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.

Serena POV

The dungeon was a cold, damp grave. The smell of wet earth and old blood turned my stomach.

The heavy iron door swung open. Silas marched in. Elara followed close behind him, clutching a dark cloth bag.

Silas did not utter a word. He grabbed me by the hair and struck me across the face, the force of it sending a shower of black spots across my vision.

"Who is the Rogue?" Silas demanded, his breath a foul gust of hatred.

I spat a mouthful of blood onto the stone floor. I refused to speak.

Elara handed Silas a metal tool from the bag. It was a torturer's scourge, its head covered in small, sharp spikes. The metal was a dull, malevolent gray.

It was Silver.

In our werewolf society, Silver is the ultimate bane. It is the only substance that can burn our flesh and arrest our healing.

Silas raised the heavy Silver scourge. He brought it down directly across my mouth and cheek.

I screamed, the sound tearing my throat raw. The Silver spikes bit into my skin. The metal seared like a branding iron. I could hear the hiss of my own flesh charring, the smell of it filling the small cell.

"Tell me his name!" Silas bellowed.

Pain was a whirlpool, dragging my mind under. My cheek felt as if it were rotting from the Silver's poison. I had to deceive him. I had to lead him to his own doom.

"Hunter," I whispered through bleeding lips. "His name is Hunter."

Silas laughed, a cruel, mocking sound. He was ignorant that Hunter was the name of the Royal Army's most formidable General.

"We are taking her to the Capital," Silas told Elara. "I want to execute this Hunter directly in front of her."

An hour later, guards dragged me from the dungeon. They threw me into a small wooden cage affixed to the back of their carriage. The wooden bars were wrapped in thin Silver wires.

Every time the carriage jolted, my skin brushed against the Silver. The searing pain was a constant companion.

As the carriage lurched forward, I pressed my splinted hand against my flat stomach. The tiny spark of life I had carried—the secret I had never been allowed to speak—was all I had left. And Silas was dragging me toward a fate from which there might be no return.