~ ROSELLE ~

I’m being tied to a chair inside an old, abandoned shed.

The rough ropes bite into my wrists as they’re pulled tighter, securing me firmly against the wooden frame with a finality that makes my stomach drop. My ankles are tied tightly to the chair legs too, leaving me unable to move and completely at their mercy. I test the restraints once, then twice, feeling them dig into my skin. It only takes a moment to realize there’s no way I’m getting out of this.

At this point, I can confidently say that getting kidnapped and nearly dying has become an unfortunate part of my life.

The thought would almost be funny if it weren’t so pathetic, most people spend their days worrying about work, relationships, or what they’re going to eat for dinner, but me? I somehow keep ending up at the mercy of people who either want me dead or want me to suffer first. It’s like I have a target painted on my back, a glowing neon sign that says "abuse me" in letters that only certain people can read.

I let out a shaky breath and force myself to remain calm, knowing that panic won’t help me in this situation.

Still, that doesn’t stop my heart from pounding violently against my ribs as I take in my surroundings with mounting dread. The shed is old and poorly maintained, with rotting wooden walls and a leaking roof that allows thin streams of moonlight to slip through the cracks. The smell of damp wood and dust fills the air, mixing with something so acrid that makes my nose twitch.

Fear twists in my stomach, a tight knot of terror that I can’t shake off.

"Fate is a beautiful thing, you know," one of the men says, crouching in front of me with his elbows resting on his knees.

A devilish smile tugs at his lips, making it clear he’s been looking forward to this moment for a very long time.

"You have no idea how much it hurt, losing our jobs, losing our place in the pack," he continues, his voice dripping with venom. "Do you know how many times we sat around thinking of ways to get our revenge? How many nights we lay awake plotting this exact moment?"

The other man chuckles from somewhere behind me, a sound that echoes off the wooden walls and makes my skin crawl.

"Too many times to count," the first man says, and he nods slowly, his eyes never leaving mine as though he’s committing this moment to memory. "But then fate stepped in and did all the hard work for us, didn’t it? It practically handed you to us on a silver platter."

He spreads his arms dramatically, acting as though he’s revealing some great truth that I’m supposed to appreciate.

"Don’t you see?" he asks. "We didn’t have to look for you, didn’t have to sneak into the pack house or come up with some elaborate plan to catch you alone. You wandered off all on your own, right into our path, with no guards and no one coming to save you."

The second man laughs from behind me, and the sound of it sends another wave of dread crashing through my body.

Then they exchange a glance. I can’t quite see what passes between them, but I can feel it. The look is filled with nothing but cruelty and the desire to hurt me.

"You know what wolfsbane does to a wolf?" the first man asks, standing up and moving toward the far corner of the shed.

I watch as he brings out a bundle of dried herbs. Their dark, withered appearance tells me they’ve been around for a long time—and are still potent.

My blood runs cold.

"It weakens them," he continues, speaking as if he’s teaching a lesson, which somehow feels even more terrifying than if he were yelling. "It makes them suffer. Makes their wolf feel like it’s burning from the inside out."

He pulls out a match and strikes it against the wooden chair. The sharp scratch echoes through the silent shed, making my heart jump.

"We thought about just killing you," he says casually, as if he’s sharing an interesting story rather than discussing my imminent torture. "But that seemed too quick, too merciful. You deserve to suffer the way we suffered."

He lights the dried wolfsbane, and immediately, acrid smoke begins to rise from the bundle.

The smell slams into me, strong and choking, making my eyes water. Within seconds, the shed is filled with grey smoke. It snakes through the air, creeping into every corner and making it harder to breathe.

I immediately try to hold my breath, but that’s impossible when you’re restrained, when you can’t move, when your body demands oxygen and all you have available is poisoned air.

My lungs begin to burn almost immediately.

It’s not the pain of a wolf being weakened by wolfsbane. It’s the pain of human lungs being filled with toxic smoke. My chest burns as I cough violently, struggling for air. But every desperate breath only drags more of the poisonous smoke deeper into my lungs.

Laughter echoes from outside the shed. The wooden walls dull the sound, but not enough to keep me from hearing it.

"That should do it," one of them calls out.

I thrash against the ropes binding me to the chair, my instinct screaming at me to run, to escape, to do anything but sit here choking on smoke.

I pull harder against the ropes, ignoring the way they cut into my skin and draw blood. The pain barely registering because it’s nothing compared to the agony in my lungs.

