Chapter 116: Silver & Screams

Author’s POV~

Zyran took slow, deliberate steps closer to the chair, the heavy chains rattling against the cold stone floor with every movement he made. He stopped just inches away from her, towering over the trembling female. His dark eyes burned with a lethal, unforgiving fire.

"You are really a wicked whore," Zyran whispered, his voice low, venomous, and dripping with absolute disgust.

The female shrank back as far as the heavy steel chains would allow, her whole body shaking violently.

"My Lord... what?" she sobbed, her voice cracking in pure confusion and terror. "What are you even talking about? Why am I locked in this place? And why have they tied me up?!"

A soft, dark chuckle cut her off right in the middle of her plea. That single, chilling sound terrified her even more than his anger. Her breathing turned ragged, coming in short, panicked gasps as her chest heaved.

Zyran’s lips curved into a cruel, mocking smirk. Without breaking eye contact with her, he flicked his gaze toward the two alpha guards who had dragged her down.

The guards stepped forward instantly, moving with obedience. One of them raised his hand, and under Zyran’s silent signal, pulled out a long, gleaming silver knife.

The cold metal caught the dim light, casting a deadly shine across the room.

The moment the female saw the blade, absolute panic seized her throat.

"No, no, no, no!" she screamed, thrashing against the chains as fresh tears spilled over her cheeks. "What are you going to do?! No, please, don’t—!"

Zyran tilted his head, his smirk widening into something terrifying. "Oh, then what else did you think I brought you down here for, you little pathetic wolf?"

"Lord Zyran, please, please!" she begged, her voice breaking into a desperate, wretched wail. "Just let me go! Why are you doing this to—"

Slash.

Her words were sharply cut off by a sudden, blinding agony. The guard drove the silver knife deep into her forearm, slicing a long, brutal vertical cut right down her skin.

She yelled out in a raw, deafening shriek of pure torment.

"Ahhhhh!"

Because it was silver, the wound didn’t heal. It stayed wide open, burning like acid, the crimson blood spilling out rapidly and dripping onto the cold stone floor in thick, heavy drops. ℴ

Zyran didn’t flinch. He stood just a few feet away, watching with cold, sickening satisfaction as his dark gaze fixed entirely on her blood.

"Another," he commanded smoothly, his voice completely devoid of any emotion.

The second guard stepped up instantly, driving another silver knife straight into her other arm.

"Ahhhhh!" She choked on her own scream, her body convulsing in agony as a second open wound began to bleed out. The two guards stepped back into the shadows, waiting in silence for Lord Zyran’s next order.

Zyran took another step forward, closing the remaining distance between them. He leaned down slightly, his voice dropping into a dangerous, lethal whisper.

"Tell me," Zyran demanded, his eyes boring into her soul. "What mistake did you make? Why exactly you deserve this?"

The female was crying uncontrollably, her face drenched in sweat and tears, her body shivering violently from the toxic burn of the silver.

"Please, please... leave me alone!" she wept, gasping for air. "I didn’t do anything wrong, I swear—"

Slash.

Before she could finish, Zyran gave a sharp nod, and the guard immediately drove a third silver knife straight through the back of her palm, pinning her hand to the wooden armrest.

"Ahhh! No... Please!!!"

She gasped in suffocating agony, her eyes rolling back as another wave of searing pain ripped through her body, hot tears streaming endlessly down her face.

Desperation clawed at her mind. Driven entirely by survival instinct, she tried to shift her energy, desperately attempting to let her wolf take over, to escape.

The moment Zyran saw the faint, shimmering aura of her wolf trying to surface, a dark, mocking laugh escaped his lips.

"You actually think your little pathetic alpha wolf can fight against me?" Zyran sneered, his dark eyes flashing with cruel amusement.

Realising there was no escape, that her strength was entirely useless against a Royal Lycan Prince, she broke completely.

"No... no, Lord! Lord Zyran, I am sorry... I am really sorry!" she yelled out, her voice cracking, completely shattered as she sobbed out loud. "I don’t know what I did... I swear I don’t know what I did to make you this angry... but I’m so sorry, please!"

Zyran straightened up, his face hardening into a mask of pure fury.

"You hired those three douchebags to wreck Adeline in the woods that night," Zyran hissed, every word laced with anger.

"To kill her. Using Miya, you found out that I was trying to throw her out from this academy, so you took the opportunity and sent those three fucking bastards a message to kill her in exchange of gold. You sent the anonymous note to those three fucking assholes, didn’t you?!"

