Chapter 5

　　Avery's POV

　　I heard them before I saw them. Shadows. Beneath the door. Two feet, shifting weight like people trying to be quiet and failing the way people always fail when they think no one is paying attention.

　　I pressed myself against the wall beside the door and waited. The shadows moved away.

　　I counted to ten. Then I opened the door.

　　The corridor was empty.

　　The whole wing felt empty. That particular quality of silence that meant people had been recalled somewhere else deliberately.

　　This is a test, something in me said. He wants to see what you do when you think no one is watching.

　　I went anyway. I was not here to pass his tests.

　　I moved through corridors I had not been permitted to see yet. The east wing gave way to a wider passage floored in dark stone. The dark stone opened into a hall with ceilings so high the torchlight didn't reach the top.

　　I stopped in the centre of it and turned slowly, looking for exits. Two doors on the far wall. A barred window but the bars were decorative iron. I was still calculating when the air changed.

　　That charge. That particular weight.

　　"Fuck."

　　"Are you lost, baby girl." Not a question. His voice came from behind me. Low and unhurried.

　　Like he had been standing there long enough to watch me map his house and had simply been waiting to see how long it took me to notice him.

　　I turned around slowly.

　　Lucian stood in the doorway. Both hands resting on a new cane: dark wood, heavier than the last. His eyes were fixed just past me, but his attention was entirely on me.

　　Something moved behind his expression that I could not name precisely but recognised instinctively.

　　Rage. Controlled. Leashed. But rage.

　　I lifted my chin.

　　"I was looking for a way out." I wasn't going to pretend otherwise."

　　He stepped into the room. The cane found the floor with each step. He stopped close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off him. His head tilted. Reading my breathing. Reading my heartbeat.

　　"You know I'm not my father's youngest. You said it yourself." I held my ground even though every instinct was telling me to step back. "So why am I still here?"

　　Silence.

　　"Why are you keeping me? Answer me."

　　He reached out and caught my chin between his fingers with an iron grip, tilting my face upward, and his thumb pressed lightly against my jaw like he was measuring the shape of my defiance.

　　My breath hitched.

　　I spat. Full in his face. Hot and deliberate.

　　The room went absolutely still.

　　He released my chin. Stepped back one pace. His free hand came up slowly and he wiped his face with the back of it. Unhurried, controlled, like a man who had decided exactly how much of himself he was going to show right now and had chosen: nothing.

　　"You blind bastard," my voice cracked with everything I had been holding since. "You think I am something you can just keep? Let me go. Say it. Just say the words and let me go."

　　Still no answer.

　　Something snapped inside me.

　　I lunged.

　　My fists connected with his chest, his shoulder, anywhere I could reach, hitting and hitting because I had nothing left but this, no plan, no weapon, not even a name that belonged to me.

　　"Sit. Down."

　　I kept hitting.

　　"Let me go! I am not yours, I don't belong here, let me—"

　　He caught my wrists in one motion and pushed. I went back into the chair behind me hard enough to knock the breath out of my lungs.

　　"Sit the fuck down."

　　I sat. My chest heaved. My eyes burned.

　　He stood over me, both hands gripping the cane now, and the air around him had changed.

　　"You want to know why you are here." His voice was quiet again. He began to move around the chair, slowly, measured.

　　"Do you think I brought you here to mate you?"

　　He laughed. One low, sharp sound. Just final. Like the closing of a door.

　　"You are not fit to be my Luna." He stopped behind me. The words landed on the back of my neck like cold air "You are not even fit to be my maid."

　　Silence swallowed everything.

　　My breathing was loud. Uneven. My heart was a drum and I knew he could hear every beat and I could not stop it so I just sat in the wreckage of that sound and waited.

　　Then I found something. Small and stubborn. Somewhere underneath the fear.

　　"Then what." My voice came out broken at the edges but it came out. "My father brought me here. He told me there was a deal."

　　I shoved up from the chair, rushed towards him and my hand found the blade at his hip before my mind caught up with what my body was doing. I yanked it free.

　　His hand grabbed my wrist before I could raise it. Twisting my arm behind my back so fast the blade dropped and my knees nearly buckled from the angle.

　　"Do you really want to kill me?" His mouth was close to my ear. "Many have tried. It is not that simple."

　　"Let me go," I twisted trying to yank my arm free.

　　"I am blind." His grip didn't loosen. "And I hear every shift in this room. Every change in your breathing." A pause. "You will not catch me off guard. Not today. Not ever."

　　He released me.

　　I stumbled forward, breathing hard, and turned to face him.

　　"Your father has been paid. But that does not mean you were sold for love. Or mating.

　　He tilted his head. "You are here to serve. That is all. You will not be my Luna. You will not be my mate. You will be my plaything."

　　"You must be sick." The words came out before I could stop them and I did not want to stop them.

　　"I am not an object. I am not a plaything. And you—" my voice cracked full of rage, "you are blind. You cannot even see me. How would you even know what to do with a woman?"

　　The silence after that was the longest of my life.

　　Then the corner of his mouth moved to something that was almost a smile.

　　"I don't need my eyes to know exactly where to put my cock."

　　He walked closer, pulling me against his chest. His hand slipped beneath the hem of my dress, sliding up my thigh.

　　I shoved at him. "Get off me, you animal."

　　He didn't budge.

　　Instead, he forced me back into the chair. His thighs pressed between my legs, his hands gripping my boobs hard.

　　"I could have you right here," he muttered darkly, "but I want you cleaned first."

　　Then from the doorway Raith's voice. Low, clipped, urgent.

　　"Alpha. You have a message." Lucian went completely still. He turned away from me like I had ceased to exist.

　　"Raith." Iron voice. "Take her to her room. Feed her. Have the maids clean her." A pause, each word precise. "When I am ready for her, I don't want to touch filth. Make sure there is no stain left on her body or her soul."

　　"No!" The word tore out of me. "No, let me go! Let me go!"

　　Raith's hands closed around my arms and I fought him. Kicked, twisted, screamed and none of it made any difference.

　　"Let me go!" My voice broke completely. "Let me go, you hear me? I said let me go!"

　　Lucian did not turn around.

　　He listened to the sound of me being dragged from the room. My screaming, my sobbing, my curses echoing off stone walls until the door closed and swallowed all of it.

　　***

　　Raith left me in my room with two words: maids are coming. Then the door clicked shut and his footsteps faded.

　　I sat on the floor for thirty seconds.

　　Then I got up.

　　The window. The decorative iron bars I had noted in the living room, this room had the same. I worked it with my hands,until it created a gap just wide enough.

　　I dropped to the ground outside.

　　The night air hit me. I moved through shadows, between outbuildings, keeping low, keeping quiet.

　　I was almost at the tree line when I heard it.

　　Voices. Coming from the stone outbuilding to my left. Low, a single torch burning at the entrance. The door was ajar.

　　I should have kept moving but instead I stopped. Pressed myself against the outer wall and looked through the gap.

　　What I saw made blood drain completely from my face.