Chương 2: Chapter 2 Bound in Shadows
Elena’s POV
The word hung between us like smoke.
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t rise. He set his pen down with the same care a man uses to close a coffin.
“Sit.”
“No.”
His jaw tightened. “Sit, Elena.”
My name in his mouth did something terrible to my insides. Tara keened, a high, broken sound that vibrated under my skin. I gripped the chair harder and stayed standing.
“How long have you known?”
He leaned back. The leather creaked. His green eyes raked over me, slow, clinical, like he was pricing a horse.
“Long enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
A muscle jumped in his cheek. “Six years.”
The floor tilted.
“Six,” I repeated.
“I was eighteen. You were twelve.” His voice didn’t change. No apology. No softness. “I caught your scent at a pack gathering. I followed it. I saw a scrawny child with scraped knees and a dead father’s name.”
“So you walked away.”
“I walked away.”
My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against the back of the chair so he wouldn’t see.
“My father died for yours.” My voice came out thinner than I wanted. “He bled out on a battlefield protecting your father. And you let us starve. You let my mother work until her hands crack. You knew what I was to you, and you still—”
“Sentiment.” He said it like a slur. “Your father did his duty. That’s what warriors do.”
“He was your mate’s father.”
“You were not my mate yet.”
The sound I made wasn’t quite a laugh.
He stood. God, he was tall. Taller than me, which didn’t happen often. He came around the desk slow, buttons gleaming, and stopped just close enough that the cedar scent curled into my mouth. Tara threw herself against my ribs so hard I almost gasped.
He’s in pain too, she whined. Look at his face, Elena, look—
I didn’t look.
“Here is how this will go,” he said quietly. “I will not reject you.”
Relief tried to rise. I crushed it.
“That’s not mercy.”
“No. It isn’t.” His mouth curved, bitter. “The Peak Goddess does not forgive insulted bonds. A formal rejection would bring ruin down on this pack. Crops. Children. Warriors. I will not gamble the lives of my people on the pride of one girl.”
“Then acknowledge me.”
“Absolutely not.”
The words came flat. Final.
“You are ranked below the omegas, Elena. Your family is a cautionary tale in this pack. I will not stand in front of my people and tell them the Moon chose you to be their Luna. They would laugh. My alliances would crumble.”
“So I’m nothing.”
“You’re a problem I am solving.”
Tears burned. I refused them. I had not cried in front of this man as a child, and I would not start now.
“Here are the rules,” he continued, like he was reading a grocery list. “You speak to no one of this. Not your mother. Not a friend. No one. You will not approach me in public. You will not touch me. You will not let another male touch you.”
“And you?”
His eyes flickered.
“I will continue as I have. Viviana stays. She is useful. Her uncle’s territory borders ours.”
“Your girlfriend.”
“My artificial girlfriend.”
“You expect me to live like this.” My voice rose. “Watching you with her. Feeling it. Every time. Pretending—”
“You will adjust.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.”
I stepped back from the chair. My knees had stopped shaking somewhere along the way. A cold, clean fury was taking their place.
“I graduate in a few months.”
“And?”
“And then I’m gone. I’m taking my mother and leaving this pack.”
He watched me. Didn’t blink.
“You’ll do as you’re told until then.”
“Or what?”
A faint smile. Not kind.
“Don’t ask questions you can’t afford the answer to.” He gestured at the door like he was dismissing a maid who’d finished changing the sheets. “Out. I have a city drive ahead of me.”
Tara was sobbing now. Actually sobbing inside me. Don’t go, please, he doesn’t mean it, he’s hurting, stay, fight, he is ours—
I turned on my heel.
I yanked the door open and walked straight into a wall of perfume.
Viviana.
Tight red dress. Heels I couldn’t have run in if someone paid me. Lipstick painted on like a warning sign. She took one look at me, bloody cheekbone and all, and her nose wrinkled.
“Baby, why is there garbage in your office?”
“Language, sweetheart.” Marcus’s voice had gone silk-smooth behind me. His hand landed at the small of her back, light, practiced. “A school altercation. Nothing worth your attention.”
“She’s bleeding on the rug.”
“She was just leaving.”
He didn’t look at me. Didn’t glance back. He steered Viviana past me like I was a coat rack, murmuring something about a boutique in the city, an hour’s drive, whatever her heart wanted.
Her heels clicked away down the hall.
I stood there in the doorway until my lungs remembered how to work.
Outside, the rain had thinned to a drizzle. Beta Hugo stood on the terrace, hands folded behind his back, watching the long black car pull around for his Alpha. His grey eyes caught mine.
For one blink he looked sorry. Genuinely, quietly sorry.
Then his face closed and he looked away.
I walked.
Down the drive. Past the stone pillars. Onto the cracked road that led back to town. My boots hit puddles. My cheek throbbed. Tara was a wreck inside me, pacing, whining, bargaining.
He said he wouldn’t reject us. That means something. That means—
“It means he’s a coward.”
He has a pack to protect—
“He has a reputation to protect.”
Please. Please, Elena. We could make him love us. We are his mate. The Goddess chose—
“The Goddess made a mistake.”
Tara flinched like I’d slapped her. Then, small and stubborn: He’s ours.
“He’s not. And we’re not his.”
I cut between two buildings to save time. A narrow service alley. Dumpsters. A puddle of oil rainbowing in the gutter. My shortcut home.
Halfway down, a shape peeled off the brick wall.
Brock.
Gauze taped across the bridge of his ruined nose. Both eyes already turning purple.
Behind him, four more. Toby. Derek. Zane. Knox.
My stomach dropped.
“Fairfax.” Brock’s smile split his scabbed lip. “I’ve been waiting.”
Something glinted in his hand. He let it swing lazy on its strap. Silver. Worn leather. A man’s watch, too big for his wrist.
My father’s watch. The one that had gone missing from our trailer a while ago.
“Recognize it?” Brock purred. “Found it in a pawn shop. Paid practically nothing. That’s about what a dead warrior’s worth, huh?”
Tara snarled.
“Put it down,” I said.
“Come take it, worthless trash.”
Five of them. One of me. No Alpha. No pack. No one coming.
I squared my shoulders. Lifted my fists. Set my feet.
I would not cry.
Brock moved first. His knuckles cracked across my cheekbone, right on top of the split from this morning, and white sparked behind my eyes. Derek’s boot drove into my stomach and the air left me in a wheeze.
Arms locked around me from behind. Hot breath in my hair.
I slammed the back of my skull into his face. Cartilage gave. He howled.
Then all five of them came at me at once.