The colour instantly drained from the Chloe’s face.

Panic seized her chest so hard she felt like she was suffocating. Her secret, the venomous plot she thought was entirely hidden, had been completely exposed by the Prince of the Third Throne.

The toxic burn of the three silver daggers was already eating into her skin, eating away her strength piece by piece.

"No, no..." Chloe whimpered, shaking her head frantically, her voice trembling in absolute dread.

"I didn’t... I didn’t plan to pin it on you... I swear! You wanted her gone, and I wanted her gone too! I never... never in my wildest dreams would I plan to make an enemy of the royal princes, please—!"

The thought screamed inside her mind.

’How could he possibly know?’

She had been so careful.

She had made sure no one could trace anything back to her.

’What do I say? What can I possibly say that will make him believe me?’

"Please..." Chloe whispered again, her voice trembling. "Lord Zyran, please listen to me. I know what this looks like, but you don’t understand what happened. I was angry. I was jealous. I hated her, yes, but I never meant for things to become this serious."

Zyran slowly tilted his head.

"You never meant for things to become serious?"

"I-I didn’t have a choice!" Chloe cried out, her voice breaking into a hysterical, desperate whine as she tried to justify her actions through the agony. "After Lucas and Logan... after they rejected her as their mate for me, we thought she was dead! Everyone in our pack thought that she was gone for good, that the wolfless defect was finally out of our lives!"

She choked on a sob, her eyes wide with a manic, unhinged terror.

"But then... then Miya found out. She told me Adeline was still alive. That she was right here, breathing the same air, walking these academy halls as if she owned them!"

Chloe’s chest heaved, a twisted flash of absolute hatred briefly cutting through the pale fear on her face.

"And that is why..." Chloe hissed, her voice dripping with pure, concentrated malice, the dark truth spilling out of her mouth. "I couldn’t stand it. I wanted her dead. No matter what it took, no matter who stood in the way, I wanted to tear her apart with my bare hands! I wanted her gone from this world forever!"

Silence fell over the damp, freezing dungeon, heavy and suffocating.

Zyran’s chest heaved, a deep, primal rage swelling beneath his ribs. The mere thought of anyone daring to lay a finger on Adeline, let alone conspiring to end her life, made his wolf tear at the walls of his consciousness, howling for blood.

"You think you can sit here and confess your pathetic little plot as if it’s just a simple mistake?" Zyran murmured, his voice dropping into a terrifying, deadened whisper.

Chloe whimpered, her breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps as the silver blades burned deeper into her flesh. Tears mixed with sweat and blood dripped relentlessly from her chin.

A dark, dangerous sound ripped from the back of Zyran’s throat, not a laugh, but the low, vicious growl of an apex predator.

"You wanted her dead," Zyran whispered, his voice dark, ruthless, and filled with a terrifying promise of eternal torment. "So consider this just a very small preview of what awaits you in hell. Because death? Death is far too kind for someone who dared to plot against what’s mine."

Chloe let out a strangled, choked gasp as the guard’s fist tightened in her hair, dragging her scalp upward with enough force to threaten tearing her neck from her spine as Zyran signalled. The silver daggers embedded in her flesh twisted violently with her micro-movements, sending fresh, blinding shocks of white-hot agony straight to her brain.

"My Lord—please! Please! Please let me go... I beg you for mercy..." Chloe shrieked, her voice dissolving into a wet, bubbling gurgle as blood spilled over her bottom lip. Her eyes rolled backward, white and frantic, desperate for a mercy that didn’t exist in this room.

"Mercy?" Zyran laughed. "You speak of mercy when you breathed poison into the air she walks in? You sent monsters to gut her in the dark, and you expect me to grant you a clean exit?"

He didn’t wait for an answer. With a sickening crunch of cartilage and a violent snap, Zyran ripped the first silver dagger straight out of her forearm, blood spraying across the stone floor.

"Ahhh!" Chloe screamed, a high, inhuman sound that tore the lining of her throat to shreds, her body convulsing so violently the heavy wooden chair rattled against the chains.

"Zyran!"

The heavy iron door of the dungeon slammed open.

Blake stood at the threshold, his dark eyes wide with a rare, sharp shock as he took in the view before him. He took two fast, long strides into the room, his gaze darting from Chloe’s mutilated, bleeding arms to Zyran’s face, which was twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated murder.

"Stop this," Blake said, his deep voice carrying the undeniable authority of a royal prince as he reached out, planting a firm hand onto Zyran’s shoulder. "Enough. Let her go!"