Three

LILITH'S POV

The darkness wrapped around me like a second skin when I was returned to my cell which was after I had been whipped wicked by the guards for having the audacity to exchange words with the Prince of the Lycans.

I drifted somewhere between memory and something softer. My limbs were weightless, suspended in a world without time. There were low, muffled voices like the ones my mother used to use when brushing my hair by candlelight. Fingers combed through my curls now, warm and gentle. A scent, faint but familiar, filled the air: honey and cedarwood. My father’s cologne.

“Little flame,” he said, just like he used to. “You must wake up now.”

But I didn’t want to. I clung to the sound of his voice. To the way my mother smiled at me from across a hazy garden of white flowers. She reached for me, hands glowing with soft light.

“You have to stay alive,” she whispered.

And just like that, they were gone.

The warmth evaporated, leaving behind cold sweat and the stink of rot and iron. I woke choking on my breath, my body stiff and strange. The world sharpened too quickly—light stabbed my eyes, and my back screamed in protest as I tried to move. For one breathless moment, I thought I was still dying. But then I realized something was wrong.

I wasn’t in pain.

Not like before.

I blinked through the grime on my lashes and dragged myself upright on the straw mat that barely qualified as bedding. My skin was bruised, my muscles sore—but the fever was gone. The raw places on my arms from the guards’ handling were already scabbed over, some barely visible. Even the wound on my shoulder, the one I was sure had torn something inside, didn’t throb anymore.

Around me, the other slaves stirred. No one looked my way. No one asked if I was alive or dead.

And somehow, I preferred it that way.

As Prince Kelvon had instructed, I was taken to the mines a day after my recovery from the whipping.

It was worse than I had imagined.

There was no sunlight, only the dim glow of flame-fed lanterns bolted into the tunnel walls, flickering weakly against stone slick with moisture. The air was thick with dust. It clung to everything. Our clothes, our lashes, our lungs. Breathing hurt. Moving hurt even more. The tools we used were rusted and too heavy for hands that hadn’t held real food in months. We swung them anyway. There was no other choice.

I didn’t speak. I didn’t cry. I didn’t pray.

I listened.

To the groan of the earth when someone struck too deep. To the coughing fits that ended in silence. To the quiet murmurs of those still trying to hope.

Then the whip cracked.

The sound cleaved the tunnel open like a thunderclap. I froze, fingers tightening around the handle of my pickaxe.

“Hey!” a voice barked. “You think I can’t see you dragging your feet, girl?”

I turned slowly.

A massive Lycan soldier with bristling gray fur lining his armor and a crooked grin twisted across his mouth was stalking toward me. His eyes gleamed yellow in the lamplight.

“I—” The word came out as a rasp.

“Save it.” He grabbed the collar of my shift and yanked me forward, his breath reeking of meat and rot. “Pathetic little worm. You humans are all the same. Useless.”

He threw me down, and I hit the ground hard, shoulder first. My breath left me in a rush, stars bursting behind my eyes.

“Since you’re so slow,” he said, unfurling a whip from his belt, “let me help you remember what happens to lazy slaves.”

The first lash tore through the back of my shift and sliced into skin. I didn’t scream.

The second opened a line of fire across my spine. I bit down on my tongue.

The third, fourth, and fifth fell in rapid succession. Each stroke sent a wave of white-hot pain blooming through my nerves, and still I refused to make a sound.

I remembered Allen.

The way he had smiled, even bloodied and broken. The way he had stood tall in front of the block, defiant to the last.

I remembered the words he would tell me: "Stay alive, Lilith."

So I did.

I absorbed each lash as payment. I counted heartbeats through the pain. I swallowed screams and forged them into silent promises that one day, these tunnels would run red with Lycan blood. For Allen. For my parents. For the person I used to be.

The soldier's arm eventually tired. He spat a glob of phlegm landing inches from my face. "Next time, move faster."

His laughter bounced between stone walls as he walked away, already searching for fresh sport.

I remained motionless, counting seconds through the pulsing agony. Blood oozed down my back, the fabric of my shift clinging to flayed skin. My fingers curled into the dirt, trembling not from fear, but from the effort of containing rage.

And then, slowly, I got up and got back to work.

***

Three days bleed into each other.

Each morning, we were dragged from our quarters before the sky even turned gray. Each night, we returned half-dead. No one spoke anymore unless they had to. Words cost energy, and energy was too precious to waste.

Still, I watched. I listened. I memorized the faces of the guards who liked to use the whip the most. I mapped the tunnels in my head, noting which shafts were cracked, which supports looked unstable. The smell of sulfur was strongest in the lower levels. If there was going to be a collapse, it would start there.

I didn’t want to die.

But I wanted a way out. Or a weapon.

The day the announcement came, the entire camp was called into the central yard. The sky above was the same flat gray it had always been since the Lycans came. The cold air bit through the holes in my shift as I stood among the others, shoulders aching.

A Lycan captain stepped forward. His armor was finer than the soldiers’. Dark leather, gleaming with polished silver plating, and a scar down the side of his face that looked self-inflicted—like he’d carved it there to look more terrifying.

“The Lycan King will arrive in seven days,” he announced, his voice booming. “He and his son, Prince Kelvon, will personally inspect your labor.”

A ripple moved through the crowd. Someone coughed. Someone else whimpered.

“You will work twice as hard until then. Any slackers will be made an example of. Do you understand?”

We nodded. The only acceptable response.

The captain's mouth twisted, revealing teeth that matched the silver of his armor.

"One further notice," he added, eyes glittering as they swept across our ranks. "Royal decree permits nobles to select human breeding stock for personal service."

My heart stuttered against my ribs. Surely I'd misheard.

"On inspection day, you will be cleaned and dressed appropriately," he continued, savoring each syllable. "Should you catch a noble's attention, consider yourselves fortunate recipients of unexpected mercy."

He delivered the words like they were meant to inspire gratitude. Like we should fall to our knees in reverence.

From the corner of my eye, I caught the exchanged glances between several girls—fear swimming beneath a thin veneer of desperate hope. Not from me. There was no mercy in becoming a monster's plaything. Stories whispered between human households had taught me what happened to those they "chose." My mother's warnings, passed down in kitchen corners while she kneaded bread, played through my memory.

The crowd dispersed, bodies shuffling back toward the mines. My feet remained rooted to the ground.

The winding tunnels. The singing whip. The approaching royalty.

No amount of soap could wash away what they had stolen from us. And if their eyes fell upon me?

Then I would become what they needed me to be.

I would lower my gaze. I would bend my knee. I would speak with honey when addressed.

And when they believed me tamed, I would become the blade that opened their throats.

I straightened despite the fire that scorched across my back. My hands curled into weapons at my sides.

Seven days.