Lorelei POV

The force of my punch knocked her off balance, sending her crashing backward onto the floor. Before she could recover, I was on top of her, fisting my hand in her hair and hitting her face over and over again.

"Get off me, you bitch!" Chelsea snarled, trying to shove me away, but I was surprisingly stronger than her.

All the anger and frustration I’d been carrying for weeks, for years, came pouring out.

Every moment of being tormented.

Every time I had been pushed around.

Every time I had been blamed for something that wasn’t my fault.

Every time I had been discarded like I meant nothing.

It all poured into each punch.

"No, you’re the bitch!" I growled viciously. "I’m going to kill you! I will fucking kill you! And when we both get to hell, I’ll kill you again!"

My fist connected with her nose, and blood sprayed across her face and over my knuckles.

Chelsea screamed like a dying animal, her hands flailing wildly as she tried to shield her face from the relentless rain of blows, but I didn’t stop.

I couldn’t.

The metallic scent of blood filled the cramped space, and something deep inside me responded to it.

Some feral, defensive instinct I hadn’t even known existed.

All I could see was Callista’s face.

All I could feel was every time I had been told I was worthless.

"What’s going on here?"

Several voices rang out at once, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps.

Then hands grabbed me from behind and ripped me away from Chelsea.

"Let me go!" I thrashed wildly, trying to break free, but the grips holding me were too strong.

Two guards restrained me, their arms like iron bands around my shoulders.

My chest heaved violently, and my breathing came in ragged gasps as I finally stopped struggling.

Through the haze of my rage, I could see Chelsea clearly now.

And the damage I had done.

Her nose looked broken, twisted at an unnatural angle as blood poured down her face in thick streams. Her lip was split in multiple places, and her left eye was already swollen nearly shut.

Several maids rushed to her side and helped her sit up while throwing strange looks in my direction and whispering among themselves.

"She’s crazy!" Chelsea screamed, pointing at me with a trembling, blood-covered finger. "She tried to kill me! She’s insane! She just snapped and attacked me! All because I bumped into her! She should be punished! She should be..."

"Enough!"

One of the guards barked, and the entire room instantly fell silent.

The guard who had spoken was a tall, broad-shouldered man with cold brown eyes. He turned to face me while two other guards continued holding my arms pinned behind my back.

"You," he said. "You’re coming with us."

"I didn’t. She started it..." I tried to defend myself, but the guard cut me off with a harsh look.

"This has nothing to do with that." He gestured toward Chelsea’s bloodied face, and his expression twisted briefly in disgust before he looked back at me. "We have been instructed to fetch you."

Instructed.

The word echoed in my ears.

By who?

The answer came before I could even finish the thought.

The Alpha King.

It had to be him.

The reality of the situation crashed over me like a bucket of ice water.

My knees nearly gave out beneath me, and I would have collapsed if the guards hadn’t been holding me upright.

Across the room, Chelsea’s lips slowly curled into a bloody smirk.

She knew.

She knew exactly what this was about.

"You’re dead, stray," Chelsea whispered, just loud enough for me to hear.

***

"No, this is a mistake," I muttered desperately as the guards dragged me farther and farther away from the storage room.

The corridors I had grown familiar with slowly disappeared behind us, replaced by darker, quieter hallways.

Creepier hallways.

The lights along the walls were spaced farther apart here, casting long shadows that danced across the floor and seemed to reach for me every time we passed.

The air felt colder.

The only sounds were my ragged breathing and the steady thud of the guards’ boots against the stone floor.

This had to be where they executed people.

I was sure of it.

"You have to believe me," I pleaded, my voice cracking. "Please believe me. I’m the victim here. She set me up. I didn’t..."

"Shut up!" one of the guards snarled, cutting me off. "Even if what you’re saying is true, that’s not for us to decide. We’re simply following orders. Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be."

That forced me to clamp my lips shut.

My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my throat, each beat making it harder to breathe as I stared down the endless dark corridor ahead and wondered if I was being marched toward my execution.

They led me deeper into the estate, past corridors I had never seen before, until we stopped in front of a door unlike any other.

It was massive, made of reinforced black steel, with bolts the size of my fist lining the edges. There wasn’t even a handle on this side.

The guards exchanged a look before one of them produced a thick key and inserted it into a lock hidden in the wall.

The door didn’t open immediately. Instead, a series of clicks echoed from within, sounding like gears turning and locks releasing one after another while the guards stood there waiting with tense expressions.

Thirty seconds passed, then a minute, then two.

Each second felt like an eternity, making the tightness in my chest grow worse.

"What is this place?" I whispered, but no one answered.

The clicking finally stopped, and the door groaned as it began to swing open slowly and heavily, as though it were fighting against itself.

"Shove her in quickly before it senses us," one of the guards said.

My stomach dropped.

Before I could ask what "it" was, the two guards behind me grabbed my arms and dragged me toward the dark opening.

"Wait, what? No..."

I tried to protest one last time, but they shoved me inside anyway, and the door immediately slammed shut behind me.