Chapter 6 The Warning

• The sterile smell of alcohol and herbs filled my nostrils before I even opened my eyes. It wasn’t the rich, earthy scent of the forest or the smoke-laden air of the pack. This was different—clean, sharp, almost unnatural for a place like Darkfang. My eyelids felt heavy, weighed down by exhaustion, but I forced them open, blinking against the harsh light.
• I was in a small, dimly lit room. The walls were made of stone, rough and cold, and the faint flicker of firelight danced from a nearby hearth. Shelves lined one wall, stacked with jars of strange herbs, bandages, and potions, their scents mingling in the air. A clinic. My heart sank as I realized I wasn’t dead. Not free. Not gone. I was alive. He saved me.
• The faintest pressure tugged at my wrists, and when I tried to move, I felt the restraint—a leather strap holding my arms at my sides, soft but firm enough that escape wasn’t an option. A similar strap secured my ankles to the end of the bed, the cool metal of the buckles pressing into my skin. My throat tightened, the feeling of being trapped, of having no control, wrapping around my lungs like a vice. I pulled at the bindings, weakly at first, and then harder, desperate to feel something other than this sick, choking restraint.