CHAPTER 8

N Y X A R A

I wake up cold. The chill presses through my back and into my shoulders. The ground feels hard, but I don’t open my eyes yet. The first thing I do is check my body because that habit never really goes away. I try to move my hands. Nothing.
There’s pressure on my wrists and it’s tight and even on both sides, like whoever tied me down knew exactly how to hold me in place. I test my ankles but it’s the same thing. My arms and legs feel heavy and slow, like they’re awake, but not fully listening to me yet.
The last thing I remember is his breath at my throat and the word he said, then heat and then everything went dark. But I’m alive. That’s the first clear thought. The second one comes right after. I’m not free.
I open my eyes and I see a stone ceiling, dark, but clean, no cracks, and no moss but just smooth stone. I watch the light for a moment, trying to figure out where it’s coming from. Maybe what time it is but when I turn my head, my neck feels stiff, but not injured.
My hand moves toward my throat without thinking. I stop halfway because I can’t reach the bite anyway. Instead, I swallow. The mark feels lower than I expected, it’s not where someone would leave a threat, and not where someone trying to claim you would bite.
The skin is tender and warm, like something passed through and kept going. Whatever he did, it wasn’t meant to hurt me. It was meant to stop me and that part worked.
I listen to the movement somewhere outside the room. I heard footsteps, slow and easy. They pass by, pause, then come back the other way, like someone’s walking a route. I hear a voice faintly through the wall but just one word, then nothing.
The room smells like metal and old ash. There’s clean water nearby too because I can smell it. The air is cold, and still, it doesn’t move around, it stays exactly where it is.
This isn’t a cave or a den since there are corners in this room. Clean and straight lines cut into the stone like someone meant them to be there. Someone built this. I was trained to expect something else. Chaos. Noise. Teeth. Hunger. This place feels controlled and the quiet here isn’t empty but it’s kept and maintained that way. And that tightens my chest more than screaming ever would.
The door swings open and a man steps in and stops just inside the room, like he already knows exactly where to stand. He’s tall, with broad shoulders and dark layers that move when he does but don’t make any sound. The air shifts a little when he walks in but just enough that I notice. His eyes go to the restraints first, then to my face.
“You’re awake,” he says. Not a question and I don’t answer, I just look at him. He looks back like he’s not in any hurry.
“Where am I?” I ask. He pauses for a second, like he’s deciding how to say it.
“Ashmoore.” The name means nothing to me and that bothers me more than it should. He steps a little closer enough that I’d feel it if he meant trouble.
“You’re human, and you killed wolves.” he says.
“Yes.” His mouth tightens a little, like the answer annoys him more than it angers him.
“And yet,” he says, “you’re still breathing.” I don’t bother pretending I don’t know what he means.
“Why?” He watches me for a moment but long enough that I know he’s deciding how much to say.
“That wasn’t my call,” he says finally.
“But you’re here,” I say. “So you must have some idea.” For a second, he looks uncomfortable.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says. “You shouldn’t be alive. And you definitely shouldn’t be in Ashmoore.”
“And yet?” I say. His jaw tightens and the room feels different when he does that. Like everything in it is paying attention to him.
“Our Alpha brought you in,” he says. “That’s all that matters.”
I hear the part he doesn’t say, that means no one argued and no one stopped it. Whatever decision they made out there, it was final, and it wasn’t meant to be explained to me. They move me without much fuss. The restraints come off my wrists first and my arms feel strange when they’re free—too light, but still slow to respond.
Before I can really test them, a hand closes around my elbow and pulls me up. The hallway outside is narrow and straight. Stone runs under our feet, worn smooth down the middle from years of people walking the same path. Torches line the walls at even spaces. Wolves pass us as we walk but none of them stop.
Each one gives the man beside me a short nod and keeps going. I start counting turns without thinking about it. Left. Down a long stretch. Right again. Everything feels planned, like every path was meant to lead somewhere specific, like there aren’t many wrong turns here. I don’t see cells and no cages either. This place doesn’t feel like it was built to hold prisoners. It feels like it was built to run smoothly without them.
As we walk, a thought slips in that doesn’t belong here. I hear Thorne’s voice, flat, precise and the way he sounded when something actually mattered. “Do not let them question you.”
Back then, I thought he meant pain, interrogation, ticks and something obvious. But, now I’m not so sure. No one here has asked me anything. Not even my name or who sent me and why I crossed their border. This isn’t them hesitating, but they mean for it to be this way. And whatever answers I carry, the Guild clearly didn’t want wolves pulling them out of me.
We stop outside another door. Two voices drift through it, low and careful.
“She’s human,” one of them says.
“That’s what worries me,” the other answers. A pause.
Then, quieter, “If he’s right… she might be the one from the prophecy.”
The word lands wrong. Prophecy. Like they’re talking about someone else, except they’re not. Then the door opens.