Chapter 88
Chapter 88
*Jiselle*
Darkness pulsed behind my eyelids like a second heartbeat–dull, aching, constant.
It wasn’t the peaceful kind of dark, the type that blankets you when you sleep in your own bed, safe and warm. No. This, darkness was jagged and clinging, heavy with something I couldn’t name. The first thing I registered, even before the pain, was the scent. Not blood. Not fire. Not even smoke, But earth. Damp, cold earth, as though I had been buried beneath it. Moss, metal, and something faintly herbal–like crushed sage or old ash.
I tried to move.
Agony lanced through my spine, sharp and unforgiving, and I bit back a cry. My limbs were slow, unresponsive, like they no longer belonged to me. My tongue was dry, stuck to the roof of my mouth, and when I forced my eyes open, the dim light sent a violent pulse of nausea through my gut.
Stone.
That was the first thing I saw. Not polished marble like the Academy halls. This was rough, ancient stone, the kind that remembered blood and secrets. I was lying on a slab of it–cool, solid, unyielding–and my hands… they wouldn’t move. Chains. Silver, rune–etched, wrapped tightly around my wrists. I followed the shimmer of the restraints up to the ceiling where they were bolted into iron rings.
Not just a prison.
A containment cell.
Panic tried to claw up my throat, but it was smothered by the dull weight pressing against my magic. Or rather, the void where my magic should have been. I reached inward instinctively, searching for the familiar warmth of my gift–silver light, wild energy–but it was gone. Nothing but cold silence. Like someone had poured ice water through my soul and locked all the doors.
I struggled to sit up, managing only a twitch of my fingers and a slow turn of my head. I wasn’t alone.
He stood just a few feet away, watching me with a calm that made my skin crawl.
Tall. Broad. Hair dark as ink and just long enough to fall over his brow. His features were sharp, aristocratic even, but there was nothing soft in them. His eyes–grey, storm–cloud grey–held no warmth. Just interest. Calculation. Like a man studying a weapon he was deciding whether to sheath or wield.
He didn’t move right away. Didn’t speak.
Only observed.
“You’re awake,” he said at last, his voice smooth and deep, touched with something ancient. “That’s good. I was beginning to wonder if the suppression disc had done more damage than intended.”
I flinched at the sound of it–suppression disc. The memory slammed into me like a falling boulder: the rogue, the rune pressed to my neck, the cold that had swallowed everything inside me. Nate’s face in the distance, his voice screaming my name as I was dragged into the portal-
The bond.
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t feel it anymore.
“Where am I?” I rasped, surprised I could speak at all.
He tilted his head slightly, almost curious. “Somewhere safe. For now.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” he said. “It’s not.”
He stepped forward, and the torchlight caught on the silver clasp at his shoulder. A wolf emblem–carved with runes I didn‘
t recognize. He wore leathers, dark and worn, but his bearing was anything but savage. He moved like someone who
commanded armies. Who was used to silence when he spoke. Alpha. But not like any Alpha I had ever met.
“I assume you have questions,” he said.
I forced myself to sit up despite the chains digging into my wrists and the dull, aching weight behind my eyes. “Who the hell are you?”
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth–not amused, exactly. Impressed.
“You can call me Kael.”
Kael. The name rang hollow, unfamiliar. Not Council. Not from the Academy. But the power in it resonated somewhere deeper, as if my wolf–wherever she was–recognized the echo.
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“What do you want with me?”
His eyes didn’t leave mine. “I want to show you the truth.”
I laughed then–a bitter, cracked sound. “That’s original. Should I thank you for kidnapping me?”
“I didn’t kidnap you,” he said, voice still maddeningly calm. “I saved you.”
My lips curled. “From what? The Council?”
Kael nodded once. “From them. And from yourself.”
“I don’t need saving.”
“That’s what you think now.”
Something inside me recoiled from his certainty. But a deeper part–the part that remembered how easily the Council lied, how they’d tried to collar me like a weapon–trembled..
I glared at him. “Release me.”
“No.”
I yanked against the chains, pain sparking through my wrists. “Then what the hell do you want?”
He crouched in front of me, lowering himself to eye level without a hint of threat. “I want you to understand who you are. What you are. The Council wanted to chain you. The Academy wanted to mold you. I offer something else. Truth. Power. 4 Freedom.”
“I’ve heard this speech before.”
“Not from me.”
His gaze was unblinking. “You think the bond with Nathaniel defines you? That your gift is simply light and spark? What you carry inside you is older than the Council. Older than the packs. Do you know why they branded your kind as dangerous?”
I didn’t respond.
“Because they feared you.”
A low, shuddering breath escaped me. “Why?”
“Because your power doesn’t obey.”
I searched his face, trying to decipher the truth behind his words. Manipulation? Or something else? His expression held no mockery. No obvious deceit. Only conviction.
Kael stood again, slow and deliberate. “You’ve barely scratched the surface of your gift. The Council feared what would happen if you broke free. I intend to help you do exactly that.”
“And if I don’t want your help?”
He didn’t flinch. “Then I’ll unchain you, give you your magic back, and let you go.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want obedience, Jiselle.” He leaned closer again, and for the first time, I saw the flicker of something in his eyes–something raw, almost reverent. “I want your truth. Your choice.”
The door behind him opened without warning, and a young woman with silver tattoos curling down her arms stepped inside. She looked at me once–sharp and assessing–then nodded to Kael.
“They’re ready,” she said.
Kael nodded once. “Good.”
The woman vanished.
Kael turned back to me. “Rest. We’ll begin tomorrow. You’ll need your strength.”
“For what?”
He smiled–a cold, unreadable thing. “To reclaim what they stole from you.”
And then he was gone.
Leaving me chained, powerless, and with more questions than answers.
But one truth echoed through the silence like a vow:
I had been taken. But I would not remain broken.
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