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“How long did you keep him alive?”

Her cheeks turned pink, and she wet her lips. “Oh, I don’t know… I didn’t keep an exact count of the days.”

Alaric made a low, rumbling sound in his throat, his arms crossing over his chest.

“Let her finish,” I said. But I didn’t like the way Geraldine’s gaze kept flitting around the room.

“A few weeks ago, something happened,” Geraldine said. “Elvira was working on a new spell for some project she wouldn’t tell me about. She was more distracted than normal. She made a wrong incision and accidentally sliced an artery. Then the⁠—”

“Wait, incision?” I asked, my blood running cold. “Why was she making an incision?”

Geraldine’s flush deepened. “Oh, well… We had to operate on the creature.”

“Why?” I demanded, my heart pounding. I couldn’t fathom a need for them to do such a thing.

“To run our tests,” Geraldine said, as if it were obvious. “Our research couldn’t be complete unless we were thorough.”

Warning signals went off in my brain, and a sick feeling slithered into my stomach. “I thought you said you were using elixirs.”

“Well, it started off that way. But after a few years, we decided to expand our research.”

Years. Horror rose up in my chest. “Geraldine, how long was this Wolven Mage kept here?” My voice was firm and forceful. I needed a direct answer from her. My gut churned with unease.

Geraldine’s lips grew thin, and her eyes flicked to Alaric once. Her voice was small as she said, “Over twenty years.”

Alaric made a strangled sound. I stifled a gasp as nausea roiled within me. Twenty years? How had they kept the Wolven Mage alive for so long?

“Like I said, Elvira handled the messy bits,” Geraldine said, waving her hand as if to dismiss my unease. “We needed to see the inner workings of its body to fully understand how a Wolven functions.”

Shit. Inner workings?

Did they cut open the Wolven Mage?

The sick feeling within me intensified until I thought I might retch. My eyes shifted to Alaric. His hands were shaking, and his nostrils flared. He looked positively lethal. I swallowed around the lump in my throat and drew closer to him, pressing my fingers gently against his forearm.

I couldn’t imagine how difficult it was for him to hear this. In my mind, I didn’t see the white Rogue—I saw Alaric. His huge black wolf, chained up and thrashing. Gran slicing into his body. An anguished howl filling the air. I pictured Alaric, his once powerful body now cut to ribbons and covered in blood, his tormented screams echoing through the tunnels…

Tears pricked my eyes. I couldn’t stand it. I’d only been imprisoned for a single night, and it had been horrific. But this creature had been chained up for over twenty years.

“Anyway, Elvira nicked an artery, and we had to remove the chains to stop the blood flow,” Geraldine was saying. I blinked away the gruesome thoughts swirling in my head as I tried to focus on her words. “After he was healed, Elvira didn’t secure the chains properly, and the Wolven escaped.

“She told me to stay hidden in the encampment, where it was safe. The clan had exiled her for her experiments, but they didn’t know I was involved, thankfully. So, I stayed hidden, knowing Elvira would send word for me when it was safe.” She paused, her face twisting with grief. “But she never did. Eventually, I found out what had happened to her. The creature must have gotten her.”

I didn’t realize tears were streaming down my face until I tasted the salty moisture on my lips. I hastily wiped my face and sniffled loudly.

“Oh, sweet thing,” Geraldine said with a sympathetic smile, her own eyes sparkling with tears. “I know you must miss her terribly.”

I shook my head but couldn’t speak as a sob burst from my lips. The foolish witch thought I was crying over Gran.

But I was crying for the poor creature who had been caged and experimented on for years.

And Elvira—my grandmother—had been his tormentor.

She handled the messy bits.

I didn’t want to know what that entailed. Gran had always had a stronger stomach than me. She had no trouble dealing with fish eyeballs, pig intestines, and all manner of disgusting ingredients that made me queasy.

But I couldn’t reconcile the Gran I knew with this Gran—the witch who had tortured a Wolven Mage, dissecting him for her own research. All this time—all this time—she’d had this underground bunker. When she’d run off on her secret errands, she had actually been here, poking and prodding at a wounded Wolven Mage.