LYRA
My knees buckle, and I fall to the stone floor with a gasp. My body is a live wire, burning and screaming with a pain I have never known before. Three lines of liquid fire flow from my heart to theirs. My lungs refuse to work. My vision shatters into bright, painful fragments. This is wrong, not only wrong but impossible. No wolf has ever been bonded to more than one mate. Let alone three. Let alone the three most powerful Alphas in the wereworld. I am either blessed beyond measure or cursed beyond salvation. And from the horror dawning on every face around me, I'm betting on the latter.
"Abomination!" someone shouts from the crowd.
"She is a witch!" another voice joins in.
"She is a traitor!" a third.
And then everyone is shouting at once, their voices crashing over me like waves against a shore. I can't make out individual words anymore, just the roar of collective outrage. I try to stand, but my legs won't cooperate. My body feels like it belongs to someone else. Priestess Marina stands frozen, her ceremonial robes billowing around her, her eyes wide with shock or awe, I can't tell which.
"Silence!" Alpha Kade's voice cuts through the chaos, but even he sounds shaken. His face is a mask of fury and something else—disbelief, perhaps.
I want to say something, anything, to defend myself, but then the pain hits. It starts in my stomach, just below my ribs, a burning, twisting sensation like someone has poured hot sand into my belly. I double over, gasping.
"She is shifting," Marina whispers, but in the sudden quiet, everyone hears.
The pain intensifies, spreading through my body like wildfire. My bones feel like they are melting, reshaping themselves beneath my skin. I fall to all fours, fingers digging into the dirt of the ritual circle as my body betrays me, transforming against my will.
I want to scream, but my jaw is stretching, lengthening. My teeth throb in their sockets, sharp points cutting into my gums. Every muscle in my body contracts at once, so hard I think they might snap. I want it to stop, but my body doesn't care what I want. My skin stretches, itches, burns as fur erupts beneath it, black and white. I can see it sprouting along my arms as they twist and reshape into legs. My clothes tear, shredding as my body changes form. Soon, I'm standing on all fours and looking at the world through different eyes. Everything is sharper and clearer. Scents flood my nose—fear, anger, sweat, blood. I can smell the triplets' rage from across the circle, three distinct but similar scents that make my new instincts both cower and surge forward. I catch sounds I never could have heard as a human—the rapid heartbeats of the wolves surrounding me, the rustle of clothes as people shift uncomfortably, the soft whispers passing from person to person.
Without planning to, I throw back my head and howl, one long, mournful note that echoes through the arena and beyond. It's a howl of defiance, of pain, and of newly found power. It is my own voice, but it sounds like a song that has been held captive for too long. The sound startles even me because of how pure and strong it is, how it seems to vibrate in the air long after I've closed my mouth.
No one joins my howl. No one welcomes me to the pack. There is only stunned silence.
Then the shift reverses itself, just as painful, just as brutal. My bones snap and reform, fur recedes, skin stretches, and I find myself human again, naked and trembling in the center of the ritual circle. My limbs feel heavy, and my body weak and bruised. I clutch my naked body, feeling the blood trickle from my nose and lips.
"Cover her," Marina says finally, shrugging off her outer ceremonial robe and stepping forward to drape it over my shoulders.
"Thank you," I whisper, but my voice comes out wrong, raspy and strained, as if I've been screaming for hours.
"What nonsense is this?!" Elder Gareth breaks the silence, stepping forward with his hands clasped before him like a judge delivering a sentence. "This can never be," he declares, addressing the assembly rather than me. "The Cerberus Alphas will not stoop so low as to accept the bloodline of someone who gave us all out to the vampire Lord, Kronos."
Murmurs of agreement ripple through the crowd. I want to defend my brother, to scream that they never proved he betrayed anyone, that the accusations were always just that—accusations without evidence. But my tongue feels swollen in my mouth, and the words won't come.
"A triple mate-bond is unprecedented," Elder Gareth continues, his voice rising to carry to the farthest corners of the arena. "It is unnatural."
"Unnatural," the crowd echoes, and the word passes from mouth to mouth until it becomes a mocking chorus.
"The goddess has made a mistake," someone calls out.
"Or she tests us," another replies.
My vision blurs at the edges, and black spots dance before my eyes. The triple bond is draining me, pulling my energy in three different directions. I sway where I kneel, fighting to stay conscious as my strength ebbs away like water through cupped hands.
Alpha Igla rises from his seat. "I suggest The Cerberus Alphas reject her and bring her to The Hollowing tomorrow," he announces, voice thick with cruel satisfaction. "We will take a pound of her flesh for every wolf her brother's treachery killed."
The crowd rumbles with approval, all hungry for my blood.
"She won't survive the ritual after a triple rejection," Alpha Igla adds, almost as an afterthought. "Few do. Especially not weak-blooded, tainted females like this one."
More agreement, louder now. I feel the tide of pack opinion turning against me, pressing down on my shoulders, squeezing the air from my lungs.
"The Cerberus Alphas must reject this bond," Elder Gareth proclaims, turning toward where the triplets still stand at their positions around the circle. "For the good of the pack and for the purity of their line."
I lift my head with effort, looking for the triplets. Alpha Kade stands like a statue, his face carved from ice. Alpha Knox's hands are clenched at his sides, tendons standing out like cords. Alpha Kalem watches everything with those calculating eyes, giving nothing away. None of them speak.
"You are not the Cerberus Alphas' mouthpiece," Marina states, stepping forward again, her silver-streaked hair gleaming in the moonlight. "Allow them to make their own decision."
Elder Gareth's eyes narrow. "Mind your place, Priestess. You perform the rituals. You do not interpret them."
"I speak for the goddess when I say that mate-bonds cannot be rejected without consequence," Marina replies, unflinching. "Not even by Alphas. Especially not by Alphas."
"There are exceptions to every rule," Elder Gareth counters. "This… arrangement cannot stand."
The argument continues above me, and their voices hammer through my skull like nails. I can't focus anymore as the world tilts and spins. Voices become distorted and words melt into meaningless noise. I'm aware of Seraphina watching from the edge of the circle, her beautiful face twisted with hate and shock. Of Maggie standing beside her, expression carefully blank. Of Jarek and his friends in the distance, their earlier threat now complicated by this new development.
I close my eyes, just for a moment, just to stop the spinning.
A sudden roar, a sound that shakes the very foundation of the arena, booms through the noise, silencing the entire pack. It's Alpha Kade, and he is stalking toward me with predatory steps. His face is a mask of cold fury, and his green eyes blaze with accusation.
"Jace. Rowan," he barks.
Two wolves in the front row snap to attention. They close the distance between us in seconds and stand above me with rigid bodies, and eyes filled with a coldness that matches the Alphas'.
"Take her to Purgatory," Kade orders, his voice deadly calm. "Silver chains at her wrist and throat. No light or company. She will wait judgment with the dead."
My heart stops. I know what purgatory means.