Fia drifted somewhere between waking and darkness, trapped in a world of nightmares that refused to end.
The stench of blood and sweat choked the air.
Somewhere close, too close, a man screamed—a sound so raw and broken it didn’t sound human.
Bones cracked, loud and wet, followed by a guttural snarl that vibrated through the stone floor beneath her. Another roar shattered the heavy silence, fierce and animalistic, rattling the iron bars around them.
Fia’s fingers twitched uselessly against cold, uneven stone. She tried to lift her head, but it felt weighed down by chains she couldn’t see.
The air was thick with magic. With agony. With something wrong.
Through the dizzying fog in her brain, she became aware of other sounds—low growls, the sharp clang of bodies throwing themselves against metal cages. The shriek of nails scraping against iron.
And one sound, above all the others, gutted her:
Emiliano’s voice, low and strangled, torn from his throat as if he were being ripped apart.
Pain.
His pain.
It wasn’t logical, but Fia felt it as if it were her own—the searing, burning sensation under her ribs that made her heart stutter and her body twitch in protest. She needed to get to him. She needed to—
Her eyes fluttered open.
The world around her was straight out of a horror movie...
The cellar was massive, carved deep beneath the manor like a crypt. Stone walls dripped with condensation. Old, rusted pipes ran overhead, leaking rhythmic drops of water that echoed like ticking clocks. The entire space smelled of damp earth, old blood, and fear.
Lining the walls were cages—huge, reinforced with silver-threaded iron bars thick enough to hold even the strongest monsters. In the flickering torchlight, she could see them—men—or what were once men—writhing, convulsing, changing. Their limbs stretched unnaturally, their bones snapping and reforming in grotesque bursts of violence.
They weren't alone.
She could see Luca, chained by heavy iron cuffs bolted into the stone wall, snarling through half-shifted fangs.
His eyes burned gold.
And Emiliano—
Fia's heart cracked at the sight of him.
He was thrashing against the chains binding him to the floor, muscles straining, veins bulging, body jerking violently with every wave of transformation. Blood smeared his mouth where he'd bitten through his own lip to keep from screaming again.
His body was almost completely covered in fur; where his two human feet once were now stood hairy hind paws, the claws protruding through the shredded bits of Italian leather that were once his shoes.
The sound of his ribs breaking accompanied by his screams of agony were enough to make her turn away. She had to do something, every sound he made ripped through Fia like a knife.
With a broken groan, Fia rolled to her side and forced herself to move. She wasn't chained, she realized dimly—only left weak and trembling, her muscles jelly beneath her skin. Emiliano must have put her on this slab of stone to keep her off the floor.
Gritting her teeth, she slid off the slab. The ground rushed up to meet her, the stone icy against her bare arms and legs. The impact jarred her body, stealing her breath for a moment.
"Move," she whispered fiercely to herself. "Move, damn it."
Her legs refused her.
Dead weight.
She clawed at the floor with her hands instead, dragging herself inch by inch across the damp stone, ignoring the rough scrapes tearing into her palms.
A sound escaped Fia’s throat—half sob, half scream—and she clawed herself closer.
Every inch felt like a mile.
Every breath scraped her lungs raw.
The roaring in her ears drowned everything until all she could hear was Emiliano’s agony—loud, sharp, unbearable.
She had to reach him.
She had to.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Mia curled in a corner, rocking back and forth, sobbing uncontrollably. Her screams pierced the heavy, suffocating atmosphere. She was so terrified she didn’t seem to register anything else—not the shifting wolves, not the bloody bodies convulsing nearby, not even Fia’s desperate cries.
“Mia!” Fia rasped, her throat raw, her voice barely rising above a whisper.
“Mia, it’s me! It’s Fia! You have to calm down!”
But Mia didn't hear her. She just screamed and screamed, clawing at her own skin as if trying to peel herself free from this horror.
Another thunderous slam shook the cages as one of the shifting Lycans hurled himself at the bars, sending dust raining down from the ceiling. The floor trembled under the force.
Fia tried again to shout over the chaos.
“Mia, listen to me! Look at me! You’re okay! You’re safe!”
Nothing.
Another roar shook the cellar, louder this time, vibrating through the stone, the iron, her very bones.
Something deep inside Fia snapped.
The world sharpened around her—the smells, the sounds, the metallic taste of magic on her tongue. She could feel everything. The pulse of the earth under her body. The thick, choking terror filling the room. The blood pounding behind Emiliano’s ribcage. The fire building in her own blood, furious and wild.
Another thunderous slam shook the cages as a Lycan hurled himself against the bars. Dust rained down. Metal groaned.
The chaos battered Fia from all sides—snarls, growls, cries of pain.
The scent of blood was so strong it coated her tongue.
Her body screamed at her to stop, to give up, but she couldn’t.
She wouldn’t.
She dragged herself another foot forward, nails tearing, arms trembling violently.
The snapping of bone, the roars of beasts, the howls of the dying filled the cellar. It was like hell had ripped open right here beneath the manor.
Fia’s heart pounded, and some deep, ancient part of her—something wild and furious and new—responded.
"SHUT THE HELL UP!" Fia roared, her voice a thunderclap that echoed off the stone walls.
Silence crashed over the room.
For a single, shuddering moment, the Lycans froze mid-snarl, their burning eyes locking onto her. Even Mia’s screams cut off, replaced by stunned, hitching breaths.
Gritting her teeth, she crawled the last few feet toward Mia, her body barely responding, and slumped against the bars separating them.
“Mia,” she rasped. “Listen to me. You have to hear me.”
She told her everything.
About Viktor. About the monsters—no, the men—caged in this underground tomb.
About Emiliano.
Mia didn’t respond, only whimpered softly. But she was listening now, and that was enough.
Fia kept talking, using the sound of her own voice to keep herself sane as the hours bled into each other.
As the growls and shifting sounds faded into exhausted whimpers.
As her own body trembled with the effort of simply breathing.
And all the while, she never stopped listening—
For the moment Emiliano would call to her again.
For the moment she could finally get to him.
For the moment she could be what he needed her to be.
Exhausted, Fia slowly drifted off to sleep, her head safely cradled in Mia's lap as she absentmindedly stroked Fia's hair. Fia embraced the darkness as she drifted peacefully...