CHAPTER 5 : THE DEAD GUARD

Seraphine jerked awake, a scream crushed in her throat. For a moment, panic swallowed her. She didn’t know where she was. Everything was dark—crushing, absolute darkness pressing in on all sides. Her knees rested against cold stone. The air stank of metal and blood. Too much blood. Her heart galloped, loud and wild. Something had gone terribly wrong. She tried to rise, but pain struck—white-hot, throbbing behind her eyes. It felt like someone had cracked open her skull and tried to sew it back together in the dark. She groaned, her head swimming. Vision blurred, the world tipping under her. Shaky, she brought a trembling hand to her forehead, and it came back slick—wet and red. She caught her breath. Blood. Fresh blood, warm and sticky. A cold panic grabbed her chest. She looked down. Her nightdress was drenched, sleeves stained dark red. Blood striped her arms, painted her hands. It was everywhere, on everything. For several endless seconds, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Her lungs stopped working. And then she noticed what she held. Something cold. Something sharp. Something heavy. A knife. A hunting knife, silver blade glinting in the moonlight that managed to filter in. Blood slid from the tip, dropping—one, two, three—onto the stone. Each drip echoed in the dark. Seraphine’s stomach twisted. Her fingers opened on instinct, and the knife clattered to the floor, loud as a gunshot. She shuddered. Fear crawled up her spine. Where was she? How did she get here? What happened? All she remembered was falling asleep in her own bed. After that—nothing. Not a flicker. Her memory was a vast, terrifying blank. Her heart pounded. No. No, no, no. Not again. Missing records. Vanishing portraits. The impossible bond. And now this. She forced herself to sit up. Her legs shook beneath her. A shaft of moonlight lit the room just enough. This wasn’t her bedroom. Wasn’t anywhere in the Alpha House. The walls were rough stone, ancient and cold. She recognized the place now. An old guard tower, abandoned near the territory’s edge. Why here? She never came here—nobody did. A cold knot pulled tight in her gut. Then she saw the body. It was a few feet away, sprawled facedown, ringed with blood. Everything stopped. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. No sound but her racing pulse. “No…” The word barely escaped. Her knees nearly buckled. Still, she moved closer. Fear shrieked at her to turn, to run, but she had to see. Had to know. The blood was everywhere—far more than she realized. It splashed the floors and the walls, and soaked the body itself. The guard lay dead in Blackthorn colors. A face she’d seen before—familiar, until now. His throat was cut. Seraphine stumbled away, gasping. Her stomach heaved. She made it to the corner just in time to vomit. Tears stung her eyes. She shook all over. “No…” It came out broken and weak, but she kept muttering it like a lifeline. She didn’t remember this. Didn’t remember coming here or seeing the guard or holding the knife. She didn’t remember murder. But the truth soaked her skin, dripped from her hands, pooled at her feet. It pointed at her—her and no one else. Deep down, that terrified her most. Because if she didn’t do this…who did? A shout echoed from outside. Then another. Footsteps—lots of them, pounding closer. Panic shot through her like ice water. They were coming. They’d find her like this: smeared with blood, hunched beside a corpse. This was bad. Beyond bad. The tower door banged open. Guards stormed in, faces going slack as they took it all in. Silence, thick as cement. One guard went chalk white. Another reached for his blade. Nobody said a word. They didn’t have to. Everything pointed straight at her. The body, the blood, the knife—Seraphine. “Wait—” Her voice cracked. “I can explain.” Except she couldn’t. She had no idea what to say. The guards eyed each other nervously—fear twisting their faces, not concern, not sympathy. The same fearful glances she’d been seeing in her pack for weeks. One guard started to raise his sword. Another edged away, as if she’d attack next. That hurt more than she wanted to admit. “I didn’t do this.” Nobody answered. Why would they believe her? She barely believed herself. More footsteps out in the hall. The Elders entered. Elder Rowan, most of all—his expression unreadable. The room held its breath. One Elder stared from the body to Seraphine and back again, his face hardening. “Moon Goddess protect us,” someone muttered. “She killed him.” The words sliced sharper than any knife. Seraphine shook her head, desperate. “No! I don’t remember anything!” That just seemed to make it worse. The Elders shared uneasy glances. Memory loss. More mystery. One impossibility after another—always with Seraphine in the center. Couldn’t have come at a worse time, after what happened at the temple. Rowan stared at her. “Seraphine. What’s the last thing you remember?” She had to swallow first. “Going to sleep.” Nobody looked convinced. Rowan just stared at the blood, then the corpse, then her. “You expect us to believe you woke up here by accident?” “No.” The answer shot out. She knew it sounded ridiculous. But it was the truth—the only truth she had. Things fell apart fast. Within an hour, rumors burned through the territory. The packless girl had killed a guard. The cursed wolf had finally lost control. The rejected mate had snapped. Each telling made her sound worse. By sunrise, half the territory called her a murderer. The rest feared she was something even more dangerous. She spent the morning alone in a holding room—not locked up, but not free either. A guard watched her from the hall. Like she was contagious. Yesterday she was the Alpha’s daughter. Now she was a monster. It felt unreal. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Every time she shut her eyes, she saw blood and that blank, missing span of time. Who had stolen those hours from her? Someone knocked. The door opened. Kaelen slipped in—alone. He shut the door behind him. Stillness. The weight of it pressed her down. Seraphine broke first. “Do you think I killed him?” Kaelen’s face didn’t show a thing. The question just hung in the air, until—finally— “No.” She actually gasped. “Why?” His eyes flicked to the window, following the sunrise. Something haunted flickered there. “Because this has happened before,” he said. It chilled her instantly. “What?” His jaw clenched. He looked like he’d said too much. Still, he didn’t take it back. “You need to remember,” he said. “Remember what?” He looked at her—really looked at her. His gaze was full of old shadows. “That’s what scares me.” He left before she could ask more, leaving her with nothing but questions. Hours crawled by. Investigators finished sweeping the tower and Elder Rowan returned, looking grim. Something had changed. The Elders huddled against the wall, arguing in tense whispers, glancing at her. Fear on every face. Rowan came to her, pale and shaken. She braced herself. “What did you find?” He hesitated, which said everything. Whatever they’d found, it was bad news. Finally Rowan spoke. “There was a message.” “A message?” she echoed. He nodded, motioning toward the wall behind the corpse. She hadn’t noticed it before. Her pulse spiked. She stepped closer, every sense screaming. There, scored deep into the stone, violent and desperate—written with blood, the dead guard’s blood: SHE REMEMBERED. A shiver ran through her. And somewhere in the blacked-out reaches of her mind, something laughed.