Kaelen’s POV

The crowd moved like mud. Thick. Slow. Every body between me and that tunnel was an obstacle I wanted to tear apart.

My wolf was beyond reason. He clawed at the inside of my skull with a ferocity that blurred my vision and turned my blood to liquid fire. His voice was no longer words—just a constant, deafening roar of pure desperation.

I stopped fighting the current of bodies. I stopped shoving.

I used the Command.

"Move."

It came out low. Quiet, even. But it carried the weight of an empire behind it—the full, crushing force of an Alpha sovereign’s will pressed into a single syllable. The word sank into the air like a stone into still water, and the effect was immediate.

Every human within earshot flinched. Their eyes glazed. Their bodies shifted sideways without conscious thought, parting like tall grass before a blade. They didn’t know why they moved. They didn’t question it. They simply obeyed, some stumbling into each other, drinks spilling, confused murmurs rippling outward through the masses.

A path opened.

I crossed the distance to the pit barrier in heartbeats, vaulted the blood-spattered wooden railing, and dropped into the sand. My boots sank into the damp, rust-colored surface. The smell hit me from below—copper, sweat, vomit, the bitter stench of medicinal herbs that had long since stopped working.

She had fought here. In this filth. In this wet, stinking sand soaked with years of blood.

For years.

Something cracked inside my chest. Not anger. Not yet. Something worse. Something that felt like the ground giving way beneath me.

I crossed the pit in long strides and reached the tunnel entrance. A metal door blocked the passage—heavy, forged iron, painted with faded red lettering.

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Locked. A thick iron padlock and a deadbolt.

I didn’t slow down.

My fingers found the edge of the door where it met the frame. I dug in. The metal groaned. My wolf surged forward, lending his strength to mine—wolf and man pulling in the same direction for the first time in years. My muscles burned. My shoulders strained.

The hinges screamed.

The bolts tore free of the solid stone in a shower of dust and sparks, and the entire door came away in my hands. I dropped it behind me. It hit the ground with a sound like a cannon shot, and several spectators near the pit stumbled backward in shock.

I didn’t look at them.

The corridor beyond was narrow. Low ceiling. Sputtering oil lamps flickered overhead, half of them burned out, casting everything in a sickly, stuttering yellow light. The walls were rough, unhewn stone stained with things I didn’t want to identify. The air was thick and close and smelled of old bandages, mildew, and beneath it all—blood. Fresh blood. Her blood.

My beast tracked the scent like a hound. Every nerve in my body fired at once, pulling me forward.

The first door I hit was wooden. I put my fist through the center panel without breaking stride. The room behind it was empty—a cot, a bucket, a pile of stained rags. I pulled back, knuckles split and bleeding, and kept moving.

Second door. Locked.

I drove my shoulder into it. The frame splintered. Inside—another empty room. Stone floor. A drain in the center.

I was breathing hard now, but not from exertion. From the thing building inside me that had no name—too big for rage, too raw for grief, too violent for love.

Third door. This one was reinforced. Metal frame set into the stone wall, a bolt lock on the outside.

I grabbed the frame with both hands and pulled. The stone cracked around the anchor points. Mortar dust rained from the ceiling. I pulled again, and the entire section of wall—frame, lock, wooden support beams, and all—came free in a grinding avalanche of debris.

My hands were shredded. Blood ran freely from my knuckles, dripping onto the dusty floor. I didn’t feel it.

The corridor turned. The blood-scent grew thicker. Heavier. So concentrated now that my wolf whimpered inside me—a sound I had never heard from him before.

She’s close. She’s close. Hurry. HURRY.

One more door. At the end of the corridor. Cheap, rotting wood with a rusted handle. Light leaked from beneath it—dim, yellowish.

I kicked it in.

The door exploded inward off its hinges and slammed against the far wall.

Two people.

Her—on the floor. Crumpled. Motionless. A heap of silver hair and bloodied fighting wraps and limbs that looked too thin, too fragile, too wrong.

And him—an older man, kneeling beside her. Gray hair. Weathered face. Large, rough hands. One of those hands rested on her shoulder.

Touching her.

Everything went red.

I crossed the room before the man could draw a single breath. My hand closed around his throat, and I lifted him off the ground and drove him backward into the wall. The rough stone cracked behind his skull. His feet dangled. His eyes bulged—white-rimmed, veined, absolutely terrified.

My claws had extended. I felt them puncture the skin of his neck, felt the wet heat of blood seeping between my fingers.

"Who are you," I said. My voice didn’t sound like mine. It sounded like gravel dragged across bone.

He choked. Gasped. His hands clawed uselessly at my wrist—human nails scraping against skin that might as well have been iron.

"I—I’m—her—" His face was turning purple. Spit flecked his lips. "—her manager—"

"You were touching her."

"Ch-checking—her injuries—you’re—insane—you’re completely—mad—"

His words dissolved into wet, strangled sounds. My claws dug deeper. Another fraction of an inch and I’d open his carotid. The beast wanted it. My wolf demanded it. Every territorial instinct screaming at me to eliminate the threat, destroy anyone who had been near her, anyone who had let this happen to my mate—

But she was behind me. On the floor. Bleeding.

I dropped him.

He fell like a sack of rubble—hit the ground hard, rolled onto his side, and curled inward with both hands pressed to his bleeding neck. Gasping. Coughing. Alive. Barely.

I turned.

And the rage left me.

All of it. Every shred. Drained out through the bottom of my chest and left behind something so enormous and so hollow that I swayed on my feet.

She lay on her side, one arm bent beneath her at an angle that made my stomach lurch. Her face—

Her face.

Both eyes were swollen shut. The skin around them had turned the color of rotting plums—deep, angry purple fading to black at the edges. Her lower lip was split clean through, crusted with dried blood. Above her left eyebrow, a gash still seeped—slow, thick, dark red. Her nose was wrong. The bridge sat crooked, clearly broken, the surrounding tissue bloated and discolored.

I dropped to my knees beside her.

My hands hovered above her body, shaking. Afraid to touch. Afraid of what I’d find.

I looked anyway.

Her collarbone jutted sharp beneath papery skin. Her arms—once lean but strong—were wasted down to sinew and bone. And the bruises. Dozens of them. Scattered across her shoulders, her forearms, her ribs. Some had faded to a sick, jaundiced yellow. Others were fresh—vivid red, still swelling. Old wounds layered beneath new ones. A map of pain drawn across every inch of visible skin.

She was so thin. So impossibly, horrifyingly thin. The fighting wraps hung loose on her frame where they should have been taut. My mate. Broken and bleeding on the cold floor.

"Ela." 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

My voice broke on the name.

She didn’t respond. Didn’t stir. Her breathing was shallow, uneven, each inhale accompanied by a faint, wet rattle that told me something was wrong inside.

I slid one arm beneath her shoulders. The other under her knees. When I lifted her, the weight—or the absence of it—nearly destroyed me. She weighed nothing. She felt like holding a bundle of dry sticks wrapped in cloth and blood.

I pulled her against my chest. Gently. So gently. As though she might shatter at any pressure.

Behind me, the manager coughed and dragged himself toward the corner, still clutching his throat. I didn’t look at him. He no longer existed.

Nothing existed except the broken woman in my arms and the unbearable, crushing weight of every day I hadn’t been here.

Her head slumped against my shoulder. Blood smeared across my shirt. "I’ve got you now," I whispered into her hair.