Lorelei POV

My heart truly ached for her.

Knowing she had gone through all of that only to end up stuck here without even knowing whether her brother was still alive was heartbreaking.

"I’m sorry," I whispered.

She sniffled and shook her head.

"It’s fine. I’ve learned to live with it," she said softly. "What about you? What was your crime?"

"Crime?" I repeated, confused.

"Yeah. Why are you here?" she asked.

Oh.

So that was what she meant.

"Well, I..." I started, wanting to tell her the truth. That I had been kidnapped by rogues and sold here against my will.

But then I remembered what the handler had told me.

I didn’t know her well enough yet.

I couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t report me if I said the wrong thing.

"I’m an orphan from a small village," I said instead, repeating the story I had been given.

Her brows pulled together.

"That’s it?" she asked.

I hesitated.

Yeah, what else was I supposed to say?

For a moment, she looked like she wanted to ask more questions, but instead, she simply shrugged and held out her hand.

"I’m Skye, by the way."

I glanced down at her small, calloused hand before slowly reaching out and wrapping my bruised fingers around hers.

"Ella," I murmured.

The name felt strange coming out of my mouth.

But I supposed I had better start getting used to it.

*****

That night, I slept in my ruined clothes.

Or at least, I tried to.

After everything that had happened, I could barely call it sleep.

My body was exhausted, but my mind refused to stop replaying the crash, the rogues, Cole’s desperate howl, and even Raven’s kiss.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw yellow fangs.

Every time I started drifting off, I heard Jaxen’s voice.

The memories chased me through the night until I was suddenly jolted awake by Skye gently shaking my shoulder.

"Hey," she whispered, her face hovering above mine in the dim light. "It’s 4:40. We need to get ready for the morning shift."

I groaned as every muscle in my body screamed in protest.

I felt like I had only closed my eyes five minutes ago.

Unfortunately, I didn’t exactly have a choice.

Reluctantly, I let Skye drag me out of our shared room and down the corridor toward the bathroom at the end of the hall.

The bathroom consisted of a long row of shower stalls separated by thin plastic curtains, along with several sinks lined beneath cracked mirrors that looked like they had been there for decades.

Inside, there were three other women with towels wrapped around them.

"Hello," I greeted with a small wave.

But they only stared at me for a moment with cold, unreadable expressions before turning back to what they were doing, leaving my hand to awkwardly fall back to my side.

"Don’t bother," Skye whispered as she nudged me toward an empty sink. "Nobody makes friends here."

"Huh."

That was... new.

Back at home, the maids were actually friendly with one another. It was only me they excluded, which I understood was because of the curse.

I had honestly thought I might be lucky enough to have some kind of social life here now that I was Ella.

Apparently not.

With a quiet sigh, I stepped into one of the empty stalls and washed myself clean.

A few minutes later, I was dressed just like everyone else in a plain gray uniform that hung loosely on my frame.

By around 5:20 a.m., Skye and I, along with a dozen other girls, were making our way down the stairs toward the lower hall where breakfast was served.

The second I stepped inside, I picked up on the hushed whispers around me.

"Her scent is weak."

That was one of the comments that reached my ears, making my hands twitch slightly at my sides.

Great.

Now I was self-conscious.

Because of the suppression, my wolf was buried so deeply inside me that I barely registered as a werewolf anymore.

To most packs, a scent that faint usually meant someone was sickly, broken, or practically human.

I kept my chin lowered and pretended the judgmental stares weren’t getting to me.

We joined the others in line, and while we waited, I caught one of the girls whispering something that immediately grabbed my attention.

"Isabelle escaped."

My ears practically perked up.

"Wait, really?" another girl gasped, her voice dropping into a frantic whisper. "How is that even possible?"

"She slipped past the perimeter guards during the midnight rotation," the first girl whispered back, glancing nervously toward the kitchen doors. "They’re searching for her right now, but honestly, I doubt they’ll find her."

Hope stirred inside my chest so suddenly it almost hurt.

Someone had escaped.

Which meant it was possible.

"Ah, she’s lucky," the other girl replied.

The conversation shifted almost immediately after that.

But I wasn’t listening anymore.

The only thing echoing inside my head was the fact that someone had actually escaped this place.

Someone had done it.

Just like Raven had helped me escape my family’s pack.

Until now, I hadn’t thought it was possible to break out of a fortress like this. The walls were high, the guards were everywhere, and everyone acted like this place was impossible to leave.

But if Isabelle had managed it, didn’t that mean there was still hope for me too?

For the first time in weeks, something inside my chest stirred.

When it was finally our turn, we were handed a small bowl of watery oatmeal and a hard piece of stale bread.

I stared down at it and sighed.

I had never been particularly spoiled when it came to food, but even I knew this looked miserable.

The second Skye and I settled into a corner away from the others, I immediately leaned closer and told her what I had overheard.

Then I waited for her reaction.

Instead, she simply pressed her lips together.

"Don’t tell me you’re thinking about escaping," she said.

I bit my lip.

Even though I had only been here a short time, I already knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life as a maid in this place.

Just that one week with Raven had changed something inside me.

For the first time in my life, I had been treated with kindness.

For the first time, freedom had actually felt within reach.

And now that I knew escape was possible, even if the odds were tiny, how was I supposed to stop thinking about it?

"Well..." I began carefully.

"Don’t," Skye cut in softly as she reached for her spoon.

The seriousness in her voice made me blink.

"You’ve been stuck here for two years," I whispered, leaning farther across the table so nobody else could overhear us. "Your brother could still be alive out there. Don’t you want to find him?"

The second the words left my mouth, I knew I had said the wrong thing.

Her grip tightened around the spoon until her knuckles turned white.

A flash of pain crossed her face so quickly I almost missed it.

Then came the anger.

She opened her mouth, clearly ready to say something, but before a single word could leave her lips, someone suddenly snatched her plate right off the table.

"Don’t tell me you were planning on eating that."

A cruel, mocking female voice cut through the air above us.

"Or are you forgetting our deal?"