Chapter 214
Soria POV
I don’t think I breathed once the entire walk to the grand hall.
The sound of our boots echoed too loud against the marble. Varek’s fingers brushed mine once, a tiny, hidden contact we passed off like nothing, but I felt the tremor in his hand. We were both shaking. Inside and out.
“Pretend, Sierra whispered to me. “Smile with your eyes. Stand tall. Don’t vomit.”
“Ah, there you are,” Lucien said smoothly, lounging on his obsidian throne like a coiled serpent. “We’ve saved the best part for last.”
I didn’t respond. Just bowed my head slightly, my stomach knotting into steel wire. Vaela stood beside him, a cruel smile twisting her face like a painting of a goddess gone wrong. Her pale blonde hair was pinned back with gold daggers and her dress shimmered like blood.
A line of fox shifters was being dragged in by masked guards.Teenagers. Mother’s and fathers. Some were bruised. Others were still too
dazed to even realize what was happening. I recognized a few of them from the granary raid, their eyes were sunken, hollow, terrified.
My heart cracked wide open.
“Oh, they’re prettier than I expected,” Vaela crooned, stepping down with a predator’s grace. “Look at that one’s eyes. Golden. That’s rare.
Keep her.”
A guard shoved a teenage girl to the side roughly, marking her arm with a glowing rune.
“We’ll begin the assessments now,” Lucien announced, rising to his feet. “Muscle mass, magical potential, bite resistance. You know the
drill.”
Gods help us. Varek cleared his throat beside me, his voice even. “Do you want them sorted by age or strength level?”
Lucien glanced at him with an approving smirk. “See? That’s why I like you, Varek. Efficient.”
Inside, I was screaming.The guards began grabbing fox shifters like cattle, tugging at their arms, exposing their necks, inspecting teeth,
muscles, magic levels. One sobbed as she was dragged forward and pinned.
I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. I wanted to claw Vaela’s perfect little throat out and drag these people away into the night and never look back.
But I didn’t. Because I couldn’t.
“Don’t blink too much,” Varek whispered low enough only I could hear. “You’re holding too much tension in your shoulders.”
I adjusted. Slightly. Just enough to make it seem like I wasn’t going to bolt.
1/3
The teenage girl Vaela had marked earlier tried to fight. She spat in the guard’s face, and he struck her hard enough that she dropped like
a stone.
My vision blurred. Not yet. Not yet. Hold it together.
Lucien didn’t even flinch. “That one’s got spirit. Break her gently.”
My nails dug so hard into my palm I bled. And still, I smiled.
I tilted my head slightly and feigned curiosity, watching one of the guards examine a shifter’s teeth like they were some fucking livestock. But my mind was racing.
How do we stop this? How do we save them? How many more will they take before we can act?
Varek glanced at me again. Just a flash. Just enough to let me know he was right there in the fire with me.
I swallowed the bile in my throat and stepped forward. “May I suggest we use the younger ones for controlled experimentation first?” I said evenly. “Easier to contain. Less likely to resist.”
Lucien chuckled. “Brilliant. You’re quite the strategist.”
He turned his back, and I used that moment to blink back tears and grit my teeth so hard my jaw cracked.
They don’t get to win. We will find a way. But tonight?
We had to survive it.
Varek POV
This isn’t fucking salvation. It’s delay. And still… it was the only option we had.
I kept my face carved into stoic neutrality as I turned from the hall, motioning to the guards with a sharp nod. “I’ll take the experimental group to Lab Wing Seven. Per the High Command’s request.”
The masked bastards didn’t even question it. One of them shoved a trembling boy forward, barely old enough to have his first shift, and I caught him before he hit the floor.
“Move,” I ordered the others, my voice hard and my eyes colder. “Now.”
There were ten of them. All teenagers. All terrified. Golden eyes, bodies shaking as they obeyed, too afraid to speak. One girl’s wrist was already bleeding from where they’d strapped her too tight. Another boy had claw marks down his back like someone tried to peel his skin
off.
