them. "Althea," he purred my na. "You might be a tribute but you are no oga. Your mother has been hollowing you with Wolfsbane since your childhood."
My eyes widened, the world dissolving around until the only that remained was his words echoing in my ringing skull.
The words didn’t land at first.
They hung in the air between us, aningless sounds, syllables without weight.
And then—
They crashed into .
Wolfsbane.
My mother.
Since childhood.
The air was punched out of my lungs.
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