Kelowna's P.O.V
The healer's hall was quiet when I arrived, the door closing behind me with a low thud that echoed off the stone walls.
Dr. Esryn immediately straightened at my presence, wiping his hands on a clean cloth. "She's stable. Barely. The frostbite has eased, and we've relocated the shoulder. The bruising's deep, but there's no internal bleeding. Unfortunately surgery is going to be required in order to set some of her bones. We have to wait though, for her breathing to stabilize."
I stepped forward without a word, my boots silent against the slate. The girl lay still, bandaged and wrapped in thick linens. Her skin was pale, marred with shades of purple and red—some fading, some fresh. The side of her face was scraped, lips split, hair tangled and damp. Wires and IVs sticking out of her leading to vital machines required to keep her alive.
I stopped just at her bedside.
And stared.
She didn't look like a threat. But the scent she carried—the ragged, tangled mess of blood, river water, and rogue—carried something else beneath it. Something ancient. Familiar. And that disturbed me more than anything.
"She's young," I said flatly.
"Seventeen at most, it's a little hard to tell do to her malnourishment," Esryn confirmed. "And if you'll look here—" He gently peeled back the blanket covering her side, revealing a lattice of scars across her ribs, some healed into puckered tissue, others still open.
My jaw tightened slightly.
I didn't speak as Esryn pulled away more of the bandages, exposing brutal, deliberate wounds—marks left by leather, steel, and claws. Not just from fights. From punishment. From someone who had taken their time. Someone that took enjoyment out of marking her body.
"She was beaten over and over," the healer said quietly. "Starved. Kept like an animal. These marks span years. Whoever did this meant to break her slowly."
I said nothing for a long moment, instead I stood rather shocked. Filling with more questions by the minute.
Then: "And yet she made it through the river and onto my land."
Esryn glanced at me, brow raised. "That's no small feat. Especially in her condition."
"Which makes me wonder what she's running from," I murmured, more to myself than the healer.
I stepped closer, arms behind my back, standing over her unconscious form. Her face had relaxed slightly in sleep, but her fingers twitched—fighting even in her dreams.
My gaze lingered on her lips, her collarbone, the deep bruising along her neck like phantom hands still gripped her.
I should have felt nothing.
But I did.
Not desire. Not sympathy.
Something colder. Older.
Something I couldn't name.
I didn't like it.
I've always been in control, and now….
"She's rogue," I said, my voice hardening. "She crossed into my territory without permission. That alone is enough to have her executed."
Esryn hesitated. "You don't believe she's a threat."
"No. I think she's a question."
I turned away from the bed and nodded once toward the healer. "Chain her to the bedposts regardless of her condition. Securely. No visitors. No conversation. Not until she wakes and starts talking."
"And if she doesn't?"
My voice was low, clipped when I replied. "Then we make her."
Walking towards the door I paused with my hand on the frame, not looking back.
"Send word the moment she opens her eyes."
Then I left.
But long after I left, the room remained heavy. Filled with questions that I demanded answers for.
Third Person P.O.V
For seven days, she did not move.
Not a twitch. Not a sound.
Only the quiet rise and fall of her chest told the healers that she still lived.
No one in the pack knew her name. Didn't need to. Whispers spread regardless—of the girl dragged in from the border, half-dead and reeking of rogue stench. Of the chains at her wrists and ankles. Even unconscious, she made seasoned warriors uneasy.
The ones allowed near her said the same thing:
The air around her felt strange.
Like the calm before a storm.
Like the air before a wolf's first shift.
She never screamed in her sleep.
But every night, her body trembled.
Every night, her fingers clenched into fists.
Every night, her pulse quickened—like something beneath her skin was pacing, waiting, watching.
Dr. Esryn monitored her personally, never once unchaining her.
"She's not like the others," he told the King on the seventh night. "Her wolf is quiet, but it's there. It has to be. It's the only way I can understand her being able to survive. There, but dormant "
Kelowna said nothing.
But he had sat there every night watching, waiting. He lingered outside her chamber longer than he cared to admit. Watching the way the moonlight pooled across her bruised face. Watching the way her lips moved in her dreams, whispering names only she could hear.
Then on the eighth morning, as dawn broke over the frost-tipped evergreens, her fingers twitched again.
Then her eyes opened.
She gasped—a sharp, pained breath as if surfacing from drowning.
The light was too bright.
The air smelled wrong—so sterile and cold. Not the woods. Not the river.
Her heart pounded.
She tried to sit up—and froze.
Cold metal bit into her wrists.
Chains.
Real chains.
Silver ones.
Her arms were stretched to either side of the bed, ankles locked at the posts.
Panic flared like fire in her chest.
No. No no no no—not again.
She yanked at the restraints ignoring the sizzling burns as the silver dug into her skin. Her body was too weak. Every joint screamed in protest. Her throat was dry as dust. Her vision swam.
Footsteps echoed outside the door.
Voices.
Then silence.
Karmella's breathing grew shallow. The walls were stone. There were no windows. She didn't know where she was.
But she knew one thing with absolute certainty—
She wasn't with her father anymore.
This was somewhere new.
Somewhere worse?
Or better?
She didn't know.
But she remembered the river.
The cold.
The willow.
And the voice—deep in her dreams—whispering from beneath her skin.
Wake up.
She had.
Now she just had to survive whatever came next.