Kaelith didn't speak right away.
He didn't need to.
Seo-Yun couldn't move. The collar had locked his limbs into a trembling spasm, muscles twitching as the residual voltage faded from his nerves. His hands were bound above his head, shackled to a chain bolted to the wall of what could only be Kaelith's private chamber—a place described in the novel, but never fully shown. A room of shadows and rituals. A room where things were decided.
The walls were covered in black stone, polished to a shine that mirrored pain back at itself. Runes flickered faintly along the ceiling. Blood runes. The air was too clean, the kind of sterile that reeked of power and old, careful violence.
Kaelith finally stepped forward, his boots echoing over the stone like a slow death drum. His presence filled the room like smoke—sharp, choking, inescapable.
Seo-Yun didn't look up. He refused.
Kaelith knelt anyway, crouching beside him like a king before a chained beast.
"You've caused quite a mess," he said, voice silk over broken glass. "A guard nearly bled out. Two gates disabled. My researchers panicked."
He reached forward—Seo-Yun flinched—but the Alpha didn't strike. Not yet.
Instead, Kaelith laid a hand over Seo-Yun's lower abdomen.
Gentle.
Almost reverent.
"You should've told me," he whispered.
Seo-Yun's breath caught. His whole body stiffened.
Kaelith's touch turned harsh, fingers digging in like claws. "This," he growled, "was not yours to hide."
Seo-Yun's voice rasped out: "It's not yours either."
A mistake.
The backhand came so fast he didn't see it. His head snapped sideways, blood from his split lip staining the floor.
Kaelith rose slowly, like the rage took effort to contain. "Everything in this place is mine. Every wall, every breath, every scream. Especially what grows inside you."
He began to pace, slow and deliberate.
"I should break your legs," he said casually. "Ensure you never walk toward another gate again. Let the pregnancy bind you to me like a leash made of blood."
Seo-Yun tasted iron. Spat it at Kaelith's feet.
But the Alpha only smiled.
"You're lucky, though. I've decided against punishment."
Seo-Yun's eyes flicked up, furious. "Then why am I still chained?"
Kaelith leaned down, his breath against Seo-Yun's ear. "Because fear feeds discipline. And discipline keeps a mother alive."
Mother.
The word hit like a knife.
Kaelith stood again. "You'll be moved. Not to the breeding ward. You're… unstable. Precious. And I want to watch."
He turned, leaving the room.
Guards entered minutes later. Unshackled him.
Dragged him out like meat.
The next place they put him wasn't a cell.
It was a glass room.
Literally.
Transparent walls on three sides, heavy surveillance panels mounted in every corner. A bed too soft, food too rich. A private lavatory. A warm robe. All comforts dressed as mercy.
But he couldn't take three steps without a sensor tracking him.
The glass was thick. He tried once to throw a chair at it.
It didn't even crack.
Days passed. He wasn't sure how many.
The sickness lessened slightly, replaced by a dull ache behind his navel. His appetite came back. He hated that. Hated how his body was adapting. Becoming.
The child was growing.
He could feel it.
And worse—Kaelith hadn't returned.
That silence frightened Seo-Yun more than the whip.
Then one night, the lights in his glass prison flickered.
Went out.
Total dark.
No alarms.
Just silence.
Then… a whisper through the vent.
"He's watching the north wing. You have ten minutes."
Seo-Yun's heart thudded once—twice.
He didn't hesitate.
He pried open the floor grate beneath the bed. Leya had told him—if you're ever moved to the glass rooms, there's only one blind spot: the vents.
He slipped inside.
Pregnant. Weak. Afraid.
But not broken.
Not yet.