Vesper tilted her head, putting on a look of pity.
"Oh dear, look at your neck, it's all red. That must hurt so much. Why would you do something like this? It's just a pup. Cassian said you can always have another one."
She set the bowl of broth on the ground, stood, and brushed off her skirt.
"But since I happened to walk in on this, I suppose I should help."
She turned to the senior den attendant. "Go fetch Cassian. Tell him Nira tried to hang herself, and I saved her."
The attendant left at once.
Vesper crouched down, brought her face close to mine, and dropped her voice. The jasmine-and-copper scent of her thickened, cloying, wrong.
"You know what he's going to think, don't you? He's going to think you're threatening him. Using death to guilt him into pushing me aside."
"He despises that kind of trick."
She was right.
When Cassian burst through the door, there was no concern on his face. Only fury. His scent hit me before his voice did, pine resin gone sharp and acrid with anger, stripped of every soft note I'd once found comfort in.
"Nira! Have you lost your mind?!"
He grabbed me by the collar and hauled me up off the floor. "Do you have any idea what you've done?!"
I opened my mouth, tried to explain that I wasn't threatening him.
Not a single sound came out.
Vesper was shaking with sobs, pressing herself into Cassian's arms. "Is she blaming me? Is this because of me? Everything that's happened to her is all my—"
Cassian held her, patting her back gently. "Don't be silly. None of this is your fault."
Then he turned to me, his voice ice.
"I thought you were a sensible woman. I never imagined you'd stoop to this—crying, making scenes, trying to hang yourself. Every trick in the book."
"Don't blame her…" Vesper was still pouring fuel on the fire. "She just lost the pup, she must be heartbroken…"
"Enough." Cassian let go of Vesper, walked up to me, and looked down. "You want to die? Fine. I'll grant you that wish. But don't do it in my den. I won't have that stain on my threshold."
He turned to the attendant. "Lock her in the stone shed. No one is to visit her without my orders."
"Cassian…" Vesper caught his arm, performing reluctance. "Don't be too cruel, she's still—"
"She needs to learn."
Cassian left without looking back.
Vesper followed him out. At the doorway, she glanced back at me, her lips parting around silent words.
Wait to die.
The door slammed shut behind her.
The stone shed had no windows. The only light was a thin line bleeding in through the crack beneath the door.
I curled up in the corner, my neck burning, my body covered in wounds, a dull ache still grinding through my lower belly. Deep inside me, something I could barely name lay utterly still. My wolf had gone silent. Not sleeping, not resting. Just gone quiet the way a creature goes quiet when it has given up finding a way out.
After nightfall, the lock rattled.
Vesper pushed the door open. Moonlight caught her sweet, pale face, but the smile beneath it was vicious.
Two heavyset senior den attendants stood behind her.
"Tomorrow I enter the Heir Alpha's den for the mating ceremony. I mentioned, just in passing, that I wanted a luminous pearl from the Eastern Sea as a bonding gift, and Cassian rode out to find one that very night. No one will disturb us. We have until dawn."
I shrank back until my spine hit the cold wall, eyes sharp with alarm.
"What are you going to do?"
Vesper smiled, rose to her feet, and drew a whip from her sleeve. The warmth drained from her gaze.
"I've waited a long time for this."
The first lash came down across my body.
"This one is for seducing Cassian. He's mine—"
A second. A third.
She counted them out, unhurried, and soon there was no unmarked skin left on me, only welts and blood. Each strike landed where my wolf should have surged to protect me, and nothing rose. Nothing stirred.
The two attendants pinned me down so I couldn't twist away. All that escaped my lips was a thin, broken whimper.
Vesper lowered the whip and looked down at me.
"Look at you. You're less than a dog."
She seized my chin, her voice bright with triumph. "Tomorrow I enter the Heir Alpha's High Den to live in splendor, and you—you'll rot here, thrown away by Cassian like the nothing you are."
