Matt called for the guards, assuming Sebastian only meant to have them escort the Luna back to her penthouse, but he froze in shock at what Sebastian said next.

“Lock her in the old dungeon. Nobody is allowed to feed her or give her water. Anyone who goes against my orders will be executed alongside her tomorrow. I declare her public execution for tomorrow night, in front of everyone, to make an example of what happens to traitors who stand with the sea creatures or carry a part of them within their bodies. Take her away!”

Viola, hearing this through the buzzing haze filling her head, turned to look at him, her blue eyes carrying every ounce of her hurt, disbelief and pain.

But he met her gaze with a hatred she never imagined she’d see in eyes that had once looked at her with such warmth, and she felt her throat close, her heart tearing apart inside her chest.

“Sebastian, what’s gotten into you?” she whispered softly, but her words only seemed to enrage him further.

He released Victoria and strode toward her, grabbing a fistful of her hair and pulling painfully at her scalp until she had to bite back a cry of agony. He didn’t seem to care that she was in pain as he dragged her roughly toward the office door. There, he forced her to look into his eyes and gritted out,

“Don’t you ever say my name with that filthy mouth.”

With that, he shoved her so hard out of the office that Viola lost her balance and slammed into the glass wall opposite the door. The impact split the skin on her forehead, and blood immediately began to trickle down her face.

“Take her out of here before she smears that blood all over my floor,” he ordered coldly, irritation evident on his face.

Viola felt the blood trailing from the wound on her forehead down her face, but she was barely aware of the pain. The men who had once stood as her protectors and bodyguards came forward, grabbed her from the floor, and pulled her away.

As she was dragged off, Viola turned her head over her shoulder to look back at him one last time, silent tears streaming down her cheeks.

But he wasn’t even looking at her. She watched him turn back toward the woman called Victoria, cupping her cheek with tender eyes, stroking the side of her neck, and Viola bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep herself from breaking down completely.

But as she began to look away, her eyes locked with the she-wolf’s instead, who gave her a slow, satisfied smile, wrapping her arms possessively around Sebastian.

A fierce, possessive fury rose in Viola’s chest. That was her man. Her mate. The urge to wrench free from the men’s grip and physically tear the she-wolf away from him was so overwhelming that Viola forced herself to look away instead.

Viola was dragged to the darkest old dungeon underground, a place left untouched since the very beginning of Silver, and shoved into a cell. She lost her balance and fell into a puddle on the muddy floor, and behind her, she heard the cell door clang shut, followed by the twist of a key locking her inside.

Only after the men had locked her in and left did Viola drag herself over to sit against the wall, pulling her knees up to her chest and burying her head between them.

She was suddenly reminded of the night she was stripped to a hollow position and tortured every day and night.

She wanted to cry, but the tears refused to come, since everything still felt unreal, like she was trapped inside a nightmare she couldn’t wake from. So this was how it would end? The relationship she had fought so hard to hold together had crumbled apart in a single blink of an eye…

She had known, deep down, that a day like this might come. But never had she imagined it would unfold the way it just had, and the physical pain still radiating through her forehead felt like nothing compared to the pain tearing through her heart.

She tightened her arms around her knees. He would execute her in front of everyone, he’d said. The same Sebastian who had once promised he would never tire of telling her how much he loved her was now planning to kill her, and with his own child growing inside her, no less.

Her chest tightened so painfully she could barely breathe.

Viola bit down on her lower lip, feeling utterly, completely defeated, certain that even the truth of their unborn child wouldn’t change her fate now, because he wouldn’t want a child that was part mermaid, not now that he’d found his true prophesied mate, the one who could give him exactly what he needed instead.

It was so hard to believe, let alone accept, that he would turn her away like this and want to kill her for the very secret he had once promised to protect from anyone who might ever discover it. His hatred for mermaids had surfaced with such force after what she’d done, and now that he’d found his prophesied mate, he wouldn’t even forgive her.

His bond with Victoria must have been overwhelming, strong enough to outweigh whatever love he’d once felt for her, strong enough that he’d discarded her as easily as Evan had once discarded her for Leni. Only this time, it was some unknown she-wolf named Victoria…

Where had he even met her? Viola wondered miserably. Who was she, and why did it feel as though she’d seen her somewhere before today?

Victoria’s smile surfaced in her mind again, and something about it felt wrong, off in a way she couldn’t quite name, even as her looming fate pressed down over her.

She would be executed tomorrow.

Viola knew she couldn’t die here. Certainly not like this, not when she had a child she’d already promised to be a good mother to. Slowly, she lifted her head, forcing herself to look around the darkened cell.

She had to do something.