My Mate Put Me in Chains

The silence in my head was a heavy, suffocating blanket. Since Elias had severed my mind-link, the Pack House felt like a tomb. I walked down the hallway, my steps soundless on the plush carpet, desperate for the one source of warmth I had left. Muffin.

He was just a stray, a scruffy orange tabby I’d found shivering near the kitchens a year ago. Hunter had sneered at him, calling him a 'useless creature,' but he had let me keep him. Perhaps he thought a pet would keep me distracted, docile. He didn't understand that Muffin was the only living thing in this house that didn't look at me with pity or contempt.

I reached my bedroom door, my hand trembling as I turned the knob. 'Mist,' I whispered internally. 'Is he in there?'

'Something is wrong,' Mist growled, pacing in the back of my mind. 'The air... it smells of iron.'

I pushed the door open. The scent hit me first—thick, metallic, and horrifyingly familiar. It was the smell of the car wreck. The smell of the road on the night I died.

"Muffin?" My voice cracked.

The room was dim, the curtains drawn against the afternoon sun. I stepped forward, my eyes adjusting to the gloom. My bed, usually perfectly made by the Omegas, was a mess of rumpled sheets. And in the center of the pillow, where I laid my head every night, was a small, mangled shape.

I stopped breathing. The orange fur was matted with dark, wet crimson. His small body was twisted at an unnatural angle, broken with a violence that made my knees buckle. It wasn't an accident. It was a slaughter.

I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle the scream, tears instantly blurring my vision. I stumbled toward the bed, reaching out but afraid to touch him, afraid to make it real. Then, I saw the mirror.

Across the glass of my vanity, written in dripping red letters that could only be blood, was a message:

*WEAK THINGS DIE.*

I collapsed to the floor, my chest heaving with silent sobs. The cruelty of it was precise. It wasn't just about killing a cat; it was about showing me how easily I could be broken.

Suddenly, a sharp, static screech pierced the silence of my mind. It wasn't the warm hum of the Pack link; it was a jagged, forced intrusion, like a needle being driven into my brain.

*"Did you hear it, Liliana?"*

Amaya’s voice echoed in my skull, distorted and mocking. I clutched my head, curling into a ball.

*"He screamed just like you did when your car went over the ridge,"* she whispered, her mental voice dripping with venom. *"High and pathetic. Begging for help that wasn't coming."*

'Get out!' Mist roared, lunging at the mental intrusion, snapping her jaws at the invisible enemy. 'I will kill you! I will tear your throat out!'

*"Save your energy, mutt,"* Amaya laughed, the sound scraping against my sanity. *"This is just a preview. The Alpha doesn't keep broken toys forever."*

The connection snapped, leaving me gasping on the floor, the silence rushing back in with deafening force. I looked at Muffin’s body, and the grief catalyzed into something hot and hard. Rage.

I stood up. I didn't wipe the tears from my face. I walked to the bed and gently wrapped Muffin’s body in the silk pillowcase, staining the fabric red. I cradled him against my chest, feeling the cold weight of him, and walked out the door.

I didn't stop for the guards. I didn't lower my eyes when I passed the Beta in the hall. I marched straight to Hunter’s office and kicked the heavy oak door open.

Hunter was on the phone, leaning back in his leather chair. He frowned as I entered, covering the mouthpiece. "Liliana? I am in a meeting—"

I walked to his desk and placed the bloody bundle on top of his pristine paperwork. The blood began to soak through the silk, spreading across his documents.

"She killed him," I said, my voice shaking not with fear, but with the effort to not shift right there and then. "Amaya. She came into my room. She wrote a message in his blood on my mirror."

Hunter stared at the bundle, his expression shifting from annoyance to a cold, detached pity. He hung up the phone without saying goodbye.

"Liliana," he sighed, standing up and walking around the desk. He didn't look at the cat. He looked at me, his eyes scanning my face for signs of hysteria. "We've discussed this. The windows in the east wing are old. A fox, or perhaps a raccoon, must have gotten in."

"A fox didn't write on my mirror!" I screamed, the sound tearing at my throat. "She mind-linked me, Hunter! She taunted me! She said—"

"Stop it!" Hunter’s voice cracked like a whip, his Alpha tone slamming into me. I froze, my body locking up against my will.

He stepped closer, towering over me, radiating a suffocating heat. "Amaya is pregnant. She is resting. She has not left her suite all day. Your mind is fragile, Liliana. You are seeing things that aren't there because you are sick."

'He is lying,' Mist snarled, pacing frantically. 'He smells of her scent. He knows what she is.'

"I am not sick," I whispered, fighting the pressure of his command. "I know what I saw."

Hunter reached out and brushed a stray hair from my forehead. His touch was gentle, terrifyingly so. "You are hysterical. And look at you... covered in filth."

He turned back to his desk, picking up a tissue to wipe a speck of blood from his hand. "Clean yourself up. The Omegas will dispose of... the animal. You have duties to attend to."

I stared at him. "Duties?"

"The Winter Solstice Gala is tonight," Hunter said, as if he hadn't just dismissed a murder. "The entire Council will be there. Neighboring Alphas. It is the night we officially announce the heir."

He leaned against the desk, crossing his arms. "You will attend. You will stand by my side. And when I introduce Amaya and the pup, you will smile. You will bless her pregnancy in front of everyone."

My stomach turned. "I won't. I can't."

Hunter’s face hardened. The mask of the caring husband vanished completely, replaced by the tyrant who had locked me in a dungeon of my own mind.

"You have a choice, Liliana," he said softly. "You can play the part of the supportive, recovering Luna. You can show the Pack that you are healing. Or..."

He gestured vaguely to the room, to the house, to the world outside.

"Or I will deem you a danger to yourself and others. I will have you sedated and confined to the isolation ward in the basement. You will never see the sun again. You will never paint again. You will rot in the dark until you forget your own name."

He waited, letting the threat sink into my bones. He knew exactly what terrified me. The chains. The dark. The silence.

"Do we have an understanding?" he asked.

I looked at the bloody bundle on the desk, then at the man I had once thought was my soulmate. I felt Mist retreat deep into my mind, crouching low, biding her time. We were not strong enough to fight him yet. Not today.

"Yes, Alpha," I whispered, the words tasting like ash.

Hunter smiled, satisfied. "Good. Wear the silver dress. It matches your eyes."