ARIA POV
Jasper didn’t let me run with them to their pack lands. He didn’t trust me to follow him like a good puppy. And he was right.
One moment Kara was growling at him, teeth bared, and the following one a sharp pain exploded on my head and all went black.
The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the smell.
Not the pain, not the chains, not the ache that seemed to have seeped into every joint of my body during the hours I must have been unconscious.
The smell.
Damp stone that had been wet for so long it had forgotten what dryness felt like. Rust from iron that had seen too many wrists before mine. Old blood soaked into mortar. Mold clinging to the corners like a living thing. A sour mixture of decay and human misery that crawled up my nose and sat heavy in the back of my throa
