She had traded one kind of cruelty for another. The faces had changed. The pain hadn’t.
008.
"Wait." Seyra’s voice cracked through the silence. "What am I even being punished for? I asked a question. That’s all I did."
Ophelia’s eyes narrowed. "You question the Alpha’s order. That alone is enough."
"I didn’t refuse it," Seyra said, her heart hammering against her ribs. "I asked if I could. There’s a difference."
"There is no difference here." Ophelia’s voice was flat. "Not for someone like you."
"Someone like me?"
Seyra couldn’t believe this. She hadn’t necessarily thought about defying the Alpha’s orders. She was terrified of him, so why on earth would she want to disobey him?
Mira stepped forward before anyone could stop her, her hands twisting together. "Please, Head Maid. She was only trying to ask a question. She doesn’t know the rules yet. It’s her first day."
"Silence." Ophelia didn’t even look at her. "What is my business with it being her first day? She isn’t dumb. The Beta already filled her in on the rules."
Seyra clenched her fists as she tried to calm her racing heart. Just one day, and she was already in trouble.
"Please," Mira tried again, tears filling her eyes. "She didn’t mean anything." She looked at Seyra, silently urging her to say something, but Seyra was already out of things to say.
"One more word from you," Ophelia said, "and you’ll join her."
Mira’s mouth snapped shut. She looked at Seyra, helpless, guilt written all over her face.
Seyra gave her a small shake of the head. It wasn’t Mira’s fault. None of this was.
The guards stepped forward and took hold of her arms.
"Move," one of them said.
Seyra’s legs felt heavy as they pulled her toward the door, past the rows of maids who watched with wide eyes, none of them daring to speak.
Some looked away entirely, like they couldn’t bear to watch what was coming. Others simply stared, curious, detached, like this was just another Tuesday in the palace.
They led her outside into a wide stone courtyard.
The morning air was cold against her skin. She hadn’t even realized how much time had passed since she arrived. The sky was still gray, the sun barely peeking over the palace walls.
This could have been a good day to just live a peaceful life, away from all this suffering and chaos. But wishes weren’t horses.
She turned. A wooden post stood in the center of the courtyard, worn smooth in places, dark stains soaked into the ground around it. Seyra’s stomach turned when she understood what those stains were.
She wasn’t the first person to stand here.
The guards forced her to her knees in front of the post. One of them gripped her wrists and tied them above her head, the rope biting into her skin.
Seyra’s breath came fast and shallow.
This was it. This was how it started. Not with Orin’s claws, not with his teeth either. With thirty lashes from a whip for asking a single question.
She almost laughed. Because deep down, some small, broken part of her had known this would happen eventually.
Her life had never been anything but pain dressed up in different forms. First her family. Then Cassiel. Then the pack that watched her get torn apart and did nothing.
Now this.
She realized, kneeling there with her wrists bound and the cold stone digging into her knees, that nothing was going to be different here.
She had traded one kind of cruelty for another. The faces had changed. The pain hadn’t.
Ophelia stepped forward, holding something long and golden that glinted even in the dim morning light. The whip.
"Thirty, lashes," Ophelia said again, mostly to the guard standing beside the post. "Make sure she counts."
Seyra squeezed her eyes shut.
The first strike landed across her back like fire.
She gasped, her whole body jerking forward against the rope. The pain was sharper than anything she’d ever felt, worse than her father’s belt, worse than every slap her mother had ever given her.
"One," the guard said.
Seyra bit down hard on her lip to keep from screaming.
The second strike came before she could even catch her breath. Her wolf whimpered low inside her, curling in on itself as if trying to hide.
"Two."
The third strike tore a sound out of her that she didn’t recognize, something between a sob and a scream.
Tears streamed down her face, falling onto the stone beneath her. She thought of her mother’s hand across her cheek. She thought of Cassiel’s smile as he watched the guards restrain her. She thought of Astrid’s laughter ringing out across the ceremonial grounds.
No one was coming to save her.
"Four."
Her back burned, each new strike landing over the last, layering pain on top of pain until she couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began.
"Five."
Her wolf whined weakly inside her, a small, defeated sound, like it had already given up.
Seyra tried to focus on anything else. The cold stone under her knees. The sound of her own ragged breathing. The faint smell of blood in the air, she desperately prayed it wasn’t hers.
"Six."
By the tenth strike, her vision had started to blur at the edges. Her arms shook against the rope holding her up. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could stay conscious, let alone kneeling.
Seyra’s head drooped forward. She tried to lift it, tried to stay present, but her strength was fading fast.
"Fifteen."
She thought of the journal. She thought about escaping this place, about the promise she’d made to herself the night she left her family’s house.
She wasn’t going to survive long enough to keep that promise if this kept up.
Her vision blurred further, the courtyard swimming in front of her, shapes and colors bleeding together.
Somewhere far away, she heard Ophelia’s voice, steady and cold, counting alongside the guard now, like she was enjoying it.
By seventeen, Seyra’s body slumped forward as far as the rope would allow.
Darkness crept in at the edges of her vision as her head spun.
"Eighteen."
Her wolf let out one last, faint whimper before going silent completely.
"Nineteen."
The world tilted.
"Twenty."
And then, finally, mercifully, everything went black.