Chapter 208

Chapter 208: Chapter 208

Lysander’s pov

The cellar was cold, a freezing, damp chill that seeped straight through the rough stone behind my back and settled deep into my bones.

There were no windows here, no floor heating, and no soft linen blankets. The room was a square vault carved into the solid rock foundations beneath the fortress, illuminated only by a single, flickering oil lantern hanging from an iron hook on the wall.

Heavy, silver-plated suppression chains wrapped around my wrists, pulling my arms high above my head and locking them into iron ring-bolts anchored deep into the mortar. My feet barely brushed the stone floorboards, the iron cuffs around my ankles dragging down on my tired legs.

My head hung low, my dark hair wet and plastered to my pale forehead. Every breath pulled the moldy, metallic smell of stagnant water and old iron into my burning lungs.

Stay strong, I whispered inside my mind, my soul clinging desperately to the faint, fragile thrum of heat deep within my core. Just hold on a little longer. He’s coming. I know he’s coming.

The door at the end of the narrow stone steps creaked open.

A wave of bitter, sulfurous air spilled into the cellar. I forced my chin up, my dark eyes narrowing through the dim light as three figures descended the damp stairs.

Gideon walked in first, his dark wool coat pristine, his sharp aristocratic face carved into an expression of cold, absolute detachment. Behind him stepped the witch, her dark frayed silks dragging along the wet stone floor, her hollow eyes burning with a dark, vengeful light as she looked at the heavy chains holding me fast. And trailing just behind her, wrapped in a thick velvet cloak with his hood pulled low, was Julian.

My jaw tightened, a low, warning growl rising in my throat despite the exhaustion weighing down my limbs.

"You brought your serpent back, Gideon?" I rasped out, my voice rough and hoarse, cutting through the quiet dripping of water in the corner. "Did he come to watch you drag me into the dark again?"

Julian flinched slightly beneath his hood, taking a small step back into the shadows of the stairs, but Gideon remained completely unbothered. He stopped five feet from where I hung bound to the wall, looking down at my bruised legs and my torn, muddy tunic.

"You made a grave mistake snapping my spell in the upper chamber, Lysander," Gideon said softly, his voice a flat, level thread. "You bruised my guards, ruined a valuable mixture, and forced us to drag you through the mud. We will not give you a second chance to fight back."

The witch stepped forward, her thin, gnarled fingers holding a small, wide-mouthed clay vial filled with a thick, murky green liquid. It gave off a sweet, nauseating scent that instantly made my stomach turn.

"What is that?" I demanded, my fingers straining against the silver chains above my head, the metal links rattling loudly against the stone wall.

"A draught of bitter-root and dream-poppy," the witch rasped, her voice sounding like dry leaves scraping across a grave. She took two steps closer, her rotting breath fanning warm against my cheek. "It will not harm your blood, little wolf. It will simply quiet your muscles, dull your hybrid senses, and render your frame as soft and helpless as wet clay."

"Don’t touch me!" I screamed, thrashing my hips, kicking my chained legs out toward her with everything I had left. "Get away from me!"

Gideon nodded to two heavy-set guards standing near the doorway.

They stepped forward instantly. One man grabbed my jaw in a vice-like grip, pinching my cheeks until my mouth was forced open, while the other pinned my chest flat against the cold stone wall, smothering my thrashing movements under his immense weight.

I fought with frantic, terrifying desperation. I bit, I twisted, I tried to swallow my own breath to stop them, but the guard’s fingers held my jaw locked tight.

The witch stepped up, tilting the clay vial, and poured the thick, sweet green liquid straight down my throat.

"Drink it," she purred into my ear.

The liquid was hot, thick, and slick like oil. I tried to spit it back out, but the guard pinched my nose shut, forcing my instinctual swallowing reflex to trigger. The sweet draught slid down my throat, burning like liquid fire as it hit my stomach.

Within five seconds, the nightmare began.

A sudden, terrifying weight crashed over my body. It wasn’t pain; it was an absolute, suffocating numbness that swept through my veins like ice-cold poison. The tension in my arms melted away. My fingers went completely limp inside the silver cuffs. My legs lost all structure, sagging fully into the chains, my toes dragging uselessly against the cold floorboards.

My vision tilted wildly, the stone walls of the cellar warping and stretching into dark, wavy shadows. The quiet dripping of water sounded like deafening thunder inside my ears, while the voices around me grew distant, muffled, as if spoken underwater.

"There," the witch whispered, her voice swimming through the thick haze in my brain. "Now the wolf has no fangs left to bite."

The guards released their grip and stepped back. I hung suspended from the ring-bolts, my head flopping forward against my chest, completely unable to lift my chin or move a single finger. I was trapped inside a body that refused to answer a single command from my mind.

Julian stepped out from the shadows near the stairs, looking down at my limp, shivering frame with a cold, triumphant smile curling his pale lips.

"He looks so quiet now," Julian purred softly, reaching out a manicured finger to lightly brush a strand of wet dark hair from my cheek. "So helpless. Without his strength, he is nothing."

"Begin the ritual," Gideon commanded flatly, leaning back against the wooden railing of the stairs with his arms folded over his chest. "We have spent far too much time on this half-breed already."

The witch dipped her gnarled fingers into a small stone bowl of dark, shimmering blood-oil she had set on the floorboards beside her. She stepped close to my limp body, her hands hovering above my waist.

No... my mind wept inside the thick, suffocating fog of the drug. Please... move... fight...

I tried to scream, to roar, to throw my weight against the wall, but all that escaped my lips was a faint, broken whimpering sound. My body remained stone-still, heavy and paralyzed, hanging helpless in the dark while the witch raised her wet, oil-stained hands toward my stomach.

Deep within my numb, quiet core, the tiny pulse of life thrummed softly—a fragile, precious heat clinging to survival in the dark, completely unaware of the dark magic hovering an inch above us.

Drake... my soul wept into the quiet void, reaching out across the miles with the absolute last spark of my spirit. Drake... please save our baby...