Chapter 228

AURELIA’S POV My lungs burned as I drew in another shaky breath, the taste of dust and dampness clinging to my tongue. My dress—once pristine and carefully chosen for the dinner with Draven’s pack—was torn beyond recognition, streaked with dirt and blood where I had struggled, fought, clawed. My hair hung in tangled knots, pins scattered somewhere along the path of my capture, and the makeup my mother had so carefully applied now smeared across my face like a grotesque mask. If anyone looked at me now, they wouldn’t see the daughter of a noble Alpha family. They wouldn’t see the girl destined—at least on paper—to be a Luna. They would see a ghost. Hollow-eyed. Broken. I blinked through the dimness, searching, straining, hoping to see a familiar face among the shadows. My parents? My sister? Anyone. But no—there was only me. Only silence and the cold press of stone walls hemming me in. Panic clawed at my throat as realization set in. This wasn’t random. I hadn’t been taken by rogues, th