The dungeon reeked of dampness and despair. Jade sat slumped in a corner, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, her forehead resting against the cold, rough stone. The air was so thick with moisture that every breath felt like drowning. A thin sliver of moonlight bled through a barred window high above her head, casting a faint, pitiful glow that barely touched the darkness.
Her body ached from exhaustion, but it was the ache in her heart that hollowed her out the most. The floor's biting chill had seeped into her bones, numbing her limbs until she could hardly feel where her body ended and the stone began.
Time blurred into a heavy, endless stretch of suffering. Hunger gnawed at her relentlessly, a hollow pain that dulled everything else. Her throat was parched and raw. For two days, they had given her nothing. When food finally came, it was a crust of stale bread that crumbled in her trembling hands, and a tin cup of foul-smelling water she forced herself to sip.
The guards jeered as they dropped the miserable meal at her feet.
"Murderer."
"Cursed wretch."
"Should've been thrown away at birth."
Their words burrowed deep under her skin. Words hurt in ways fists never could. And Jade, already so frayed, had nothing left to shield herself with.
Left alone once more, she curled tighter into herself, feeling the crushing weight of everything she had lost. She hadn't even been allowed to say goodbye. Hadn't been permitted to see Caden's body, to weep over him, to tell him she was sorry. The pack had buried him, honored him, howled for him — without her. As if she hadn't loved him at all.
Maybe they were right.
Maybe she was cursed.
Maybe she had failed him — and everyone else — without even realizing it.
Silent sobs racked her body, each one carving new cracks into the fragile remains of her soul. In the darkness, guilt and sorrow swallowed her whole.
When the dungeon door finally creaked open again, Jade flinched instinctively. Two guards entered, their faces twisted into sneers. Without a word, they grabbed her arms and hauled her upright.
Her legs buckled uselessly beneath her as they dragged her down the long, narrow corridors.
The few pack members they passed barely spared her a glance, but she felt their disdain like needles against her skin. Whispers followed her, thick with contempt.
"She should've died with him."
"Nothing but dead weight now."
They reached the Alpha's office — a large, imposing room she once entered with pride. Now, she was flung forward like a sack of refuse, landing hard on her knees before Alpha Reid.
He didn't rise from behind his massive desk. His gaze bore down on her with chilling coldness.
"You will repay your debt to this pack," he said, voice steady, cruel. "For your crime. For your existence."
Jade tried to lift her head, to summon the words to deny it — but her throat was a dry, broken thing, and no sound came.
Reid leaned forward, his expression pitiless.
"You no longer have a place among us as one of our own," he said. "From today, you are an omega. Lowest of the low. You exist to serve."
Jade closed her eyes against the sting of humiliation, her nails digging into her palms.
"You should be grateful," he added coldly. "Others would have ended you."
Grateful.
For being stripped of everything she had ever loved. For being forced to stay in a place that hated her.
The guards yanked her to her feet again, dragging her away without another word.
Outside, the pack gathered like vultures sensing blood. She heard their laughter, felt their eyes piercing her like daggers.
"The mate of a dead wolf," someone muttered.
"A wolf without a wolf," another said. "Not even worth pity."
"Caden must be cursing her from the grave."
The words struck harder than any blow could have. Jade lowered her head, her vision blurring as shame, grief, and loneliness crushed her chest.
Tonight, the pack would howl for Caden — and Jade would be left in the shadows, a stain they couldn't wash away.
When the first mournful howls rose into the night sky, Jade curled into herself on the cold earth, silent tears trailing down her face.
She was no longer part of them.
And maybe, deep down, she deserved it.