Chapter 3

The guards didn’t even give me time to catch my breath. One second I was staring at Rhea’s terrified face as they dragged her away, and the next they shoved me hard through the door.

I stumbled forward into a massive cell, and the door shut heavily behind me.

My eyes widened in shock. The place was enormous, wide as the whole training field back home in Brookville, but packed wall to wall with hundreds of people. Men with hollow cheeks and matted beards. Women clutching thin blankets like shields. A few kids huddled together, eyes too old for their small faces. They lay on dirty straw or leaned against the damp walls, silver cuffs glinting on every ankle like curses from the Moon Goddess herself.

The air was thick and choking, heavy with the stench of unwashed bodies, sour fear-sweat, old blood, and that constant rotten rogue smell that made my stomach heave.

Sunlight filtered weakly from high above where part of the roof was open to the sky, but it only made the shadows deeper. I wondered what would happen to all of us if a heavy rain came pouring down. Would we just drown in this hole like rats?

I stood there frozen, heart beating so loud I swear the whole cell could hear it. What was I supposed to do now? Walk up to strangers and say hi like this was some friendly gathering? Ask who the Goddess had cursed us to serve? My legs felt like they belonged to someone else.

I wrapped my arms tight around myself, trying to hold back the sobs already clawing up my throat. Princess Cassandra Ashmont, reduced to this. A slave in some nameless rogue pack, staring at a sea of broken faces that didn’t even glance my way.

I was still standing there, mind spinning in confusion, when the door screeched open again behind me. Before I could turn, something heavy bumped into my back. I flew forward and hit the floor hard, the impact knocking the air from my lungs.

Pain exploded through my shoulder and hip. I gasped, rolling over fast, heart racing in terror.

A man lay sprawled half on top of me, seriously wounded, his face a mess of fresh blood and bruises, one eye swollen shut. His shirt was torn open, deep gashes across his chest still oozing. He groaned weakly, barely conscious.

Before I could even scream, a small group of slaves rushed over. They didn’t ask questions, they lifted him off me like he weighed nothing, murmuring low words I couldn’t catch.

They carried him quickly to a far corner of the cell, away from the guards’ view, and laid him down on a cleaner patch of straw.

I scrambled to my feet, legs shaking. Everything felt too real and too raw. I looked down, his blood had smeared on the floor. Fear gripped me so tight I wanted to cry badly, but nothing came out. My eyes burned dry. My throat closed up. I couldn’t even move.

That was when a soft voice sounded right behind me.

“Hey, new girl.”

I whipped around. A young woman about my age stood there, pushing gently through the crowd. She was thin, with tangled dark hair and eyes that still held a tiny spark of kindness even though her face was smudged with dirt. A silver cuff gleamed on her ankle too, the skin around it raw and angry red.

She must have seen how badly I was trembling, because she stepped closer fast and put a gentle hand on my arm.

“Easy,” she whispered, voice low and steady like she was calming a spooked pup. “Breathe. That man insulted one of the captors yesterday. Got beaten half to death as a warning to the rest of us. Happens more than you’d think. Don’t let it break you on your first day.”

I glanced over to the corner where they’d taken him. A few slaves were bent over him now, working quietly. Mixing herbs from a small hidden pouch, pressing them into his cuts with careful fingers. They moved like they’d done this a hundred times, but their eyes kept darting toward the door.

“Those are the salutaries,” she said softly, following my gaze. “Pack healers taken captive just like us. Goddess help them and all of us, if the rogues ever find out they’re still treating the wounded down here. They’d be killed on the spot.”

Her words sank in deep, but her hand on my arm kept me grounded. She didn’t push. She just waited until my breathing slowed a little, then gave me a small, sad smile.

“I’m Pennol,” she said, glancing over her shoulder like the walls had ears. “You look lost. Come on, there’s space in my corner. It’s not much, but it’s away from the worst of the smell and the noise.”

Before I could answer, she took my arm gently and led me through the maze of bodies. We reached a dim corner where a thin blanket lay folded on the floor and she motioned for me to sit.

"What's your name?" She asked.

"Cas..." I stopped, before my real name slipped off. "...Castrock Natalia," I said instead. Maintaining the name I took up since my captivity.

“Natalia, this is where I sleep,” she whispered. “You can share it. No one will bother you here if you stay quiet.”

I sank down beside her. The moment my back touched the wall, everything crashed over me like a tidal wave. The princess who once watched wolves train from a silk-covered log was now a filthy slave in a cage.

My parents, Alpha Cruz and Luna Valeria, torn apart in front of me. Their beautiful wolves crumpled and bleeding. The screams. The silver bullets. And Orion? Goddess, where was my brother? Was he even alive?

