Elara Fawn POV:
I couldn't look away. The scream had hooked into me, a physical thing that held my head in place. My breath hitched in my throat, hot and sour. The logical part of my brain screamed at me to turn away, to retreat into the darkness of my cell and cover my ears. But my body was frozen, my eye pressed to the crack in the door, a horrified, helpless witness.
The girl with the straw-colored hair was on the ground, scrambling backward on her hands and heels. From the shadowed archways surrounding the courtyard, they emerged. Not men. Wolves. Four of them. They were huge, bigger than any pack wolf I had ever seen, with matted, scarred fur and ribs showing starkly beneath their hides. They were half-starved, their eyes glowing with a feral, desperate hunger in the torchlight. They didn't move with the coordinated grace of a pack. They moved like rivals, shouldering and snarling at each other as they circled their prey.
The girl let out another choked sob, a sound that was swallowed by the predators' growls. She was shoved forward again, not by a guard this time, but by the sheer terror of the wolf that had crept up behind her. She stumbled into the center of their tightening circle.
For a moment, there was a terrible, tense silence. Then one of them, a massive brute with a notched ear and a coat the color of dried blood, lunged.
The attack was a frenzy. A blur of snarling fur and snapping teeth. Her scream was cut short, replaced by a wet, tearing sound that would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. The other wolves fell upon her in a wave of savage fury, a whirlwind of claws and jaws. I saw a flash of the white linen tunic, then a spray of crimson that painted the grey stones dark. It was over in seconds. They weren't just killing her. They were consuming her.
A wave of nausea rose up my throat, hot and acidic. I stumbled back from the door, my hand clamped over my mouth, my whole body shaking. The brutal reality of what I had just seen crashed over me. This wasn't a punishment. This was a sport. A horrific, ritualistic death for the pack's entertainment. The fate I had just escaped.
My stomach heaved. I doubled over and vomited on the dirty floor, the meager contents of my stomach burning my throat. The stench filled the small room. I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered, my back pressed against the cold, unyielding stone wall opposite the door. I was supposed to be out there with them. I was supposed to be dead.
As if summoned by the thought, a loud, metallic scrape echoed from the hallway.
The bolt on my door. It was sliding back.
My head snapped up, my heart seizing in my chest. Terror, cold and sharp, pierced through the nausea. They were coming for me. I was weak, sick, and cornered. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I scrambled away from the door, crab-walking backward until I was pressed into the far corner of the room, trying to make myself as small as possible. The door creaked open.
I squeezed my eyes shut, expecting the stench of a rogue, the feel of rough hands grabbing me. Instead, the air filled with the scent of old wool and hearth smoke. I risked a glance.
It wasn't a guard. It was an old woman, stooped with age, her face a roadmap of wrinkles. An Omega. In her hands, she held a rough wooden tray with a hunk of dark bread and a clay cup of water. She kept her eyes fixed on the floor, her shoulders hunched as if expecting a blow. She looked as much a prisoner as I was.
The woman shuffled into the room, placed the tray on the floor near the center, and turned to leave without a single word, without ever meeting my gaze. The fear radiating from her was a palpable thing. She wanted to be out of this room as fast as possible.
The sight of the food and water cut through my terror with a primal, desperate need. My body moved before my mind could process it. I lunged for the tray, snatching the bread and cramming a piece into my mouth. It was coarse and dry, but it was the most glorious thing I had ever tasted. I tore off another piece, chewing and swallowing, then grabbed the cup and drank the water in three desperate gulps, the cool liquid a balm on my raw throat.
The old woman had reached the door. Her hand was on the wood, ready to pull it shut and lock me back in my living tomb. The knowledge that I would be alone again, with nothing but the sounds from the courtyard and the wordless terror of my own mind, was unbearable.
A question clawed its way out of me, a ragged whisper. "Why me? Why was I spared?"
The old woman paused. Her shoulders stiffened. For a long moment, I thought she would ignore me, just leave and bolt the door. But then, she turned her head just slightly. Her weary, faded eyes met mine for the first time, and in them, I saw a flicker of something that looked like pity. It was a dangerous, forbidden emotion in a place like this.
Her voice was a dry rustle of leaves. "If the Alpha King hadn't looked at you," she said, her words dropping like stones into the silence, "you'd be running The Gauntlet right now."
Then she was gone. The door closed, and the bolt slid home, plunging me back into darkness.
I sat there on the cold stone, the rough texture of the bread still on my tongue. The water was gone. The woman was gone. All that was left was the echo of her words. *Gauntlet*. The name was a brand on my mind, a sound more terrifying than the screams I had just heard.