Breathing becomes torture. Every breath scorches my throat and lungs, burning everything inside me that was made to take in air. Tears stream down my face from the irritation, blurring my vision, and still I keep pulling at the ropes with desperate strength I didn’t know I possessed.

After what feels like an eternity but is probably only minutes, I give up on the ropes and instead throw myself against the chair itself, trying to tip it over, trying to do anything to change my position, to somehow escape this nightmare.

The chair doesn’t budge.

I bang on the wooden armrests, my hands making hollow sounds that are immediately swallowed by my own coughing fits. I claw at the walls around me, my fingers finding splinters and the sharp edges of rotting wood, leaving bloody streaks as I desperately try to dig my way out. The wolfsbane smoke just keeps coming, filling every corner of the shed, coating my lungs, attacking my body from the inside out.

The men’s laughter echoes from outside, growing louder, more excited, as if they’re genuinely enjoying listening to me suffer.

"Can you hear her choking?" one of them calls out.

"That’s beautiful," the other responds. "That’s exactly what we wanted."

I try to scream, but all that emerges is a ragged cough that brings up bile and blood. My throat feels like it’s coated in acid, my lungs feel like they’re collapsing, and the darkness at the edges of my vision is slowly creeping inward, threatening to swallow me whole.

This is it, I think distantly, my movements becoming weaker as my body begins to shut down from oxygen deprivation.

This is how I die, not from any of the dramatic fates I’ve imagined, but from being slowly poisoned by smoke in an abandoned shed while two men laugh from the safety of the outside world. The irony is so bitter I can taste it beneath the chemical burn of the wolfsbane.

My hands drop to my sides, my desperate struggles ceasing as my body simply gives up.

The smoke is everywhere now, a thick grey cloud that I can barely see through, and each breath is becoming harder, more labored, more impossible than the last. I’m fading, consciousness slipping away like sand through my fingers, when suddenly...

The door explodes inward.

The sound is deafening, wood splintering, hinges ripping from their frames, the entire structure shaking with the force of the impact. Fresh air rushes in, carrying with a masculine scent so familiar.

Ronan.

He strides through the cloud of smoke like it doesn’t exist, his form appearing like an avenging angel through the haze, his eyes black with rage, his entire body radiating a fury so absolute that the temperature in the shed seems to drop. His gaze lands on me for a single second. Bound to the chair, struggling to breathe, blood dripping from my torn wrists. Instantly, his expression changes into something far less human.

He grabs me, chair and all, and tears me away from the shed in one violent motion.

The cool night air hits my face like salvation, and I gasp, pulling it into my lungs in great, desperate heaves that hurt almost as much as the smoke did. He sets me down on the ground outside the shed, still bound to the chair, and his hands are already moving to undo the ropes, his movements precise and controlled despite the obvious rage vibrating through his entire body.

"I’ve got you," he says, his voice low and soft. "I’ve got you, Roselle. You’re safe."

But I can barely hear him because the moment he’s finished freeing me from the chair, he turns around and faces the two men who are now scrambling to run, their faces pale with terror as they realize their advantage has completely evaporated.

Ronan moves faster than I can follow.

One of the men doesn’t even make it three steps before Ronan is there, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him against the nearest tree with a force that cracks the bark. The man’s feet leave the ground, his hands immediately coming up to claw at Ronan’s wrist, his eyes bulging as he realizes he has no route of escape.

And then Ronan starts squeezing.

I watch, my body still heaving as it tries to recover from the smoke, as Ronan’s hand tightens around the man’s throat. The muscles in his arm flex and strain, and I can see the exact moment when the man’s struggles begin to weaken, when panic gives way to the realization that nothing he does will save him. Ronan’s eyes remain fixed on the dying man’s face, showing no mercy, no hesitation, just a cold, clinical execution.

The man’s tongue lolls from his mouth, his eyes starting to bulge from their sockets, and a thin trickle of blood runs down from the corner of his mouth. His hands drop to his sides, his body going limp, and still Ronan doesn’t let go, still he keeps squeezing until there’s absolutely no doubt that the life has completely drained from the man’s body.

Only then does he release him, letting the corpse crumple to the ground like a discarded piece of trash.

My stomach churns violently at the sight of it — at the casual brutality of it, at the absolute lack of hesitation in Ronan’s execution.

I’ve never seen him like this before, have never witnessed him kill someone with my own eyes, and the shock of it combined with the trauma of the smoke and the kidnapping is too much for my system to handle. The world tilts, my vision swims, and I feel my knees buckle beneath me.

My body hits the ground as consciousness fades, the last thing I register being Ronan’s voice calling my name as everything goes black.