ADELE’S POV

My head throbbed like someone had taken a hammer to it. Everything hurt—my wrists, my shoulders, my neck where the men had pulled roughly while trying to force me to breathe in. The smell of wolfsbane still clung to my nostrils, bitter and burning, making my stomach roll every time I breathed too deep.

I blinked slowly, vision swimming, until the darkness sharpened into shapes.

I was tied to a chair.

Thick ropes bit into my wrists, looped around the wooden arms, knotted so tight my fingers were already going numb. My ankles were bound to the chair legs. Cold stone floor beneath me. Damp air. The faint...