The holding chambers were never meant for silence.
They were built for screams.
Stone walls thick enough to smother sound. Iron doors etched with old runes meant to suppress wolves especially unstable ones. The air always smelled of blood, fear, and damp decay.
I had been locked in them before.
But never like this.
This time, the silence pressed in on me like a living thing, heavy and suffocating. The lantern outside my cell had burned low hours ago, plunging the corridor into near darkness. Only the moonlight filtering through the narrow barred window high above offered faint illumination.
I lay curled on the thin mattress, staring at the ceiling, every nerve in my body screaming.
The pain hadn't left.
It had changed.
Instead of sharp, tearing agony, it pulsed deep, rhythmic, alive. Each beat of my heart sent waves of heat rippling through my veins, gathering low in my core like something awakening from a long sleep.
I clenched my fists, nails biting into my palms.
Breathe, I told myself. Just breathe.
But my body no longer listened the way it used to.
The rejection had done more than wound me.
It had shaken the seal.
I felt it now clearer than ever.
Something ancient and heavy lay coiled inside me, wrapped in layers of magic, oaths, and suppression. Each breath strained those bindings, each heartbeat testing them.
The voice inside me stirred again.
You're bleeding strength, it said calmly.
"I can feel that," I whispered hoarsely.
Good. Then you'll stop fighting it.
I swallowed hard and turned onto my side, curling tighter as another surge of heat tore through me. My vision blurred, spots dancing before my eyes.
"I can't let you out," I said. "You know why."
The voice was quiet for a moment.
Then, because they taught you to fear yourself.
The words landed harder than any blow.
Memories surfaced unbidden.
A dark room.
Elders standing in a circle.
My mother's face pale, streaked with tears.
She's too dangerous, someone had said. A female Alpha will destroy balance.
Seal her, another had demanded. Before the pack finds out.
I squeezed my eyes shut, breath hitching.
"Stop," I murmured.
They took your crown before you could walk, the voice continued, unrelenting. And you let them.
A sharp knock echoed down the corridor, jolting me from my thoughts.
I stiffened.
Footsteps followed slow, measured, purposeful.
Not Lena.
Not a pack guard.
These steps were heavier.
More deliberate.
The iron door scraped open, light spilling into my cell.
A man stepped inside.
Tall. Broad. Dressed in dark robes marked with the sigil of the pack elders.
Elder Thorne.
His sharp gaze swept over me, lingering on the tremor running through my body.
"You're awake," he said quietly.
"I never slept," I replied.
He studied me for a long moment before closing the door behind him. The lock clicked softly into place.
"That doesn't surprise me," he said. "Rejection trauma often manifests this way."
I laughed weakly.
"Is that what you're calling it?"
He didn't respond immediately. Instead, he approached the cell bars and rested one hand against the cold iron.
"You scared the council tonight," he said finally.
I pushed myself up into a sitting position, back braced against the wall.
"I didn't mean to."
"I know."
His gaze sharpened. "That's what concerns us."
Silence stretched between us, thick and brittle.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"To understand," he replied. "What happened after the rejection."
I hesitated.
If I told the truth, there would be no turning back.
If I lied… I wasn't sure I could anymore.
"I felt it break," I said slowly. "Not completely. Just enough to hurt."
Elder Thorne's fingers tightened on the bars.
"The seal," he murmured.
I looked up sharply.
"You know."
He exhaled slowly. "I helped place it."
My breath caught.
"You were there?"
"Yes."
Anger flared violently in my chest, feeding the heat already coiled inside me. The walls seemed to vibrate faintly in response.
"You were one of them," I said, my voice shaking. "You let them take everything from me."
"We did what we believed was necessary," he said quietly. "Female Alphas"
"were inconvenient," I snapped. "So you buried us."
His eyes darkened, but he didn't deny it.
"You were a child," he said. "Unstable. Powerful beyond measure. The pack would have torn itself apart over you."
"So instead you broke me," I whispered.
