Tanya's POV
The cell had the stench of rust and old blood with a dirty, old flat bed and a bucket that reeked set on the left side of the wall.
Stone walls pressed close around me, suffocating as the silence that settled after the guards left. My wrists throbbed where they'd gripped me too hard, bruises beneath my skin and turning it into an angry red. Dirt caked my palms. My dress hung in filthy tatters.
I sat with my back against the right corner of the cell, way from the bed and bucket as the floor looked better, knees drawn tight to my chest, and waited.
Waited for them to come back with questions,..with anything infact .
But none came. Not that first day. Not the second. At the end of the second day, they brought stale bread and a tin of water which the guard slid through the bars without a single word while he watched me with eyes that said: You won't last long.
They definitely weren't wrong.
I hadn't shifted. Couldn't. My wolf burrowed deeper inside me now, silent and unreachable. Without her, I was just as good as a human girl in a cage. Weak. Defenseless. An easy target in a pack that ate weakness alive so I didn't even have a fighting chance.
Time went by excruciatingly slow. Hunger developed into a hollow ache beneath my ribs. My head swam with exhaustion, but I forced myself to stay alert because sleep in an unknown place was obviously a bad idea. Fear kept me awake. Fear of what they'd do when they remembered I was here and finally decided what to do with me.
Or worse — fear of what Tion wanted.
I hadn't seen him since they locked me up. A few of his wolves had come around, their sneers were sharp as teeth. But not their Alpha. Not the feral, gold-eyed shadow who'd dragged me from the woods and ordered for me to be dumped here.
What kind of pack let its Alpha roam alone in wolf form? What kind of Alpha brought home strays like trophies?
The Crimson Pack wasn't like Moon Stone. No decorated halls. No polite cruelty hidden beneath an air of classiness. Here, survival wore its teeth bare. Wolves didn't whisper. They showed you their honest feelings with fists, claws, glares and settled disputes with a show of brutal strength.
I wasn't prey. Not yet. But I wasn't pack either. And that made me fair game.
Fair game didn't last long here.
The door finally opened on the fourth day.
I rushed to my feet, weak but ready and braced for the worst, back pressed flat to the stone wall. Expecting fists. Expecting cruelty. Expecting the Alpha himself.
Instead, a man stepped in with measured calm.
Not Tion.
Someone younger. Taller. Eyes softer, but still with a hint of hardness. Hair dark and tied back. Arms scarred from battles he didn't seem to regret with the sense of pride he carried them with.
Beta, my instincts supplied. Authority clung to him like second skin.
"You look worse than I expected," he said, gaze sweeping over me without pity. "Tion thought you'd break faster."
I said nothing. My throat was too dry for words anyway after not consuming anything in over 24 hours.
He set down a metal tray — real food this time. A bottle of water and a clean cloth.
"I'm Dante. Beta of the pack." A pause. "And you are?"
"You know who I am," I rasped.
"I know what they call you. Latent. Rejected. Moon Stone's shame." His mouth didn't sneer, but something cold flickered behind his gaze. "But names aren't the same as truth. Who are you really?"
I didn't answer, couldn't. Because apart from those names, I didn't really know who I was anymore.
He crouched to meet me at eye level, patient as a predator deciding what he wanted to do with his prey: kill it immediately or, allow it think it had a chance to escape .
"Fine. Be stubborn. Just eat. You'll need strength soon." He pushed the tray closer with a booted foot. "Tion's giving you a choice."
I frowned. "A choice?"
"Stay and fight for a place here." His tone made it extremely clear how slim the chances of winning were. "Or be sent back beyond the borders. Alone. Where rogues and worse will finish what Moon Stone started."
I forced my shaking hands to reach for the bread, chewing it while using the time to assemble my words. "Why offer me anything?"
Dante's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Because Tion's curious. That makes you lucky. For now."
They let me out of the cell after that. Not free. Not unsupervised. But out.
Into the training grounds, and under the watchful stares of the Crimson pack members. Wolves circled like vultures, some in human skin, some not. Warriors, all. Scarred. Sharp. Hungry.
I stood there in borrowed clothes that were too big, too rough while clutching a wooden practice blade and feeling every eye mark me as weak.
"Tion says she fights," Dante announced to the pack members gathered. His voice carried authority, enough to hush murmurs but not erase them. "So she'll prove it. Or die trying."
They laughed mockingly not even bothering to hide their sneers.
One of them stepped forward, a woman with gray hair and her muscles built like stone. Her sneer showed teeth.
"Against me?" she asked.
Dante shrugged. "Why not?"
The woman circled me,savoring the moment. "I won't break her. Yet."
Liar. I could see it in her eyes that it was all she would do.
The fight lasted seconds.
Pain flashed white through my body as her fist found my stomach, knocking air from my lungs. I hit the ground hard, loosing my grip on the wooden blade and hearing it clatter to the ground. The wolves watching didn't cheer. They didn't need to. Their grins spoke volumes.
Weak. Broken. Nothing.
I stayed down. Not by choice but because my body refused the orders my pride screamed. Breath shuddered in and out. Blood dripped from my lip to the ground.
Dante crouched beside me, gaze unreadable.
"First lesson," he said, not unkindly. "Get up. Or stay prey."
I got up.
Again. And again.
They around me down a dozen times before noon with most of the pack members each wanting a pound of flesh for an offense I didn't know I commited. A dozen more after. I bled. I wanted to scream, to curl into nothing and disappear.
But I didn't.
Something hot yet cold burned beneath my ribs, deeper than the shame and fear I had always carried around. A defiance I had never imagined I would be able to muster. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing me break.
I wouldn't give my father that victory.
So I still found the strength to stand…barely, but a silent victory for me already the same.
Alive.
I felt Tion's gaze from the shadows long before I met gold eyes, steady as the sun, fixed on me like he couldn't decide what I was…puzzle or prey. His wolves gave him space, instinctively wary. Even Dante kept his distance.
Alpha, yes. But even his pack members recognized him for what he was :feral and dangerous.
He said nothing as I rose, shaking, from another blow. Continued to watch me with that look as I spat blood into the dirt and lifted the practice blade with my shaking hands.
His mouth curled slightly and I wondered why. Approval? Amusement? But I was aware that it didn't matter.
He was watching. That was enough.
Days bled into each other. Training and pain began to be the only words I was familiar with while given scraps of food and having a short restless sleep beneath thin blankets on a ground too cold to offer comfort.
I learned fast.
Not to win. Not by a long shot. But at least to survive. To dodge. To strike where it would hurt most, even if my blows barely packed a punch and landed soft as feathers. To take pain without showing it.
I learned the names of my tormentors. Garrick, the brute with fists like stone. Sera, who laughed as she cut. Ulric, who never spoke but whose hatred would've burned through my skin in every glance if it could.
And Dante. Watching. Waiting. Offering help only when refusal would mean death.
"You're not the weakest here," he said one night, tossing me a healing salve. "Not anymore."
"Who is, then?" I asked, bitter.
He smiled. "The ones buried outside the walls."
Tion spoke to me only once, days later.
"You hate them," he said, watching me spar and fail again.
"I hate myself more."
"Good." His eyes gleamed. "That will change."
He walked away, leaving me with nothing but questions and blood in my mouth but, for the first time beneath all the bruises and exhaustion, hope began to stir once again
Not of belonging. Not yet.