The Lunar Crest Academy: Marked by The Lycans
Chapter 44: The Room of Silence

Chapter 44: Chapter 44: The Room of Silence

They dragged me here like I was nothing. Like I didn’t matter. Their hands were bruising around my arms, but I didn’t scream. I didn’t beg.

I saved my strength.

The moment the heavy white door slammed shut behind me, I knew I was truly alone.

The room was... blinding.

Everything, everything, was white. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, even the thin mattress lying on one side of the room. There were no windows, no shadows. Just white and light.

The fluorescent bulbs above buzzed faintly, never flickering, just glowing, do harsh, so unrelenting, that it felt like needles pricking at my eyes. I squinted, but it didn’t help. It didn’t go away.

It was as if the lights were alive, punishing me, peeling away my sanity one unbearable second at a time. _{fre ewe bnove l.com}

The silence, too, was maddening. Not the peaceful kind. No. This was suffocating silence. The kind that wraps around your throat and whispers, you’re forgotten. It was so still, so oppressively quiet that when I whispered "hello," it echoed back at me, soft and hollow like a ghost’s breath.

I tried the door first. I hit it with my fists until they turned red, then purple. I yelled until my throat went dry. I shouted Astrid’s name, screamed for someone, anyone, to open it.

No one came.

No footsteps outside. No voices. No movement.

Just the lights. And the white. And me.

I tried the walls next. Pounding. Scratching. Kicking.

Nothing.

Time passed. I don’t know how much. There’s no clock here, no window to guess if it’s day or night. The lights don’t dim. They never stop.

My stomach clenched in protest. It had been hours since I last ate. No water either. My lips already felt dry, and the air was sharp against my tongue, too sterile. Too cold.

My body started to ache from the thin mattress, but lying down made it worse. The brightness of the ceiling burned into my eyes no matter how I turned. I tried curling in on myself, burying my face into the crook of my arm, but the light still found me.

There was no escape.

And that’s when it hit me.

This place wasn’t built just to punish.

It was built to break people.

I sat in the middle of the room, cross-legged, staring at nothing, because there was nothing to stare at. I could feel the white pressing in on me, wrapping around my mind like fog. I hugged my knees to my chest and rested my chin there.

So quiet.

Too quiet.

I whispered to myself just to hear something. Anything.

"My name is Lorraine Anderson."

It echoed

"I won’t die in here."

Echo.

My voice sounded small. Weak. Even to my own ears.

I thought of Elise. Of Felix. Of Callum.... oh goddess, Callum. His blood. His cries. The way he died in my arms.

And I wasn’t even allowed to bury him.

I thought of Astrid’s cold face when she sentenced me. The flicker of pride in her eyes like she’d won. Like she’d finally taught the wild little feral a lesson.

And Kieran...

I hated that my thoughts drifted to him too. That some part of me expected him to come.

But he didn’t.

Of course he didn’t.

I was in here alone.

And no one was coming to save me.

.....

Kieran’s POV

The moment I entered my study, I didn’t bother picking a specific book, I just grabbed whatever my hand touched first on the shelf. Some ancient, leather-bound volume with faded gold letters. I didn’t even glance at the title. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t here to learn again. I was here to forget

To forget her.

I dropped into the velvet armchair near the corner, flipping through the pages without reading a single word. Just skimming lines of old Lycan lore, war accounts, and outdated family trees. I tried to focus, to drown myself in the dust and ink of history. But it didn’t work

That brown-haired feral girl’s voice kept echoing in my mind. "Lorraine... Astrid put her in the white room... No food, no water... Please, you have to save her..."

I clenched the book tighter.

Why the hell did she think I would care? Why should I care?

Lorraine wasn’t my problem

She is just a servant. A temporary one at that.

She is a scholarship feral meant to suffer and disappear, like every other who came before her.

And yet...

The thought of her in that room, the white room, with no food, no water, alone with nothing but blinding lights and silence..... it gnawed at me. Pushed its claws into my chest and twisted.

My wolf growled low in my head. Not the usual snarl of irritation or hunger. No, this one was deeper. Primal. Uneasy.

Protect.

I gritted my teeth.

My wolf never spoke. Not unless in the heat of battle or bloodlust. But lately, ever since her, it stirred. Growled. Restless and irrational. Disobedient. It took extra effort to suppress it now, to bend it back under my control.

All because of a feral.

A lowly, dirty, fragile thing.

Why?

Why did she pull reactions from me that no one else ever has? Why does my wolf, my instincts, flare when she’s hurt, when she cries, when someone touches her?

I slammed the book shut and stood abruptly, the sound echoing through the stillness of the room.

"That’s it," I muttered to no one but the beast in my chest. "For the sake of my peace, I’ll get her from that room. That’s all."

A favor. A selfish one

Not for her.

For me. For my wolf. So I could think again.

I turned toward the door, about to step out, then something...... shifted.

A scent whiffed past my nose with the breeze

Faint. Almost too faint to detect. But unmistakably there.

A wolf.

My eyes narrowed.

There was someone in my study.

Someone hiding.

I stilled completely, letting the silence stretch, I breathed in the air, trying to catch the scent again.

To make sure I was right

And there it was again.

The scent.

And a heartbeat.

Too fast.

Too light.

My head snapped toward the far end of the room, toward the draped velvet curtains beside the window.

Someone was there. Hiding.