~~JOANA~~
~~THE SHADOW PACK~~
The dungeon reeked.
Its walls glistened with slick moisture that never dried, stinking of stale blood. Torchlight barely reached this deep, leaving my cell pitch-black, but my eyes had long adjusted to the dark. Rats skittered through muddy puddles. Every breath I took tasted of rot and my own filthy skin.
My wolf cowered in the back of my mind. She whimpered, growing weaker by the hour as the silver chains bled her dry until she was just a fading echo.
I hated it. I hated him.
"Conor Mortain," I hissed into the dark. My voice was raw from days of screaming curses at dead air. "You backstabbing bastard. I hope your brother rips your throat out."
I had been so close. So damn close.
For a few golden weeks, I wore the Heiress title. I slept on silk sheets and watched lethal warriors bow at my feet. I tasted real, raw power—and it was mine.
Until Anika. That worthless rat.
Even now, starved and filthy, the thought of her warming the Shadow throne made my skin crawl. She didn't deserve it. She never did. While I hustled and risked everything to claim what was rightfully mine, Anika just breathed and somehow stole the whole pot.
I prayed Conor pulled it off. I hoped he slit her throat and let her bleed out. If he had, maybe—just maybe—I could forgive the bastard in death. At least then the universe would have fixed its screw-up.
Heavy footsteps echoed down the hall.
I turned to the wall, pressing my cheek against the slick stone. I didn't want to see their smug faces or hear their cruel laughter. The guards got a sick kick out of rubbing my nose in what I'd lost.
"Fake Heiress." "Fraud." "Dumb whore playing dress-up."
The footsteps stopped outside my bars. Silence dragged out. Then a smooth voice sliced through the dark.
"Joana."
My stomach dropped. My blood ran cold.
That voice. I knew that voice. No. Hell no.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I turned my head. The torchlight threw harsh shadows across her face, but there was no mistaking her.
Anika Valerion.
She stood beyond the bars: clean, regal, draped in rich velvet that screamed pure power. The silver crest of the Shadow Pack gleamed on her shoulder like it belonged there all along.
Shock hit me so hard my vision blurred. Humiliation rode its coattails, burning up my neck and torching my cheeks. I was filthy. Chained. Broken. And she... she looked like a walking legend.
"You," I choked out, the word cracking in my parched throat.
Anika tilted her head, studying me with those hazel eyes. There was no triumph in her gaze. No smug smile. Just a cool watchfulness that stung worse than a slap to the face.
"You're alive," I rasped.
The tiny hope I clung to—that Conor had finished the job—crumbled to dust. Of course he hadn't. Of course the lucky Null survived and climbed to the top while I rotted in this hellhole.
Anika stepped closer to the bars. The torchlight caught the tight braids in her hair and the faint glow of power radiating from her skin. She looked nothing like the scared girl I tormented for years.
She looked reborn.
"I came to see you," she said. "Before we call the shots on your final fate."
I let out a harsh laugh. "My fate? You came to rub it in. Look at you. Playing dress-up in a crown that belongs to me! Eating up the luxury that should've been mine."
Anika's face didn't twitch. She just watched me, stone-cold, and that calm strength boiled my blood hotter than any insult.
"You had it all! You had Lord Xander!" I spat, straining against the heavy chains until my wrists bled raw. "And you still snatched what was mine. You don't deserve shit. You're just a lucky Null."
"I didn't come here to pick a fight, Joana," she replied smoothly. "I came to figure this out. Why? You swiped my locket at the cottage. I know it. You clocked my identity before I even had a clue. You hijacked my birthright. What drove you to do it?"
The question hung heavy in the air.
I glared at her, blind hatred bubbling up my throat. "Isn't it obvious? I fucking despise you, Anika."
I hoped she'd turn tail and run. She didn't. Instead, she sized me up before dropping her next bomb.
"And Conor? Why did he try to kill me?"
I shrugged, playing dumb. "How the hell should I know?"
Her brows pulled together. "It's dead obvious you two were in bed together. He marched my pack's warriors straight into Eclipse territory. He never would've known I was the real deal if you hadn't tipped him off."
"Really?"
My lips twitched. A sick smile crept across my face before I could bite it back, fueled by days of starving rage and the dark irony of it all. Oh, sweet Anika. You still don't get it.
Memories flashed behind my eyes. That night in my bedroom, when the masked killer slipped through my window with poisoned arrows. The way Conor pressed the lethal tip right against my throbbing pulse, whispering about finishing the job he started eighteen years ago. The massacre. The bloodbath that wiped out the Shadow Pack's royal bloodline. How he laughed when I spilled my guts and confessed I was a fake. How his eyes lit up with sick delight when I handed him her name.
He pulled all the strings. The monster hiding in plain sight.
But I kept my mouth shut. Not yet.
I needed a bargaining chip. Intel like this wasn't a freebie; it was hard cash. And in this dank hole, cash was the only thing that could buy back my life.
I leaned forward as far as the heavy chains allowed, the cold metal clinking against the rock. My smile stretched wide and ugly.
"What's in it for me," I rasped, my throat raw, "if I spill everything I know about dear Conor? If I tell you exactly why he's so dead-set on sending you to the Moon Goddess?"
"What do you want, Joana?"
I wanted silk rubbing against my bare skin. I wanted power. I wanted to watch her tumble off the throne I almost sat my ass on.
I held her gaze without blinking.
"My freedom," I said flatly. "Strike these chains. Get me out of this hellhole. Let me walk, and I'll sing like a canary."