The lantern outside flickered.
Elder Thorne's gaze flicked upward, then back to me.
"The rejection accelerated the weakening," he said. "The bond acted as a catalyst."
I let out a bitter laugh. "Of course it did."
He hesitated. "The Alpha King doesn't know."
"Not yet."
"But he senses it," the elder pressed. "And if he confirms it"
"he'll kill me," I finished calmly.
Elder Thorne said nothing.
That was answer enough.
A sharp pain suddenly ripped through my spine, stealing my breath. I gasped, clutching my chest as heat surged violently outward.
The stone beneath me cracked with a sharp snap.
Elder Thorne staggered back, eyes wide.
"Ariyah"
"I can't hold it," I gasped. "It's pushing"
The voice surged forward, no longer gentle.
They're coming, it warned. And they won't stop until you're dead.
A loud clang echoed from down the corridor.
Shouts.
Booted feet pounding against stone.
Guards.
Elder Thorne turned sharply toward the noise. "They sensed it. Damn it."
He rushed back to the cell, fumbling at the lock.
"What are you doing?" I demanded.
"Fixing my mistake," he said grimly. "You can't stay here."
The lock clicked open.
Before I could react, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me to my feet.
Pain screamed through my body, but adrenaline drowned it out.
"You're helping me escape?" I whispered.
"I'm helping the pack survive," he replied. "Those aren't the same thing."
He dragged me into the corridor just as voices rounded the corner.
"There!" someone shouted.
The guards surged forward.
Elder Thorne shoved me behind him, raising his hands.
"She's unstable," he barked. "Stand back!"
Too late.
A wolf lunged.
Instinct took over.
Something inside me snapped.
The seal fractured.
The world exploded into sound and light.
Power surged outward in a violent wave, slamming into the guards like a physical force. Bodies flew backward, crashing into walls with sickening thuds.
I screamed not in pain, but in release.
Heat tore through me, blazing hot and wild, burning away restraint and fear.
The runes etched into the corridor walls flared, then shattered.
Cracks spiderwebbed through the stone.
Elder Thorne was thrown back, hitting the wall hard and collapsing to the floor.
I stood at the center of it all, shaking violently, breath ragged, eyes burning.
Gold.
Brilliant, unmistakable gold.
I looked down at my hands.
They glowed faintly, veins illuminated beneath my skin like molten light.
There you are, the voice said softly. My Alpha.
"No," I whispered. "Not yet."
They won't let you choose.
More guards poured into the corridor, fear etched clearly on their faces.
"What is she?" one whispered.
I lifted my head.
The air bowed.
Not submission.
Recognition.
Knees hit stone.
Not all of them but enough.
Shock rippled through the group.
"No," I gasped, backing away. "Get up. Please."
But the damage was done.
They had felt it.
Seen it.
Heard it.
I turned and ran.
Bare feet slapped against stone as I fled down the corridor, alarms beginning to ring throughout the pack grounds. My lungs burned, my body screamed, but the power carried me forward, shattering locks and barriers in my path.
I burst into the open air.
Moonlight crashed over me like a tidal wave.
The pack grounds erupted into chaos wolves shifting, guards shouting, dominance flaring in confused bursts.
And then
He was there.
Kael Draven stood at the far end of the courtyard, frozen mid-step, eyes locked onto mine.
The world stilled.
The mate bond screamed awake.
His aura surged instinctively Alpha dominance flooding outward.
For the first time in my life
I didn't bow.
The pressure hit me and broke apart like waves against a cliff.
Kael's eyes widened.
Gold blazed fully in my vision as the seal screamed, splintering further under the strain.
Our gazes locked.
Recognition slammed into the air like thunder.
Not omega.
Not weak.
Alpha.
Female.
Equal.
Kael staggered back a step.
"What are you?" he breathed.
I swallowed hard, heart pounding.
"I don't know," I said truthfully.
The ground beneath us trembled.
And far above, the moon burned brighter than it ever had before.