The biting wind swept through the stone hallways as the servant hurried along, pulling her thin shawl tighter around her shoulders.
Her shift had ended hours ago after the grand banquet, and exhaustion weighed heavily on her bones.
All she wanted was to collapse onto her narrow cot and forget the demanding evening behind her.
A shadow shifted in her peripheral vision.
Two guards materialized from the darkness without warning.
Strong hands clamped down on her arms before she could even gasp.
One guard secured her left side while the other locked onto her right, their grips unyielding as iron shackles.
Terror shot through her like lightning.
“What is this?
I haven’t done anything wrong!”
Neither guard responded.
Their faces remained stone cold, eyes forward as if she were nothing more than cargo to be transported.
Her heart hammered against her ribs as they began hauling her down the corridor.
Every instinct screamed at her to fight, to scream, to run.
But she knew better.
Servants who caused disruptions faced far worse consequences than those who submitted quietly.
Still, dread pooled in her stomach like acid.
“Please, just tell me what I’ve done,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
“I’ll fix it, whatever it is.”
Silence stretched between them like a death sentence.
They dragged her through the servants’ exit and onto the training grounds.
The night felt alive with menace, shadows dancing in the flickering torchlight mounted around the perimeter.
The isolation of the space made her skin crawl.
No one would hear anything that happened here.
Without ceremony, they shoved her forward.
She crashed onto the hard-packed earth, her palms scraping against stones and debris.
Pain flared through her hands, but physical discomfort paled compared to the terror crushing her chest.
This wasn’t some misunderstanding or minor infraction.
This was deliberate.
Calculated.
This was punishment.
Her breath came in short, panicked bursts as she struggled to her knees.
A figure emerged from the shadows, stepping into the wavering circle of torchlight.
Logan.
The Beta’s presence hit her like a physical blow.
She immediately pressed her forehead to the dirt, her entire body trembling.
“Beta Logan,” she managed, though her voice sounded foreign to her own ears.
Logan regarded her with the detached interest of someone examining a particularly unpleasant insect.
His silence stretched until she wanted to scream just to break the tension.
“Explain to me,” he said finally, his tone conversational despite the circumstances, “how refusing service to the Alpha’s wife constitutes anything other than direct insubordination.”
The servant’s blood turned to ice water.
The banquet incident.
She had hoped, prayed, that Alpha Caspian’s mild response meant the matter was forgotten.
How naive she had been.
Her body began to shake uncontrollably.
“Beta, I swear I meant no disrespect.
It was thoughtless, stupid, but not intentional!”
Logan circled her slowly, like a predator sizing up wounded prey.
“Did you consider yourself superior to our Luna?
Is that what drove your behavior?”
“No!” The word tore from her throat.
She pressed herself lower, dirt grinding into her forehead.
“Never!
I would never think such a thing!”
“Excellent,” Logan said, his voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried more menace than any shout.
“Then you’ll understand why this lesson is necessary.”
He turned toward the guards with casual authority.
“One hundred lashes.”
The world tilted sideways.
One hundred.
The number echoed in her skull like a death knell.
“Please!” She lunged forward desperately, only to be caught immediately by the waiting guards.
“I’ll do anything!
I’ll work double shifts, give up my wages, anything but this!”
Her pleas fell on deaf ears.
The guards hauled her across the rough ground toward a weathered wooden post.
Splinters bit into her skin as they slammed her against it.
Rough rope burned her wrists as they secured her arms behind her back.
Her ankles received the same treatment.
A dirty cloth was forced between her teeth, cutting off her screams before they could begin.
Logan brushed invisible dust from his hands and walked away without another glance.
Behind him, leather whistled through the air before finding its mark.
The servant’s muffled cries echoed across the empty training ground, carried away by the indifferent wind.
The sleek black vehicle sliced through the darkness, carrying the Blackwood family away from Umbra Wilds territory.
Inside the Mercedes, tension crackled like electricity before a storm.
Lillian sat rigidly, her hands folded with mechanical precision.
She stared out at the passing landscape, though her mind was clearly elsewhere.
Beside her, Bianca and Sasha maintained unusual silence, their typical smugness replaced by wary caution.
Maddox occupied the middle row, his jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth.
At the front, Lukas Blackwood radiated fury so intense it seemed to heat the entire cabin.
His rage was a living thing, pressing against everyone present like a physical weight.
Minutes crawled by in suffocating quiet.
Only the engine’s steady hum dared break the silence.
Finally, Lukas’s voice cut through the tension like a blade.
“You gave that pathetic creature a maidservant.”
Lillian’s spine straightened further, though she kept her gaze fixed outside.
She had anticipated this confrontation.
“Yes.
Bree seemed appropriate.”
Lukas’s breathing grew heavier.
“Appropriate.”
“Talia has no allies in that place,” Lillian continued carefully.
“One familiar face might help maintain some dignity for our family name.”
“Our family name?” Lukas’s voice turned venomous.
“That worthless girl has done nothing but drag our name through filth since the day she was born!”
Lillian’s fingers tightened in her lap.
Bianca spoke with calculated diplomacy.
“Father, Mother was thinking of appearances.
Like it or not, everyone knows Talia carries our blood.
Her failures reflect on us all.”
Sasha nodded sharply.
“We should pray she doesn’t humiliate us further.
Again.”
Lukas’s fists clenched until his knuckles went white.
“If she brings shame to this family one more time, I will personally travel to Umbra Wilds and finish what nature started.”
His words sent ice through everyone’s veins.
Sasha’s voice dropped to a cruel whisper.
“Assuming someone else doesn’t handle the problem first.”
Lukas’s exhale sounded like steam escaping from a boiler.
Maddox finally spoke, his tone matching his father’s brutality.
“Don’t worry, Father.
I made my position clear to her.
If she forgets her place, I’ll remind her permanently.”
The finality in his words sealed something dark and terrible in that moving vehicle.
Talia’s own family had just signed her death warrant with chilling casualness.
Protection was not coming.
Mercy would not be offered.
And if she stumbled even once, they would be the ones to destroy her completely.