The door slammed open. Two guards stormed into her quarters without warning.

  Nova jolted surprised, a scream escaping her before she could stop it.

  Elle bolted upright, eyes wide, hair tangled. "What are you doing?" She scrambled across the blankets toward them. "She hasn't done anything! She's been here all night. Let her go!"

  The guards didn't even spare her a look. They dragged Nova backward, rough and unyielding, as if she were a criminal rather than an omega girl barely awake.

  "Elle—" Nova gasped, breath shaking, but the grip on her arms tightened until her fingers went numb.

  "On what charges?" Elle snapped, furious now. "Answer me! You cannot haul her off without cause. What is this?"

  The guards remained silent.

  Silent and merciless.

  They pulled Nova into the hall, the torches guttering in weak drafts.

  No one was awake to see, no advisors, no warriors, no servants. Just the echo of boots and Nova's stumbling breaths as they forced her down the empty corridors toward the lower keep.

  Elle's voice rang out behind them, frantic and breaking. "She didn't do anything!"

  But the guards didn't stop.

  They never even looked back.

  They took her to the dungeons. Down to the lowest level, with no windows. Nova blinked stunned. She tried to recall if she had done something.

  The castle dungeons yawned before her—dark, silent, abandoned. She had always been told these cells were never used. Shadowclaw kept its criminals in the external prisons, far from the royal keep.

  She stumbled as they dragged her down steps, the cold biting through her thin training suit. Her breath fogged in the air, her pulse a frantic drum in her ears.

  "Please, can you tell me why I am here?" Her voice trembled despite her effort to steady it.

  They didn't answer. One guard shoved her to her knees. The other left. A moment later he returned with protective gloves and silver cuffs.

  Nova's heart stopped.

  The metal clamped around her wrists with a harsh click, and the burn ignited instantly. It seared into her skin, crawling up her arms like poured fire. She gasped, the pain ripping the air from her throat. She knew this pain. She was all too familiar with it. Ashbane's favourite method of obedience.

  She swayed, breath thin. "Please... I don't understand."

  The closer guard kneed her and struck her across the face. Hard.

  Her head whipped to the side, her cheek exploding with heat, her vision fracturing. She hit the stone floor with her shoulder, pain ricocheting through her too-thin body.

  Her ribs ached. Her jaw throbbed. Her wrists sizzled beneath the silver.

  Nova's thoughts blurred, sharp edges dissolving into a haze of fear and pain. The cold stone pressed against her skin.

  The world tilted—once, twice—and then slipped away from her entirely as darkness dragged her under.

  Nova woke, unsure how much time had passed. Hours? A full day? Her head throbbed with the familiar, sickening fog that always came with silver. In Ashbane, when they cuffed her like this, she would lose time—sometimes whole days. She swallowed hard, refusing to let the memory claw its way to the surface.

  Her wrists burned. Her mouth felt dry. Her stomach twisted.

  Footsteps approached.

  The same guard who had cuffed her stepped into the cell, torchlight casting his silhouette against the wall. Nova pushed herself up with trembling arms.

  "Please... sir," she said, voice cracking. "Can you tell me what I did?"

  He didn't hesitate. His tone was cold, almost bored. "You assaulted a member of the Shadowclaw Royal Family. That is the charge."

  Nova blinked, confusion slicing through the haze. "There must be some mistake, I didn't—"

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  He struck her before she even finished speaking.

  The back of his hand cracked across her cheek, sharp and merciless. Her head snapped sideways and pain burst along her jaw. She hit the ground on her knees, breath knocked from her lungs.

  "That is what you get for assaulting and stealing from our future Luna." He punctuated the words with a kick to her ribs, sending her staggering against the stone wall.

  She stared at him, stunned and breathless, her mind scrambling to make sense of his accusation. Meredith? Assaulted Meredith? Stolen? The thought was so absurd she nearly laughed—if she'd had the strength.

  Should she try to explain again? Or was that just plain stupid?

  He stared back at her, eyes narrowing. Without hesitation, he struck her again.

  The blow was harder. Brutal. Her vision burst white. Her knees buckled.

  She fell forward, her cheek smacking the cold stone floor, her breath leaving her in a sharp, helpless gasp.

  The silver bit deeper into her skin and all she could do was endure.

  His footsteps faded down the corridor, swallowed by the stone.

  Silence pressed in around her.

  And in that silence, Ashbane memories clawed back into her mind.

  The silver cuffs biting into her skin.

  The taste of blood in her mouth.

  The cold stone under her cheek.

  The feeling of being alone, forgotten, punished for things she never did.

  A memory snapped forward—Ashbane's guards dragging her by her wrists, silver burning deep, her body too weak to fight. A boot in her ribs. The sound of the tower door slamming. The same emptiness. The same helpless, breathless terror.

