Chapter 3 Maybe try to escape

Celine's POV

Lila’s eyes clung to me, her stare tracing over my skin like ghostly fingertips.

“He didn’t do it,” she breathed, voice trembling as she seized my hands, turning them over as if proof of something lay hidden in my palms. “He stopped. But… why?”

My fingers trembled. My eyes burned—again. Colt’s betrayal replayed behind my lids, too vivid to be memory.

I wiped my face, fighting the knot rising in my throat. “It was supposed to be the end of me… wasn’t it?”

She nodded, but shook her head after. “But it didn't happen.”

Her hands patted my back. “Sorry.”

“But what was everything about?”

“He… he called me his mate.”

The word froze the air between us. Lila’s fingers tightened on my arms, eyes wide, searching.

Mate.

I’d heard about this strong bond between werewolves that always came with a bizarre connection that always dismissed the fact that the male and female might not know each other.

But for a human like me?

“You know that's a problem?”

The candles behind me quenched.

The gammas who stood around me, who had gotten me back into the room after the meeting with Alpha Tristan and after he said “she’s my mate”, turned back to face the candle.

“Leave her,” Lila said. “Leave. I’m here now.”

The room had become too dark for me to see them, but I heard their footsteps and the bang of the door—the same bang before Colt's betrayal.

“Celine, lie down.” Her voice turned softer than it was during our first meeting.

I obliged.

She lit the candles again, and that same scent of herbs and smoke began to fill the room—the scent had always been from the candles after all. I found my body going soft, sleep forcing itself into my eyes.

I jerked up, closed and opened my eyes in sequence.

“At least you're here.” Her lips curved, but the smile stopped at her eyes. “Alpha’s trapped you, Celine. You’re his property.”

My breath broke apart. The scent pressed down on me, heavy and invisible, needling through my veins.

“No one!” I gasped, shaking my head. “No one owns me!”

“So?”

“I’ve never been owned by anyone.”

Perhaps Colt's giving me out for a price meant I was sold?

“I’ve been kidnapped by the pack.” My fingers dug into the bedspread, I screamed. “He should let me go!”

This pack—the Blightmoon pack. I’d only heard about it but had no knowledge. Such knowledge should be meant for werewolves, so I thought. How would I have known I would be in it?

As though my words caused a twist in Lila, her look layered up—not a thick texture, but tiny pieces of materials being placed on top of each other, each material a thought of hers.

“But what he said… you became his mate.” She rubbed her palms on her eyelids.

“Never.”

She drew closer to me. Her fingers touched my leg, and it sent a cold feeling through me. I jolted before keeping my leg in place. She smiled like that was intentional—expected.

“He was supposed to finish the Scarlet Ascension,” she said, sniffing the air as if searching for proof. “But he didn’t.”

“He—”

His eyes that night… the same, only darker. There was something more than hunger in them. The scent of blood had drowned his own, the memory of my parents’ bodies spilling through my mind like it was happening all over again.

But what about that?

“Celine.”

My breath caught like I'd been pulled out from a nightmare. “Ahh.”

“The Scarlet Ascension. He stopped without proceeding,” she said.

“What about that?”

All I knew was that my life could have come to an end.

She got on her feet, her face all eyes on me, took slow steps until her fingers reached for my neck. I tilted my head, just a bit, breaking the smoothness of my breath.

She started grazing me with her fingers. “The ritual of seeping out your blood to cure his curse.”

His curse…

The strange fur I noticed growing out of his skin, the suffocation I saw in his face, and the way he rushed out.

Everything began to take on a meaning.

“But he stopped.” Her voice raised slightly, her eyes wide open like a mouth to swallow me whole. “Have an idea?”

He was standing so close to me, his eyes on my necklace. The last moment before he stepped back, the smell of blood which only seemed to be an illusion from my thoughts, changed—something else—a feeling I'd almost got from Colt, but never the same.

“I don't know.”

She released her hold on me, her palms rubbed against her eyes again.

“Your eyes…”

“Do you remember him?” Her grip tightened, pulling my attention.

“Who?” I furrowed my brows, confusion twisting my chest.

“Alpha Tristan. Do you remember him?” Her hands pressed against my arms. “From your memories?”

“I… I don’t know him.”

“Think!” She leaned closer, voice sharp. “Your parents… everything! You have to remember!”

“I… I can’t.” I struggled to push her back.

“Your memory is vague?” Her gaze lingered on the necklace around my neck. “And yet… you won’t take it off.”

I didn’t answer, stepping back. She must be crazy.

I couldn’t bear to remove it. This necklace… it was all I had left.

“It’s the last piece of her,” she murmured. “Poor Nyx.”

My eyebrows shot up. “You knew her? You… knew my parents?”

Silence stretched between us. Her palms stayed at her sides, tears streaking her cheeks. Her jaw remained rigid, body taut—grief, guilt, fear… or all three?

“Maybe I knew them.” She touched the necklace. “But that isn't important. Not now.”

She rose from the bed, a faint smile playing on her lips as she moved toward the door.

“Then what matters isn’t what I know,” she said. “It’s whether you choose to stay… or leave.”

“But… how do I decide that?”

She slipped out silently.

“Lila!” I called, voice trembling. No reply.

Only silence remained, thick and oppressive, as if the clock above the door had stopped. I pushed myself up. The single candle guttered low, its smoke curling like a whisper I could almost breathe.

I pushed the door open into darkness. My eyes strained, barely adjusting. No gamma. Nothing.

Three steps from the doorway, my heartbeat thumped violently. I needed to leave—now.

But then… the scent came. Blood, rain-soaked grass… familiar and wrong all at once, winding into my senses like a trap.

My legs went weak, heavy as if drugged, the feeling creeping through every fiber of me.

Footsteps—faint, almost imagined.

A soft pant, barely audible.

I staggered back—but too late. His body blocked the hallway. His scent coiled around me, the same as hours ago.

His eyes glowed, cutting through the dark.

“Celine.” His growl rolled from the shadows. “Running already?”