Her knees buckled, and she fell to the stone floor with a gasp. Her body was a live wire, burning and screaming with a pain she had never known before. Three lines of liquid fire flowed from her heart to theirs. Her lungs refused to work. Her vision shattered into bright, painful fragments. This was wrong, not only wrong but impossible. No wolf had ever been bonded to more than one mate. Let alone three. Let alone the three most powerful Alphas in the wereworld. She was either blessed beyond measure or cursed beyond salvation. And from the horror dawning on every face around her, she bet on the latter.
"Abomination!" someone shouted from the crowd.
"She is a witch!" another voice joined in.
"She is a traitor!" a third.
Then everyone shouted at once, their voices crashing over her like waves against a shore. She could not make out individual words anymore, just the roar of collective outrage. She tried to stand, but her legs would not cooperate. Her body felt like it belonged to someone else. Priestess Marina stood frozen, her ceremonial robes billowing around her, her eyes wide with shock or awe, she could not tell which.
"Silence!" Alpha Kade's voice cut through the chaos, but even he sounded shaken. His face was a mask of fury and something else—disbelief, perhaps.
She wanted to say something, anything, to defend herself, but then the pain hit. It started in her stomach, just below her ribs, a burning, twisting sensation like someone had poured hot sand into her belly. She doubled over, gasping.
"She is shifting," Marina whispered, but in the sudden quiet, everyone heard.
The pain intensified, spreading through her body like wildfire. Her bones felt like they were melting, reshaping themselves beneath her skin. She fell to all fours, fingers digging into the dirt of the ritual circle as her body betrayed her, transforming against her will.
She wanted to scream, but her jaw was stretching. Her teeth throbbed in their sockets, sharp points cutting into her gums. Every muscle in her body contracted at once, so hard she thought they might snap. She wanted it to stop, but her body did not care what she wanted. Her skin stretched, itched, burned as fur erupted beneath it, black and white. She could see it sprouting along her arms as they twisted and reshaped into legs. Her clothes tore, shredding as her body changed form. Soon, she was standing on all fours and looking at the world through different eyes. Everything was sharper and clearer. Scents flooded her nose—fear, anger, sweat, blood. She could smell the triplets' rage from across the circle, three distinct but similar scents that made her new instincts both cower and surge forward. She caught sounds she never could have heard as a human—the rapid heartbeats of the wolves surrounding her, the rustle of clothes as people shifted uncomfortably, the soft whispers passing from person to person.
Without planning to, she threw back her head and howled, one long, mournful note that echoed through the arena and beyond. It was a howl of defiance, of pain, and of newly found power. It was her own voice, but it sounded like a song that had been held captive for too long. The sound startled even her because of how pure and strong it was, how it seemed to vibrate in the air long after she had closed her mouth.
No one joined her howl. No one welcomed her to the pack. There was only stunned silence.
Then the shift reversed itself, just as painful, just as brutal. Her bones snapped and reformed, fur receded, skin stretched, and she found herself human again, naked and trembling in the center of the ritual circle. Her limbs felt heavy, and her body weak and bruised. She clutched her naked body, feeling the blood trickle from her nose and lips.
"Cover her," Marina said finally, shrugging off her outer ceremonial robe and stepping forward to drape it over her shoulders.
"Thank you," she whispered, but her voice came out wrong, raspy and strained, as if she had been screaming for hours.
"What nonsense is this?!" Elder Gareth broke the silence, stepping forward with his hands clasped before him like a judge delivering a sentence. "This can never be," he declared, addressing the assembly rather than her. "The Cerberus Alphas will not stoop so low as to accept the bloodline of someone who gave us all out to the vampire Lord, Kronos."
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the crowd. She wanted to defend her brother, to scream that they had never proved he betrayed anyone, that the accusations were always just that—accusations without evidence. But her tongue felt swollen in her mouth, and the words would not come.
"A triple mate-bond is unprecedented," Elder Gareth continued, his voice rising to carry to the farthest corners of the arena. "It is unnatural."
"Unnatural," the crowd echoed, and the word passed from mouth to mouth until it became a mocking chorus.
"The goddess has made a mistake," someone called out.
"Or she tests us," another replied.
Her vision blurred at the edges, and black spots danced before her eyes. The triple bond was draining her, pulling her energy in three different directions. She swayed where she knelt, fighting to stay conscious as her strength ebbed away like water through cupped hands.
Alpha Igla rose from his seat. "I suggest The Cerberus Alphas reject her and bring her to The Hollowing tomorrow," he announced, his voice thick with cruel satisfaction. "We will take a pound of her flesh for every wolf her brother's treachery killed."
The crowd rumbled with approval, all hungry for her blood.
"She will not survive the ritual after a triple rejection," Alpha Igla added, almost as an afterthought. "Few do. Especially not weak-blooded, tainted females like this one."
More agreement followed, louder now. She felt the tide of pack opinion turning against her, pressing down on her shoulders, squeezing the air from her lungs.
"The Cerberus Alphas must reject this bond," Elder Gareth proclaimed, turning toward where the triplets still stood at their positions around the circle. "For the good of the pack and for the purity of their line."
She lifted her head with effort, looking for the triplets. Alpha Kade stood like a statue, his face carved from ice. Alpha Knox's hands were clenched at his sides, tendons standing out like cords. Alpha Kalem watched everything with those calculating eyes, giving nothing away. None of them spoke.
"You are not the Cerberus Alphas' mouthpiece," Marina stated, stepping forward again, her silver-streaked hair gleaming in the moonlight. "Allow them to make their own decision."
Elder Gareth's eyes narrowed. "Mind your place, Priestess. You perform the rituals. You do not interpret them."
"I speak for the goddess when I say that mate-bonds cannot be rejected without consequence," Marina replied, unflinching. "Not even by Alphas. Especially not by Alphas."
"There are exceptions to every rule," Elder Gareth countered. "This… arrangement cannot stand."
The argument continued above her, and their voices hammered through her skull like nails. She could not focus anymore as the world tilted and spun. Voices became distorted, and words melted into meaningless noise. She was aware of Seraphina watching from the edge of the circle, her beautiful face twisted with hate and shock. Of Maggie standing beside her, expression carefully blank. Of Jarek and his friends in the distance, their earlier threat now complicated by this new development.
She closed her eyes, just for a moment, just to stop the spinning.
A sudden roar, a sound that shook the very foundation of the arena, boomed through the noise, silencing the entire pack. It was Alpha Kade, and he was stalking toward her with predatory steps. His face was a mask of cold fury, and his green eyes blazed with accusation.
"Jace. Rowan," he barked.
Two wolves in the front row snapped to attention. They closed the distance between them and her in seconds and stood above her with rigid bodies, their eyes filled with a coldness that matched the Alphas'.
"Take her to Purgatory," Kade ordered, his voice deadly calm. "Silver chains at her wrist and throat. No light or company. She will wait judgment with the dead."
Her heart stopped. She knew what purgatory meant.