Isla’s POV
The second the mindlink ended, I let myself breathe.Garrick was coming.
But the relief was short-lived.
The next time I opened my eyes—well, I didn’t open them. I couldn’t. Still dark. Still blind.
But everything else had changed.
Something cold wrapped around my skin.
Metal.Chains.Panic crawled into my throat.
“W-What is this?” I croaked. My voice was dry. “Why am I chained?”
I tried to sit up, but pain screamed through my spine, and the chains yanked tighter.
Someone was in the room. Two someones.
Their scents were heavy. Cold. Wrong.
Dungeon wolves.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I whispered.
“You mated with rogues,” one of them said flatly. “By Alpha Kale’s command, you’re under arrest for desecrating your Luna title.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “That’s not true. You know that’s not true!”
The second wolf snorted. “Then why are you carrying a rogue pup?”
“She’s still healing,” the healer snapped. “She can’t walk. Her spine—her legs—she’s blind!”
“She doesn’t need her eyes,” one guard replied. “She just needs to suffer.”
They yanked the chains.I screamed as my body hit the ground like trash.
My legs didn’t even twitch. My face smacked the floor. Something reopened between my thighs and I felt the hot trickle of blood.
I couldn’t even catch my breath before they grabbed my arms and dragged me.
Across stone. Down steps. Each bump felt like it was breaking me all over again.
Then they threw me at someone’s feet.A voice I knew all too well spoke above me.
“Here she is.”
Kale.I tried to raise my head but everything spun. The air buzzed with whispers. Hateful ones.
“She mated with rogues!”
“She’s not fit to be Luna!”
“She’s carrying filth!”
I tried to speak, but all that came out was a sob.
Then I forced it out. “Please… just sever the bond. I don’t want this. Let me go.”
Everything went quiet,then an Elder spoke.
“There is no bond to sever.”
I blinked. Or tried to.
“What?”
“Your Alpha requested a temporary bond,” the Elder said. “Six years. It expires in five days.”
Gasps. All around me.
“She didn’t know?”
“Kale bonded her temporarily?”
I couldn’t breathe.
Then Kale stepped forward, voice smooth as butter. I wanted to vomit.
“She had dangerous fantasies,” he said. “Nia warned me. Isla dreamt of rogues. Being bred by them.”
That wasn’t true. That wasn’t even close to true.
“I thought I could help her,” he went on. “But she gave in to her urges. She chose them.”
They believed him. I could feel it.
“I married Nia four years ago,” he said, like he was announcing the weather. “In case Isla failed the test.”
Test?
Four years ago?
That was the night my parents died.
The night I got stabbed.The night I lost my baby.
I choked. “You… mated her the same night?”
“I needed security,” he said flatly. “In case you failed.”
Failed? FAILED?
I collapsed again. My body couldn’t hold me anymore.
“She is still Luna for five more days,” the Elder declared. “And as Luna, she must be punished.”
The crowd didn’t miss a beat.
“100 lashes!”
“Strip her pride!”
“Make her bleed!”
I shook my head weakly. “Please… I can’t… I can’t even feel my legs—”
“Begin.”
The first lash felt like fire.The second tore through me.By the tenth, I couldn’t scream anymore.
Somewhere around stroke forty, I started to drift.
By sixty, I was gone. Floating somewhere that didn’t hurt.
Eighty brought me back.Ninety—I could taste blood.And at one hundred… I was still alive. But barely.
I lay on the stone floor, broken open. My blood soaked into the cracks beneath me. My eyes were still dark. My back ached with shredded skin. My legs—still gone.
I couldn’t move.But I heard everything.
Kale’s voice, again.
“As Alpha, I cannot leave my pack without a Luna,” he said. “It grieves me to do this, but Isla is no longer fit.”
Footsteps.Then I heard her voice ,Sweet. Soft and annoying.
Nia.
“I accept the honor. With love for this pack.”
Gasps. Applause.
Then she turned toward me.
“But please… don’t be too hard on my cousin. I’m sure she didn’t mean to fall so low.”
Applause again. Cheers.
“She’s more deserving!”
“A real Luna!”
“She still cares for her cousin. So kind.”
Kale raised his voice again.
“In five days, we will crown Lady Nia as the True Luna.”
Five days.The exact day our bond ends.My fingers twitched. Barely. But I felt it.
He planned this. Every part of it. Every second.
Kale leaned close enough that I could smell his cologne.
“And let this be a lesson,” he said, “to any wolf who forgets their place.”
The crowd left like they’d eaten their fill.
I was nothing more than leftovers now.
No one looked at me.No one cared.But that was their first mistake.
Because even on the ground, blind and broken—I still had breath.And I still had Garrick.
Four days.In four days, he would come for me.
And when I left this place…I wouldn’t go quietly.
I would make them remember,every lash,every lie.
every betrayal.
I would make every single one of them bleed.
