Chapter Seven: I Had No Name, Yet I Lived
Rowena's POV
Time lost its meaning.
I didn't know how long I had been conscious in this grave-cold hollow. There was no day or night—only darkness draped over me like a heavy shroud, and silence that sometimes roared so loudly I thought it would drive me mad. The cold of the stone seeped into my bones, as if my body were slowly becoming part of the crypt itself. The scent of marble mixed with dust and the memory of old death; every breath reminded me where I was.
I was alone.
Not the kind of loneliness felt in an empty room, but the kind a soul endures when every anchor has been stripped away. My thoughts circled endlessly, returning to the same place again and again, as though there were no exit.
Only Selene's voice remained constant.
Breathe, Rowena. You're still alive. That matters.
The pain was dull, like an endless tide. Sometimes it surged, as if determined to break me; other times it receded, but it never fully disappeared. My body suffered—but my soul hurt more. The knowledge that all of this had been done by the one person in whom, even for a single heartbeat, I had dared to place hope.
The darkness broke on a full-moon night.
The crypt door creaked open, the hinges groaning as the sound trembled through the walls. At first, light sliced the darkness like a thin blade—then Derek stepped into view. He stood tall, his shadow stretching grotesquely across the stone, as though darkness itself followed him. He held something behind his back, though I couldn't yet see what.
He lit a single candle.
The flame shuddered, as if afraid of what it revealed. Derek's face looked calmer than before. The rage no longer burned openly—but in his eyes there was something cold and sharp… disgust. Not the violent kind, but the final kind. The kind that erases.
"Rowena," he said at last.
My name sounded foreign on his tongue, as if it didn't belong to me anymore.
"I looked into your past," he continued clinically. "I wanted to know what made you special. What it was that—" He paused, then shrugged. "I found nothing."
I didn't answer. There was nothing to say.
"Your father was a gamma. A servant. An outsider." He stepped closer. "And do you know the most interesting part?"
The candlelight glinted in his eyes.
"He never even registered you under his own name."
My throat tightened.
"Do you know what that means?" he asked softly.
I already did.
"It means you're a bastard," he said coldly. "Unwanted."
The word struck deeper than any blade.
Silence followed. Then, almost casually, he asked:
"What's your family name?"
My mouth was dry, but I forced the word out.
"Smith."
He screamed.
"You're lying!"
Pain exploded in my leg. I didn't even have time to cry out—only to gasp as my body convulsed. I looked down and saw blood darkening my clothes.
That's when I saw what he had been holding.
The ends of the whip gleamed with metal barbs in the candlelight.
Selene's voice was tense, but clear.
Do not reject him. If you do, we are lost.
And I understood. There was no guarantee he would let me live if I rejected him. But if I did… I might not survive as myself.
I didn't scream.
I didn't beg.
When the pain came again and again, I closed my eyes and waited for it to end. My body shook, but my voice remained silent. I gave him nothing. Not because I was brave—but because there was nothing left in me for him to take.
Eventually, he left in anger.
As soon as the door slammed shut, Selene went to work. I felt the pain dull, my body slowly repairing itself. The wounds faded—but the hollow inside me remained untouched.
I can't heal that for you, she said softly. But you will survive.
And Derek returned.
Again and again.
Different methods. Different tools. Different words. But the same result. He never got submission. He never got tears. Only silence. My quiet became a wall between us—and the harder he tried to break it, the thicker it grew.
Then one day, it wasn't night.
The crypt door opened in the afternoon.
Not with creeping darkness, but with sudden, blinding light. Sunlight burned my eyes; I flinched instinctively, as if caught in the act of existing. For a moment, I thought it was him again. My body tensed, my soul recoiled.
But it wasn't Derek.
It was Emily.
She held a bouquet of flowers—fresh, living colors, violently bright in this space that smelled of death. White petals, pale pink hues, carefully arranged. Too beautiful. Too whole. She stepped inside as if entering a garden gate, light and careless. She didn't look at me. Didn't search for my eyes. Didn't even register that I was there.
As if I didn't exist.
She placed the flowers on the stone by the wall, grimacing as she glanced around, clearly displeased by the place. Her gaze slid over me—but didn't stop. She didn't recognize me. Or worse—she did, and didn't consider me worth acknowledging.
Once, we had laughed together.
Once, she had said my name.
Now I was just a stain in her periphery. Something unpleasant, better ignored.
A sharp, silent pain flared in my chest—not physical. That part of me was long past its limits. This came from deeper. From the place where the memory still lived that I had once mattered to her.
Emily finally spoke—but not to me.
As if she were alone.
And then I truly understood: it didn't take more blows, more words, more threats. Sometimes it was enough for someone to act as if you had never existed.
That hurt the most.
Emily finally looked at me.
Not with surprise.
Not with anger.
Not even with hatred.
Empty.
Her gaze skimmed over me like an object left in the wrong place. It paused on my filthy clothes, the faint bloodstains, my body pressed to the stone—then moved on. As if none of it deserved even a single thought.
"Seriously…" she sighed, more annoyed than shocked. "Do I really have to clean this up too?"
Her words weren't loud.
They weren't sharp.
That was why they hurt so deeply.
She used to call me by name.
Now she didn't even see me.
"I always knew you didn't belong here," she added indifferently, adjusting the flowers. "I just don't understand why you dragged it out this long."
She didn't wait for an answer. She wasn't expecting one.
In that moment, I understood that to her, I was no longer past, no longer present—not even an enemy.
Just something to be thrown away.
"Get out," she tossed over her shoulder. "Out of the crypt. Out of the pack. And never come back."
The door was left open.
For the first time, Selene's voice trembled.
Now. Go. Now.
I gathered what little strength I had left. I stood. Every step hurt, but I didn't stop. When I reached the forest—the thick, muddy edge—I finally let go.
The shift was freedom.
Selene dirtied my coat, stripped away every trace of white, hid me. We slipped past the border guards as if we had never existed at all.
I'll protect you, she promised. I'll take you far from here.
As the distance grew, my chest slowly eased. The bond dulled. The pain didn't vanish—but it no longer ruled me.
And for the first time…
I wasn't afraid.