Eleanore Avery POV:
I woke to the damp chill of stone.
My head throbbed, a dull, heavy ache behind my eyes. This wasn't my chamber in the palace. There was no soft mattress, no silk sheets. Just a rough, hard cot and the smell of mildew and despair.
I sat up abruptly, the image of Bertram's dying eyes flashing in my mind. The memory was a physical blow, making my chest tighten until I could barely breathe.
A strange emptiness coiled in my lower belly. I pressed a hand there, a sense of loss so profound it felt like a part of me had been carved out.
The heavy stone door scraped open, flooding the small cell with dim torchlight.
Kade stood there, silhouetted in the doorway. The tender warmth he had always shown me was gone, replaced by a cold, mocking sneer.
"You're awake," he said, his voice dripping with contempt. "My foolish little Omega."
I scrambled off the cot, my legs unsteady. "Kade? We did it? Where are my father and our people? You promised you would protect them!"
A harsh, ugly laugh escaped his lips. "The Avery pack? They will soon go to hell with their foolish daughter."
The words hit me like a physical slap. Ice spread through my veins. "What... what are you talking about?"
He crossed the cell in three long strides, his fingers clamping onto my jaw. The pressure was immense, grinding my bones together. I whimpered in pain.
"I'm talking about you, Eleanore," he hissed, his face inches from mine. "You were a tool. A means to an end. And now, your use is over."
He shoved me away. I stumbled backward, my legs giving out, and collapsed onto the cold stone floor.
Tears streamed down my face, hot and useless. "Why?" I choked out. "I loved you. I did everything for you!"
"Love?" He threw his head back and laughed, a sound utterly devoid of humor. "A wolfless Omega presumes to speak of love? Your only value was your proximity to Bertram."
He crouched down, his voice dropping to a malicious whisper beside my ear. "Do you know why he didn't have his guards posted? Why he let you get so close with that poisoned wine?"
My body trembled uncontrollably. I didn't want to know.
"Because he loved you," Kade breathed the words like a curse. "He loved you so much, the pathetic fool, that he would have willingly drunk fire from your hands."
The last of my denial shattered. Bertram's soul-deep weariness. The chilling resolve in his eyes as he took the glass. The way he held my gaze as he drank without hesitation. It was all true.
A wave of nausea washed over me.
Kade watched my breakdown with a look of detached amusement. "Oh, and I almost forgot the most interesting part."
His gaze flickered down to my stomach. "You were carrying a child in there."
My breath hitched. My hand flew to my belly, to the source of that hollow ache.
"My... child?" The words were a fragile, broken whisper.
"Yes. A little bastard that should never have existed." His smile was a predatory slash in the dim light.
A desperate, insane flicker of hope ignited in the darkness of my despair. "Our child? Kade, please, for the sake of our child..."
He cut me off with another bark of laughter, so cruel it made me recoil. "Ours? Eleanore, you are truly a simpleton. Did you really think I would ever touch a wolfless creature like you?"
He leaned in close, his voice a venomous stinger in my ear.
"That child was Bertram's."
The world tilted on its axis. The stone walls of the cell seemed to spin around me.
"It was his heir," Kade continued, savoring every word. "The product of that night you drank too much at the winter feast. A little bit of sedative in your wine, a carefully arranged encounter. It was so easy."
The fragmented memories surfaced. Waking up in my own bed, feeling sore and confused. Kade's soothing voice, telling me I'd just had too much to drink.
The truth was a slow, methodical execution.
I hadn't just killed the man who loved me.
I had killed our child.
A scream tore from my throat, raw and animalistic, a sound of a soul being ripped in two. It echoed off the cold stone, a testament to my absolute and utter ruin.
Kade watched me, a satisfied smirk on his face. He had broken me.
He turned and walked out, the heavy door booming shut, plunging me back into darkness. A darkness filled with nothing but the ghosts of my monumental, unforgivable sins.
Eleanore Avery POV:
I was a hollow thing, a doll with its stuffing pulled out.
Two guards dragged me from the cell, their grips bruising on my arms. The sudden sunlight was a physical assault, forcing my eyes shut. I didn't feel the sharp stones cutting my bare feet as they hauled me along a desolate path. The pain in my soul had consumed everything else.
They brought me to a cliff's edge. The wind was cold and sharp, whipping my thin prisoner's shift against my legs.
Kade was there, waiting. And nestled against his side was a petite, familiar figure.
My stepsister. Dayse Avery.
She was dressed in a beautiful gown of emerald green, a stark contrast to my rags. A sweet, vicious smile played on her lips-a smile I had never seen before.
"Hello, sister." Dayse's voice was as soft as silk, and just as cloying. "You look pathetic."
My numb mind struggled to process it. "Dayse... you too?"
She giggled, a light, tinkling sound that grated on my raw nerves, and tightened her arm around Kade's. "Betrayal? I'm simply taking what should have been mine all along. Why should a foundling, a stray picked up from the dirt, have everything?"
The confession spilled from her lips, coated in years of hidden resentment. It was she who had suggested using me to Kade. It was she who had been secretly lacing my food with herbs for years, suppressing my aura, ensuring I would present as a weak, wolfless Omega.
The last bit of warmth in my heart turned to ice. The architect of my weakness, the source of my shame, had been the girl I called my sister.
Kade cut her off with an impatient wave. "Enough chatter. The Avery pack has been cleansed. It's time to send her on her way."
"Cleansed?" The word jolted me from my stupor. I looked up, my eyes burning. "What did you do to my family?"
Dayse's smile widened with sadistic glee. She described the slaughter in vivid detail, her words painting a picture of blood and fire, of my parents' last moments.
A roaring filled my ears, and the world went white. My family. My pack. Gone.
I stopped screaming. I stopped struggling.
My eyes were empty, void of all feeling. Then, something new and terrifyingly dark began to burn in their depths.
I started to laugh. A high, unhinged sound that made the guards flinch.
"Kade Alexander. Dayse Avery." I spoke their names, each syllable a drop of venom, using the last of my life's breath.
"I, Eleanore Avery, swear by my soul and my blood. I beg the Moon Goddess for a second chance..."
My voice rose, a curse echoing in the wind.
"I will become a ghost that clings to your fate! I will watch you lose everything, be betrayed by everyone, and fall into the dirt! You will suffer a thousand times the agony you have given me today!"
Kade's face paled. He ripped a sword from a guard's scabbard and lunged.
The blade pierced my heart.
As my consciousness faded, a cool, silvery light enveloped me. A voice, ancient and compassionate, yet cold as the void between stars, resonated in the core of my soul.
I grant it.