Tears flooded my eyes and spilled over before I could stop them. My shoulders shook as huge, ugly sobs tore out of me. “Just yesterday I had a pack. Now I’m this.”

Pennol didn’t say anything at first. She just wrapped her thin arms around me and pulled me close, like a big sister I never had. Her voice was soft against my hair.

“Shh, let it out. I cried the exact same way when they first threw me in here. Same shock. Same ‘this can’t be my life’ feeling. You’re not alone in that pain.”

I pulled back just enough to look at her through blurry eyes. “How long have you been here?”

She gave me a sad little smile. “Five years. I was seventeen when rogues raided my little pack on the border. Dragged me here the same day. I was just a scout’s daughter, no title, no power. But they don’t care. They take whoever they want.”

Five years. The words made me shudder so hard my teeth clicked together. Five years of this nightmare? I’d only been here hours and I already felt like I was breaking. What would I look like after five years?

I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “What pack is this? Who owns us?”

Pennol opened her mouth to answer, but the words were cut off when the cell door flew open. Three massive guards stormed in, silver-tipped whips coiled at their belts, eyes glowing with that feral rogue red.

“Pennol!” one of them bellowed. “Move!”

Pennol went stiff against me. She leaned in fast, her breath warm and urgent against my ear. “It’s my turn to serve the royals tonight. Whoever they decide. If I come back alive, I’ll tell you everything. Until then, speak less, listen more. That’s how you survive here.”

Before I could even nod, the guards grabbed her arms and yanked her up. She didn’t fight, she didn't look at me again as they dragged her out.

I sat there hugging my knees, the emptiness in the corner suddenly huge. Pennol had been my only anchor for five minutes, and now she was gone. Possibly to her death.

A few minutes later, the door opened again. A different man stepped in this time and stormed toward the part of the cell I was. My breathing grew heavy as I noticed his gaze was on me. I already braced for the worse when he tossed a bundle of rough brown cloth at my feet like garbage.

“Change into these,” he growled. “Now.”

I stared at the rags, threadbare tunic and pants that looked like they’d been worn by a hundred slaves before me, then picked them up. I expected him to turn around, to give me some scrap of dignity. He didn’t. He just stood there, arms crossed, eyes locked on me like I was entertainment.

I glanced around. Other new arrivals were already stripping right there in the open, faces blank, moving like their souls had already left their bodies. My hands shook as I pulled off my torn royal dress and slipped into the rough slave clothes. The man watched the whole time, his smirk never fading. When I was done, he gave a satisfied grunt and left without another word.

Minutes after that, the guards came back, more of them this time. They lined us all up in a single miserable row. “Field and mine duty!” one shouted. “Move out!”

We moved in silence. My legs ached, my stomach still growled. But I kept my eyes forward and my mouth shut, just like Pennol said.

Finally we stopped in front of a huge stretch of rocky fields and yawning mine entrances carved into the hills. Dust created another layer of cloud in the air. Guards barked orders, assigning groups to different hells, some to the fields to pull weeds and haul stones under the blazing sun, others to the mines.

I was shoved toward the fields with a cluster of others. “You, new girl, dig the irrigation trenches until sunset. No breaks. No water until you’re done.”

I grabbed the rusty shovel they thrust at me and started working. I’d never done anything like this in my life. My hands fumbled on the worn handle. I couldn’t even grip it right, let alone drive it into the dirt.

“Is that how you hold a shovel?” a guard barked, stepping so close I could smell the sour rogue stench on his breath. He narrowed his eyes, scanning me like he could see straight through my lies. “Hope you aren’t some high-ranked wolf playing pretend.”

“No,” I replied quickly, my voice shaking just a little.

I glanced around fast, watching how the others gripped their tools, then copied them the best I could. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to make him grunt and stalk off.

I followed what everyone else was doing, swinging the shovel the same way, hitting it into the rock-hard ground again and again. My arms already burned.

“If you keep going like that, you won’t last till sunset,” a female slave beside me whispered when the guard’s back was turned. “Try harder, girl. You need to survive.”

I gave her a quick nod, blinking hard to push back the tears that wanted to spill. Then I swung the shovel with everything I had left, just like she said. Pain shot up my arms like fire with every strike. Sweat poured down my back, soaking the rough tunic and stinging my eyes. My hands blistered almost immediately, the splintered wood tearing into soft skin that had never known real work.

Then a strange wave of familiarity washed over my chest. It was warm and electric, like a scent I knew deep in my bones.

My head snapped up before I could stop myself. My eyes scanned the line of bent backs across the field.

And there he was, standing feets away, dressed in the exact same filthy slave rags. Dirt streaked across his face, shovel in his hands and he stared straight at me with those same fierce eyes I’d known my whole life.