For the first five minutes I stood motionless, gasping for air. My hands—my whole body—shook. Fine tremors filled me, while the pressure behind my eyes rose, forcing tears to spill down my cheeks.
I was rocked by a mix of anger, terror, an impossible sense of injustice, and behind all things, perfect despair.
An hour later, it had sunk in. I was going to die. Asher had chosen me because the Council wouldn't see it fit to investigate if I was innocent, even if I pleaded it until my dying breath.
Even worse, now that Alpha Darren was dead and he had no heir, Asher was automatically the new Alpha of the pack. His authority was absolute.
Four hours later, I was a miserable mess slamming into the door of my cell, threatening to come back as a ghost and haunt them all if I didn't get a fair hearing. And when the guards paid me no heed, I began to cry helplessly. Why was this happening to me?
The cell door opened at midnight.
I knew it was Asher before I looked up. He still smelled like aftershave and something masculine and sweet.
He looked as composed as he always did, dressed in black mourning robes. His chin was raised higher and his hazel eyes glowed. His aura was staggering and he looked every inch of the Alpha he had become.
The door to my cell was opened by a guard and Asher stepped in with a dark smile. "Miss me?"
I flew at him, hands slapping at his chest, nails clawing at his face. "You are the absolute worst," I cried. "I hate you. I hope the goddess punishes you. I hope you die a miserable death–"
He caught me by my wrist and slammed me into the wall.
And then he kissed me.
It was hard, rough, and punishing. It was filled with hatred and disgust. All of the repulsion he felt towards me was channeled into the kiss and the bond, stupidly thrummed, my body tightening in places it shouldn't.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as he pulled away for long enough to kiss my neck, my pulse. "Shame that I didn't get a chance to fuck you, Rory. I hear the bond makes for great sex."
I raised my hand to slap him, but he caught my wrist. "How could you do this to me?"
His hazel pierced mine. "I didn't do this to you. Your foolishness did. I loved you? Rory, no one could ever love cheap trash like you who latches onto the first person who shows her even a modicum of affection. Pathetic."
I couldn't reel the tears in. It hurt. Gods, but it hurt so much.
Asher cupped my cheeks gently. "I want to make this official," he whispered. "I, Asher Kane, Alpha of the Red Moon Pack, reject you, Aurora Gray."
The pain was abysmal. My knees buckled fiercely beneath me and I breathed through the pain, biting the inside of my cheek until it bled, eager not to give him a single cry.
His eyes gleamed with disappointment when he didn't get the reaction he wanted out of me.
Asher pushed off me roughly and started for the door. "You should know. The trial will be short. I'll make sure it's quick and painless, for whatever that's worth."
***
On the eve of my execution, a shadow fell over the moon, casting a red glow over everything.
My bare feet dug into the snow-damp earth as I ran blindly through the woods, branches tearing into my skin. My lungs burned, my pulse so loud in my ears that I could barely hear the dogs.
It was absurd.
In the wake of Darren's death, everyone had been attending the funeral, where his body was being burned at the pyre. And someone had left my cell door unlocked.
It was an unlikely mistake and the only chance I would get at an escape attempt. And I took it.
I barely made it out of the pack manor before the alarms blared through the night, sending even the birds into a frenzy.
"Aurora Gray!" Beta Ansel bellowed. "I order you to stop by the Alpha's command. If you do not, you will be shot down and torn apart by his hounds."
I didn't.
Call me mad, but I'd sooner be shot in the woods than be publicly stripped, spat on and torn to pieces by an angry mob, which was exactly what awaited me at dawn. I had seen a murderer's execution once, as a child. I was not going to stand still and let that happen to me.
A shot rang out. The tree trunk beside my head exploded. I cried out and closed my hands over my ears, zig-zagging through the trees.
Another shot and I felt a sharp pain in my left arm. Ignoring the blood running down my arm, I swerved left, taking the steep path no one ever dared to.
Toward the Dark Reach.
It had been forbidden since before I was born. The story was that something deadly slumbered in those caves. Many who went in to prove it was just some silly bedtime story rarely ever came back. And those who did always claimed that they could never get close enough, as they would often lose their bearings and find themselves walking around in circles, lost until someone found them.
My mother had said the gods used to live there. But my mother often rambled a lot of nonsense.
She hadn't been lucky enough to serve as a maid. She was a beauty and cruel men took and took from her. Bed slaves didn't have the right to say no. One such occasion had birthed me. Another occasion during which my mother had found the courage to finally say no, to protect me, had earned her a hard blow to the head that cracked her skull.
She recovered, but she was never the same after that. She talked about being descended from a line of seers. She talked about 'the future'.
She said I would mate with a kind Alpha, and I would be happy. She said our love would be one for the books. Magical. "You will wake him. You will kiss him and he will be yours," she said so many times, humming joyfully.
If only she could see me now. Running barefoot through a haunted forest for dear life. Very romantic.
The pine tree on my right splintered from another shot before the treeline swallowed me. The dogs fell away and the shouts grew distant.
I ran. And ran, until I couldn't.
And then, I saw the cave.
It was so dark inside, it felt like a coat had been dropped over my senses.
Alarms rang in my subconscious, telling me that there was danger in there. This was not a place anyone should be. That was why it was called The Dark Reach. But I knew it was the only place they wouldn't search.
"Find her," echoed faintly behind me.
My body trembled hard from the cold and I knew if I turned back, I would surely die.
So, I stepped into the cave.