Chapter Three: Caged with Wolves
The shackles were taken off, yet the feeling of being bound remained.
I sat on the cot's edge in the stone-room where they'd moved me—a notch above the cellar, but every bit as much a cage in a different guise. The tiny window let in stripes of light, not warmth. Even the air in this place had a wild flavor to it, as if it'd been hammered out by teeth and howls.
I hadn't seen Lucien since the cell. Not technically. But I could feel him. His presence flowed through the pack like a pulse. Even the wolves dressed in flesh coats—the guards, the scouts, the ones who sneered past me with slit eyes and twitching nostrils—seemed to have a tautness that echoed their Alpha.
I was an outsider.
A problem.
A threat.
Or worse—his.
The food Rhea brought me was simple but sanitary. The clothes she folded and left at the foot of my bed were of soft cotton, loose-fitting enough not to abrade the healing welts on my ribcage. She even brought me a comb, although my hair was too matted to ever fully tame.
I didn't know what she was after. Her kindness frightened me more than the glares.
"Don't believe too soon," I panted to myself. "Not here. Not yet."
The door creaked.
I woke up, shaking.
Heart racing.
It was not Rhea this time.
It was him.
Lucien stood in the doorway like a shadow made flesh. His eyes skimmed over me—slowly, deliberately. Not with lust, not yet—but with something equally as lethal: recognition.
He stepped inside and shut the door.
I stood, even though every instinct screamed at me to stay seated, to stay small.
“You’re healing,” he said.
“I wasn’t given much of a choice.”
He said nothing for a beat. The silence stretched tight between us, like the string of a bow drawn too far.
“Sit,” he said finally.
I didn’t move.
“Sit, Elara,” he repeated—quieter, but no less commanding.
I resented that my knees obeyed before my pride did. I resented the flush which came to my neck when he stepped closer, his scent rolling around me like woods and smoke.
He towered over me, looking down at me with those unreadable eyes.
"Tell me what they did to you."
I blinked. "You mean the villagers?"
He nodded once.
I did not answer quickly. Part of me did not want to let him have shards of my pain. The other part knew he could already see them.
"They blamed it all on me," I said. "The frost. The disease. The stillbirths. They told me I was born under a cursed moon. That the devil was in my blood."
"And do you?" he asked.
I looked up at him, defiant. "If I had, I'd have burned them all."
His lip curled. Not a smile—but not nothing either.
"You fought," he breathed, softly under his breath.
I felt it then. A spark in the air. Like a humming electric current between us. My muscles tensed, but not with fear. Something hotter. Hungrier.
"I lived," I said.
He stepped closer.
I should have gotten back, but I didn't. Something in me refused to let go—not when he regarded me so.
"You smell like moonfire," he whispered. "Like ash and lightning."
I had no clue what that was, but it sent shivers down my spine.
He leaned close, just a fraction, and I could sense the heat of him. Every nerve in my body sparked.
"You're not what they said you were," he breathed, voice like thunder in my bones.
"Neither am I," I gasped. "You're not a monster."
That was a mistake.
His eyes darkened—delicate silver consumed by black.
"I am," he told me. "You just haven't seen it yet."
And with that, he turned and left, the door open behind him.
I didn't sleep that night.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face.
His eyes.
The manner in which his voice dropped when he stood close.
The manner in which something inside me reacted to him—not with revulsion, but something much darker. Something that felt like lust.
I hated it.
I hated how he would ignite fire in my stomach when he was near. How my heart would accelerate at the sound of his voice. How I yearned to understand this bond, but it felt like a rope tightening around my neck.
The next morning, Rhea brought me outside.
Not far. Just beyond the stone building where I was imprisoned. The forest enclosed us, but the terrain here was flat. Training grounds, by appearances. Warriors in their human shape moved, sparred, sweated. They all halted when they saw me.
One of them stepped forward—a lean, sneering man with golden eyes.
"What's the mutt doing out of her kennel?" he said, ensuring that everyone could hear him.
Rhea's hand brushed over my arm—a warning.
The man's gaze drifted over my bruises, then lingered too long on my chest.
"Careful," he grinned. "That scent will kill someone if she's not claimed."
The tone soured my stomach.
I didn't have time to react before a growl rent the air.
Low. Deadly. Alpha.
Lucien.
He was across the clearing in seconds, fists clenched, eyes wild. The golden-eyed wolf immediately bowed his head, body trembling.
“Touch her,” Lucien growled, “and I’ll rip your spine out through your throat.”
The air went still.
Lucien turned to me then, eyes locking with mine. Fury. Possession. Something hotter beneath.
“She is mine.”
He didn’t say it softly.
He didn’t say it for show.
He said it like a promise etched into bone.
I could feel the entire pack shift—some with fear, others with dismay.
Me?
I was stunned, my heart pounding, my skin searing where his eyes landed on me.
He turned again, this time without a word, and I watched him step back behind the trees.
The pack picked up where they had left off.
Rhea exhaled next to me.
"Guess that answers your question."