Chapter 2 Kaelen!

A spark of hope struggled to ignite amidst despair, only to be swiftly extinguished by the icy wind of reality. For me now, hope was more agonizing than death. I forced my bent spine straight and offered Axel a bow of utter submission. "Thank you for your generosity, my Master."

My hand trembled before the door. I bit down hard on my palm until blood welled. The sharp pain anchored my fading consciousness, a brutal reminder that I still lived, still fought for my pack in the only way left to me.

"My Lord, your loyal she-wolf comes to serve," I murmured, my gaze fixed on his boots. Fine leather, immaculate, unlike the crude hides worn by other brutish males. My shaking hands reached for his belt buckle. Steel-like fingers suddenly clamped around my wrist, the crushing force threatening to shatter bone.

"Elena. Look at me."

That voice... A desperate whimper escaped me, my body convulsing in uncontrollable tremors. Instinct screamed to shield my defiled body with my arms, but the sheer silk robe offered no refuge, laying bare every bruise, every scar. Slowly, as if ascending the gallows, I raised my head. The sharply defined features, the Kaelen-gray eyes—it was the face that haunted my nightmares and fueled my desperate hope for three years. Standing before me was Kaelen. My Alpha. My fated Mate.

Seeing him shattered the fragile defenses I'd painstakingly built. Tears flooded my vision. "Kaelen," I choked, "have you come to take me home at last?"

My hand shot out, a drowning woman grasping for driftwood, desperate to touch him, to prove this wasn't another cruel illusion. He recoiled violently. Disgust radiated from him, unmistakable and crushing. A heart-rending wail tore from my throat; I wished the stones would swallow me whole.

"Do you remember who you once were?" His voice was a winter gale, each word freezing the shards of my remaining dignity. "The Princess of the Silver-moon Pack. How... how could you fall to this?"

Three years of humiliation. Three years of being called a "worthless whore," used as a vessel for lust, enduring degradation beneath strange males night after night. Yet nothing shattered me like hearing Kaelen himself call me "fallen."

My mouth opened—to explain, to make him understand that every degradation was borne for him, for our pack. But the ice in his eyes froze the words in my throat. Guards seized me roughly, dragging me from the room. My knees scraped bloody trails on the stone floor. Stumbling, I was thrown back into my dwelling—a converted storage room behind the pack house, worse than a kennel. I curled into a ball on the straw in the corner.

Utterly shattered. Too despairing even for tears. My Alpha. My fated Mate. Why didn't he take me away?