Eloise POV:
Time lost its meaning in the dark. It could have been hours; it could have been days. The only constant was the burning ring of silver around my neck and the gnawing hunger in my belly.
The silver was doing its job. It was suppressing my healing, making me feel human and frail. My skin was pale, clammy with a fever sweat. Yet, in the deepest recesses of my mind, beyond the static of the collar, I felt a strange, rhythmic pulsing. Like a distant drumbeat.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor.
"Wakey, wakey, Princess."
Jaidyn stood on the other side of the bars. She held a tray of food—a burger that smelled divine to my starving senses.
She placed it on the floor, just out of my reach.
"You look terrible," she said cheerfully.
I pushed myself up to a sitting position, leaning against the damp wall. "And you look... like a cheap fake."
Her smile twitched. "You still have a mouth on you. I thought the silver would have broken you by now."
"Why are you doing this?" I asked. "You have him. You won."
"I haven't won until you're gone," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "You think I don't know? The Bowers bloodline. The rumors of the White Wolf."
My heart skipped a beat. "That's a myth."
"Is it?" She tilted her head. "Holden is an idiot. He thinks you're just a beta. But I can smell it on you. That latent power. It's disgusting. It's too pure."
She stepped closer to the bars.
"Watch this," she said.
Her eyes shifted. Not to the amber of a normal wolf, but to a murky, sickly yellow. Her hand contorted. Bones cracked and reshaped.
Fur sprouted. Claws elongated.
She shifted her hand into a wolf's paw.
I gasped. "You... you can shift. You told everyone your wolf was dying! You told Holden you couldn't transform!"
"I lied," she grinned, shifting her hand back to human form. "Men are so easy to manipulate when you play the victim. Holden thinks I'm a fragile flower. He'd do anything to protect me."
"He's going to find out," I said.
"Who's going to tell him? You?" She laughed. "You're never leaving this cell, Eloise."
She reached through the bars, grabbing my hair. She yanked my face against the cold silver metal.
I cried out as the silver burned my cheek. But as the metal seared my skin, the distant drumbeat in my head grew louder. A flash of white light, visible only to me, sparked behind my eyelids.
"I'm going to take everything from you," she hissed. "Your status. Your life. And maybe, once you're dead, I'll go comfort that King of yours."
Fury, hot and white, exploded in my chest.
I wasn't a warrior. I wasn't an Alpha. But I was done being a punching bag.
My hand found a loose piece of rusted iron on the floor, a remnant of some old shackle.
I didn't think. I swung.
The jagged metal sliced across her forearm.
"Aaaagh!" Jaidyn shrieked, letting go of my hair and stumbling back. Blood, dark and red, welled up on her arm.
"You bitch!" she screamed.
Heavy boots pounded down the stairs.
"Jaidyn!"
Holden appeared. He took in the scene: Jaidyn clutching her bleeding arm, me holding a bloody piece of iron, panting like a wild animal.
"She attacked me!" Jaidyn wailed, tears instantly springing to her eyes. "I brought her food, and she tried to kill me!"
Holden looked at me. His face contorted with a rage that was terrifying to behold.
"I warned you," he growled.
He unlocked the cell door.
"Holden, look at her arm!" I shouted, backing away. "She healed! Look how fast it's clotting! She's not sick!"
But he wasn't listening. He was blind to everything but her tears.
He stormed into the cell. He grabbed me by the throat, lifting me off my feet.
"You hurt my mate," he snarled.
"She's... lying..." I choked, clawing at his hands.
He threw me against the wall. My head cracked against the stone. Stars exploded in my vision.
"You want to act like a rogue?" Holden yelled. "Then I'll treat you like one."
He turned to the guard outside. "Crank up the voltage on the collar."
"Sir, that could kill her," the guard hesitated.
"Do it!"
The guard pressed a button on a remote.
CRACK.
Electricity surged through the silver collar. It wasn't just pain; it was like being dipped in lava. Every nerve ending in my body caught fire. My muscles seized.
I fell to the floor, convulsing. I couldn't scream. My jaw was locked.
Through the haze of agony, the white spark returned. It wasn't just a flicker this time. It was a cold, soothing presence wrapping around my heart, keeping it beating when the electricity tried to stop it.
I focused on Jaidyn's smirk. I held onto it.
I will not die, I promised myself as the darkness crept in. I will live. And I will make you pay.