  Panic flared inside her so violently she almost choked on it.

  Her chest tightened. Her lungs refused to expand. Her pulse hammered, too fast, too loud, drowning out thought. She tried to inhale, but the air caught sharp and thin, like her throat had closed.

  Her breaths came quick, shallow, useless.

  She had never hyperventilated before. It didn't fully register that was what she was doing. She just knew she couldn't breathe—couldn't get air—couldn't steady herself. The stone floor seemed to tilt beneath her. Her vision swam as the panic strangled her from the inside.

  Her fingers curled against the ground.

  Her shoulders shook.

  The burn of the silver spread like fire through her veins.

  Her body remembered Ashbane far too well and it betrayed her completely.

  She started seeing spots and somewhere lost consciousness.

  ???

  Fin and Jax had returned to Shadowclaw after two days. Both had rested just enough to be functional, and were now back in the war room preparing to debrief. Maps were unrolled. Reports waited. The air still smelled of cold wind from their journey home.

  Fin's breath caught sharply.

  His hand went to his chest. Pain. But also something far worse. Xeon stirred violently, a low whine echoing through Fin's mind, raw and distressed.

  Fin frowned, trying to make sense of it. His wolf never reacted like this unless—Nova.

  The realization hit him so hard his jaw locked.

  Something was wrong with Nova.

  At the exact same moment, Jax's hand flew to his own chest. He inhaled sharply, staggering a half-step back from the table as the sensation slammed through him. For a heartbeat, he couldn't breathe. He didn't know what the hell it was—only that every instinct he possessed sharpened into something feral.

  Neither of them noticed the other.

  And then, the pain stopped, like a door slamming shut.

  Fin straightened slowly, alarm bells ringing in his skull. Where did it go? Why had it vanished? And why, in the next breath, could he feel... nothing? A hollow silence where that spark of recognition should have been.

  Before he could speak, a mindlink tore through both his and Jax's thoughts.

  Professor Draven: Alpha, Gamma—you are back. Are you aware Moonveil has been missing for two days?

  Jax: What?! What do you mean missing?

  Draven: Her roommate believes she was arrested. I have only just learned of it this morning.

  The war room doors slammed open and Aeron stormed in, fury radiating from him like heat.

  "The princess had Nova thrown into the dungeon. Our guards will not allow me to access her. I can just make a portal to where she is, those blubbering idiots."

  "What?!" Fin and Jax shouted in unison.

  "Since when," Aeron hissed, "does Meredith Ashbane get to override my authority? She isn't even part of this pack. She is a visiting political inconvenience with an inflated sense of self-importance."

  Fin's voice dropped into that low, carved-steel register that meant someone was going to regret breathing.

  "She's not," he said flatly. "And no — I was not aware of this."

  Jax's chair hit the floor behind him as he shot to his feet, already moving toward the door.

  "Is she still there?" he snarled through gritted teeth, his eyes flashing gold.

  "Yes," Aeron said, fury vibrating in every word. "They are claiming she assaulted and stole from Meredith. I have been working with her every day. That is not her nature. It would take two minutes of speaking with her to know that. She barely raises her voice, let alone her hand."

  Aeron's jaw clenched. "And she would never risk anything that could send her back to Ashbane. She would die first." His fists shook. "None of this is true."

  He spoke like a man who had rehearsed every argument, every defense, every justification on the way here—ready to go to war for her if he had to.

  He didn't need to say more.

  Jax was gone before Fin could form a command. He bolted out of the war room, boots pounding down the corridor. He ran for the dungeons like he was hunting death itself.

  "Where is she?" Jax demanded.

  "This way, Gamma." He led Jax down the final stairwell into the deepest part of the dungeon. There were plenty of empty cells on the upper levels, plenty of space, but they hadn't put Nova in any of them.

  No. They had thrown her onto the lowest level with no windows.

  Jax's pulse hammered as he rounded the corner.

  To his horror, she was passed out on the stone floor, her face bruised, dried blood staining her lip and cheek. Her wrists were twisted unnaturally in front of her, and then he saw why. She was cuffed.

  "Open it," Jax said through gritted teeth.

  The guard fumbled through the keys, hands shaking so hard the metal clattered against the lock. The moment the door swung open, Jax rushed in.

  He dropped to his knees, scooping her up with a gentleness at odds with the fury roaring through him. Her head fell limply against his shoulder.

  But when the cuffs brushed his skin, pain flared. His stomach turned to ice. These weren't standard cuffs. These were silver.

  His voice was a growl. "Why is she in silver cuffs?"

  "On the order of our future Luna," the guard answered cautiously.