Lorelei POV

After we were dismissed, I spent the next thirty minutes in my room, sitting on my bed with my knees pulled to my chest, just staring into space.

After everything that had happened with Jaxen and my family, I really thought I was prepared to die.

But witnessing that execution made me start questioning that.

The door clicked open, and Skye stepped inside.

Unlike me, she looked just as unbothered as the other maids.

How many times had they witnessed things like this to be so unaffected?

She shut the door behind her and leaned against it with a sigh, reaching into her apron pocket and pulling out a piece of bread wrapped in a napkin.

"I stole this from the kitchen."

I finally lifted my gaze to the bread in her outstretched hand.

"Aren’t you worried you’ll get caught and get..."

"Killed?" she finished with a soft laugh. "I would get punished, of course, but I don’t think I’d be killed."

"How sure are you?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper in the heavy silence of the room. "This place is messed up. Anything can get you killed. Look at that maid. She got..."

"She got killed because she drugged the Alpha," Skye cut in, finally crossing the room and sitting on the edge of my bed. "She was bribed by one of the higher-ranking daughters, someone who wanted to get into bed with him," she explained. "Everyone here knows that’s a serious offense. This place might not be paradise. Actually, it’s hell itself. But there are rules. Rules that have kept most of us alive."

She held up a finger.

"Don’t mention the Alpha’s mate."

A second finger.

"Don’t scheme against the empire."

Then a third.

"And don’t get too close to the Alpha."

She lowered her hand.

"She broke a very specific rule. She practically signed her own death warrant."

Hearing those words, which were clearly meant to reassure me, didn’t help at all.

If anything, they made the blood drain completely from my face.

Not only had I gotten close to him, I had been in his bed. We had sex for almost the entire night.

My death would probably be far worse than a single gunshot.

My breathing hitched, and I locked my jaw so tightly it hurt, just to keep from gasping out loud.

"I’m going to escape," I finally confessed.

The way he had stared at me was proof enough. He most likely already knew who I was and was probably planning some grand execution for me.

"Are you completely out of your mind?" Skye hissed.

Her face went pale as she lunged forward and grabbed my wrist, gripping it so tightly it almost hurt.

"Do you want to die?"

"Didn’t you just say there are rules that have kept most of us alive?" I shot back, my voice trembling with desperation. "Well, escaping isn’t one of them."

That made her let out a loud scoff.

"You have really lost it," she said. "Don’t you realize that’s a criminal offense?"

"How is it a criminal offense?" I yelled.

She immediately slapped her other hand over my mouth, muffling the sound before it could travel beyond the room.

But seriously, how was that a criminal offense?

In my case, I could understand it. I had broken a major rule. But she didn’t know that.

"You are new here, so it will probably take you months to fully understand how things work around this place," Skye whispered fiercely, her eyes darting toward the heavy door before she slowly pulled her hand away from my mouth. "But please, for the love of the Moon Goddess, don’t ever think about trying to escape. People who escape get caught, and when they do, they are executed."

"How are you so sure?" I countered. "Surely some of them made it out."

But she just shook her head.

"You know, I was once like you. So were a few others." Her gaze drifted to the floor as she spoke. "I was so desperate to see my brother again that I convinced myself there had to be a way out."

Her voice grew quieter.

"One night, they escaped without me. One of them was my roommate, so the betrayal hurt even more. As the months passed, I thought they had done it. I thought they had actually made it out."

She swallowed hard.

"Then one morning, I woke up and found their heads mounted on iron spikes at the eastern gate."

Skye’s voice dropped so low it was almost swallowed by the shadows of the room.

A cold sweat broke out across the back of my neck, and my heartbeat turned frantic.

"It took months, Ella," she said, tears filling her eyes. "Months. But they still got caught."

My stomach twisted.

"So you see," she continued, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve, "there’s no escape from the Lunar Empire. Not really. They always find you. And when they do..." Her voice cracked, and she trailed off, unable to finish.

The room suddenly felt smaller.

The walls felt closer.

My escape plan, the truck, the dawn, the hope I had been desperately clinging to, suddenly felt less like freedom and more like another death sentence.

What do I do?

****

That evening, I was doing my chores in the lower supply closet, organizing cleaning supplies and restocking the maids’ carts. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

My hands were working, but my mind was somewhere else entirely.

It kept replaying Skye’s words over and over again.

The heads on spikes.

The months of false hope.

The inescapable reach of the Lunar Empire.

I was so distracted that while returning supplies to the storage room, I didn’t even notice when I walked straight into someone.

"I’m sorry," I whispered automatically.

I tried to step aside, but before I could, I was yanked backward so violently that my head slammed against the wall.

Pain exploded through my skull, and my vision blurred.

For a moment, all I could do was blink.

Then my head cleared, and I realized the person standing in front of me, panting like some rabid, disgustingly ugly beast, was Chelsea.

"How dare you walk into me like that?" Chelsea hissed, her eyes blazing.

Ah. This witch again. I really thought we had moved past this.

"I already told you I was sorry. I don’t have time for this." I winced and rubbed the back of my head.

Then I tried to step around her.

She immediately blocked my path.

"Why?" she mocked, repeatedly poking a finger against my forehead. "What’s on your mind that’s made you so distracted?" Her grin widened. "Oh wait. Are you scared? Scared the truth is going to come out?"

My jaw tightened.

"What are you talking abou—"

The rest of the words died in my throat as I stared at the smirk on her lips.

Within seconds, something in my head clicked, and a horrible realization slammed into me.

"You," I growled.

Suddenly, everything made sense. The altered chore sheet. Being sent to the Alpha’s wing. And the maid being strangely insistent that I go.

Even back then, something about it had felt wrong, but I had been so terrified of getting into trouble that I blindly followed the orders anyway.

Only to end up in even bigger trouble.

So that had been her plan all along.

"Figured it out, did you?" Chelsea replied, her smirk never wavering.

"You set me up." The words came out low and sharp, and my breathing turned ragged.

Maybe it was because it reminded me so much of what Callista had done to me.

Maybe it was because I was exhausted, terrified, and one bad day away from completely losing it.

Whatever the reason, something inside me snapped.

"That’s what you get for..."

I didn’t let her finish, and my fist crashed straight into her jaw.