Chapter 15: The Cellar

Wynne's POV

The pack house cellar had one door, one slit window, and my grandmother's old preserving shelves.

The men who carried me down put me on the stone floor, and they did it gently.

That made it worse.

Then the bolt slid home on the outside, and I was alone in the dark.

I pounded on the door until my hands hurt.

I shouted my father's name.

A guard on the other side said, "It's no use, Miss Wynne," in a voice that sounded sorry.

I sat down against the shelves.

A jar of my grandmother's plum jam was by my knee. The label was in her handwriting, from nine years ago.

I held it in both hands and did not cry.

At noon, the bolt scraped.

Light fell down the steps, and my sister came down with it.

She had changed into a pale blue dress. She carried a tray with tea on it.

"Don't look at me like that," Delphine said. "I brought you tea."

"Get out."

"I will in a minute." She set the tray on a shelf and sat on an upturned crate.

"You missed a morning," she said. "He knelt in the square."

I went still.

"Alaric?"

"On the stone. In front of everyone. He said it was all his fault, and you were an innocent."

"It was sweet. It was also useless."

"Corbin confessed to the whole pack, too. He was very noble about it."

She laughed, a tiny silver sound.

"Nobody cared. Father told them it was the grief talking. The pack goes where its Alpha goes, Wynne. You never understood that."

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