Zephyra opened her eyes after passing out three times in a row from the torture of Draven's men. The world tilted sideways before righting itself in jagged pieces. The chains at her wrists pulled until her shoulders burned like fire, and her back ached in a way that made every breath a fight.

Stone walls pressed in around her, slick with moisture that might have been condensation or might have been blood. The air tasted of iron and decay, thick enough to choke on. Somewhere in the darkness beyond her cell, water dripped with the steady rhythm of a funeral march.

"You're awake."

Draven's voice cut through the haze. He stood there with that half-smirk he used when he thought he had the upper hand, arms crossed, looking like a man who had all the time in the world to watch her suffer.

"What? Were you expecting me to die?" she spat, blood making her words wet and thick. She grinned through it, a broken thing that probably looked more like a grimace, because if she gave them fear they might try less. Better to be brave, she told herself. Better to keep something of herself that belonged only to her.

Draven didn't answer. He simply nodded to one of the guards—a hulking brute with scars crisscrossing his arms like a roadmap of violence.

The whip cracked. Fire exploded across her spine. She tasted metal and salt, but kept her teeth clenched tight against any sound that might give him satisfaction.

"Just kill me, will you? Isn't that better? Or are you satisfying your bruised ego by torturing me?" she said, throat rough as gravel.

He watched her with those dark eyes that seemed to see everything and feel nothing. For a second his face went still—not cruel, not angry—just empty like a man who had been hollowed out from the inside. Then the hardness returned, settling over his features like armor.

"You're going to live," he said, voice quiet as a grave. "And you're going to remember every second."

They started with the lash again, back and back until her skin blistered and wept. The leather bit deep, each strike sending shockwaves through her body that made her vision blur. They salted the wounds with a rag soaked in brine, and the salt bit like wolf's teeth. One guard shoved a rod glowing red-hot to the edge of the bandage at her shoulder—not enough to burn through, but enough to sear and make the muscles seize.

The smell of burned cloth filled the cell, acrid and choking. She gagged, trying not to vomit with her head still dangling forward. Her knees had gone numb long ago, the strain in her shoulders a constant scream that threatened to drown out everything else.

The guard holding the rod chuckled under his breath, twisting it in the air so the heat licked at her again. "You still think you're a princess?" he taunted, his breath reeking of ale and rotted teeth.

"I know I am," she rasped, voice breaking like glass.

Another man stepped in, a long iron chain wrapped around his wrist like a serpent. He swung it once, letting it whistle through the air before it struck across her ribs. The impact was bone-deep, reverberating through her chest. Zephyra jerked forward, but the chains yanked her back in place with cruel efficiency. She felt something shift painfully near her side—a rib, maybe. She wasn't sure, and didn't want to be.

Draven stayed in the corner, leaning against the wall as if he were a man waiting for rain to stop. But his eyes... they didn't leave her. There was a flicker there, something he didn't want his men to see. Something that looked almost like regret before it was buried beneath layers of rage and grief.

The next torture was colder. A bucket of water was dumped over her, drenching her hair, making the welts on her back sting sharper than knives. She barely had time to breathe before another guard pressed a dagger's flat edge against her skin—the cold metal turning the pain into something sharp and new, like ice cutting through fire.

They gagged her with a strip of coarse cloth that tasted of dirt and despair, then forced her to stand by unhooking the chains from the ceiling but keeping her hands bound. When she collapsed, legs trembling like a newborn foal's, they yanked her back up and made her walk barefoot over broken stone until her soles bled, leaving crimson footprints on the gray floor.

At one point, one guard tied a rope around her wrists and looped it over a beam, pulling until her toes barely touched the ground. The weight in her shoulders was unbearable, like being pulled apart by invisible hands. She tried to focus on her breathing, counting each breath like a prayer, but the panic rose anyway, clawing at her throat.

Draven finally walked over, slow and deliberate as a predator stalking wounded prey. He grabbed her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. His fingers were rough against her skin, calloused from years of holding weapons.

"Tell me, Zephyra..." Her name on his lips sounded like a curse. "Do you still think your people will come for you?"

She swallowed hard, ignoring the tears burning her eyes. "I know they will."

His jaw twitched, a muscle jumping beneath the skin. "Then you can hang here and wait for them."

They left her suspended like that, her head lolling forward, arms trembling with exhaustion. Time bled together in a haze of pain and half-consciousness. At some point she passed out, only to wake when the guards returned with fresh enthusiasm for their work.

This time, they brought a small wooden box. One man opened it to reveal a nest of scorpions, their tails twitching with deadly promise. Without hesitation, they tipped it onto the floor around her bare feet. Zephyra stiffened, breath shallow. Every small movement made the creatures scuttle, brushing against her ankles with legs like tiny needles.

Draven didn't look at her when he ordered, "Leave them there for the night."

The hours that followed were a blur of fear and shivering pain. Her body was a map of bruises and cuts, each throb a reminder she was still alive—and she hated that fact more than once. The scorpions skittered around her feet, close enough that she could feel their movements through the stone, close enough that one wrong step would mean death.

Yet, somewhere in her haze, she caught Draven watching from the shadows again, his arms crossed, face unreadable in the flickering torchlight. He wasn't enjoying this the way his men did. No, his cruelty seemed... purposeful. Like a punishment he believed she deserved, but one that carved at him too.

When dawn's gray light crept into the cell through a barred window high above, the guards finally returned to remove the scorpions. Zephyra was lowered back to the ground, her legs unable to hold her weight. She collapsed on her knees, breathing hard, each inhalation feeling like swallowing glass.

"This could end, witch." Draven stepped closer, close enough that she could smell the scent of pine and something darker clinging to his clothes. "Tell me what I want to hear."

She coughed, a bitter smile twisting her cracked lips. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth like a crimson tear. "And let you think you've won? Never."

His eyes hardened, but just before he turned away, she thought she saw it—the tiniest flicker of something like grief. Something that suggested the man torturing her wasn't the man he used to be.

She almost wished she hadn't seen it.

"I'm going to say it again, and again," she rasped, voice gaining strength from somewhere deep inside her. "My people didn't kill your wife. If there was any dirty play, I would have fucking sensed it!" She yelled, accompanied by a blot of blood trickling from her lips.

"Alpha Draven." Luca, his beta, walked into the dungeon with a smirk spreading across his face like oil on water. He glared at Zephyra hanging there with her head lolled to the side, looking at her like she was already dead.

The way he looked at her made her skin crawl. There was something in his eyes—something hungry and satisfied that had nothing to do with justice and everything to do with power.