The rain was still drumming against the glass when they left me in the middle of the marble foyer, dripping onto the polished floor like a stray dragged in from the storm. My pulse hadn't slowed since the forest. Every muscle in me wanted to lunge for the door again, but the memory of Lucien's men dragging me from the mud was a chain around my ankles and engraved in my memories
A loud sound moved at the top of the staircase.
It was Lucien.
He descended slowly, each step deliberate, opened the door and his gaze fixed on me as if he could read the frantic, mutinous rhythm of my heart. The room felt colder with him in it, the air thickening until every breath scraped my throat.
"You ran away ," he said simply, his voice so soft it was worse than shouting. "You ran … and yet here you are again."
I swallowed, my fingers curling tighter around the small square hidden in my palm. Kael's message, Kael's impossible promise.
"I didn't ask to be here," I said, my voice sharper than I intended.
Lucien's smile was slow, dangerous. "No. But you'll stay forever. You've made sure of that with the little stunt you pulled."
He circled me like a predator that already knew the outcome of the hunt. The wet strands of my hair clung to my face, and I didn't dare wipe them away.
"Your loyalty," he murmured, "is… highly questionable. But your usefulness is not."
"I'm not useful to you," I whispered.
"Oh, Zaria," he said, leaning in until I could feel his breath on my skin, "you have no idea how wrong you are and how how valuable you are to me in so, so many ways."
Before I could respond, he took my wrist and started walking. His grip wasn't cruel, but it was absolute. I had no choice but to follow as he led me out of my imprisoned room and deeper into the estate, through halls that seemed to stretch and twist under the flicker of candlelight.
We stopped before a door I had never seen before, it look mysterious, and ancient. He slid a key from his pocket and turned it in the lock with a quiet, deliberate click.
Inside, the room was dim, lit only by the glow of a single oil lamp. A map sprawled across a long table, pinned down with knives. Red ink bled over certain's location. I didn't recognize most of the names, but I recognized the chill in my bones.
"This," Lucien said, releasing me, "is why you're still breathing."
I stood motionless, watching him move pieces on the map like a general in the middle of a war.
"You know the things I need," he continued. "Things Kael knows. And Kael… will come for you. He always does."
My heart twisted painfully. "And when he does?"
Lucien looked up at me with eyes as unreadable as the sea before a storm. "When he does, you'll lead him here."
The realization hit me like ice.He knows all about kael and what he had done. He wasn't just keeping me prisoner—he was bait.
I stepped back, shaking my head. "I won't help you catch him."
His smile almost reach his eyes. "You will. Because if you don't, I'll take from you the one thing even Kael can't save."
I didn't have to ask what that was.
The room suddenly felt smaller, the walls closing in, the rain outside now a roar against the windows.
I told myself not to tremble. I told myself to keep my chin high. But when Lucien stepped closer, close enough for the scent of his cologne to drown the dampness of my clothes, I realized my breath had already given me away.
"You think this is a cage," he murmured. "It's not. It's a stage. And soon, you'll play your part perfectly."
Somewhere deep inside me, Kael's voice lingered. Hold on.
I clutched the square in my palm until the edges bit into my skin, promising myself I'd survive long enough to see Kael again—even if it meant dancing on the stage Lucien built.
Even if it meant becoming the bait.
I couldn't believe I was last ways having feeling for a Mad driven beast..