Serena POV
The castle was a tomb of darkness and silence.
I wrapped a dark cloak over my shoulders. I crept down the stone stairs and eased open the heavy back door of the castle. A hired carriage waited for me in the deeper shadows.
I took one step toward the carriage. Suddenly, rough hands tangled in my hair.
I was dragged backward. I fell hard, and the rough-hewn cobblestones felt like a bed of jagged, frozen thorns, instantly leeching the warmth from my skin and scraping at my palms.
Silas stood over me. Elara held a lantern beside him, its light carving demonic shadows on their faces. They had been waiting.
"Attempting an early departure to the Capital?" Elara laughed, the sound sharp and brittle. "She means to embarrass us before the other Alphas, Silas. She means to destroy your reputation."
Silas's facial muscles twitched, and the veins in the whites of his eyes swelled into a red web. A murky, jaundiced yellow began to creep into the edges of his irises as the beast within him clawed past the last of his reason. "Take her to the dungeon," he ordered the guards.
The guards dragged me down into the damp, dark cellar. They threw me onto a pallet of soiled straw.
Silas stood outside the iron bars. "Who were you planning to meet in the Capital?" he demanded.
I remained silent. To reveal my intent to see the Lycan King would be to paint a target on my parents for any listening Rogue. I merely promised I would not interfere with his pack's affairs.
Elara suddenly descended the stairs, holding a small wooden box.
"Look what I discovered tucked beneath her mattress," Elara said with a venomous grin.
She opened the box. Inside were old love poems and a smooth jade pendant carved with the sigil of a White Wolf. They were the only treasures I could not bring myself to destroy—the last remnants of the boy I had loved before I ran away, the boy whose face still haunted my quietest dreams.
Silas stared at the items, his face flushing a deep, mottled red. "You have a lover?" he roared. "You have been secretly mating with some filthy Rogue?"
"No!" I cried out.
Silas gripped the iron bars, his knuckles white. His inner wolf let out a deafening, furious roar that vibrated through the stone walls.
"You will pay for this betrayal, Serena," Silas snarled.
He turned and strode away, leaving me to the encroaching darkness. Through the small, barred window high above, I could see a sliver of moonlight. Somewhere beyond these walls, my parents were preparing for a celebration. And I was trapped in a nightmare from which there might be no waking.
