Chapter 6: The Gilded Cage
The transformation wasn't a triumph; it was a terrifying stranger living under my skin.
As I stood before the full-length mirror in the North Suite, I gripped the edges of the vanity until my knuckles turned white. The woman in the glass looked healthy—too healthy. The sallow, grayish tint to my skin had vanished, replaced by a glow that felt like a lie. My eyes, once dull and perpetually tired, were now a piercing, stormy gray.
But it was my face that stole my breath. I reached up, my fingers trembling as they traced my cheek. The bruise was gone. Not just faded, not hidden by silk or powder, but erased. Even the old, jagged scar on my collarbone from Julian's ring was nothing more than a faint memory. The poison was gone, and my wolf had spent the last week meticulously stitching me back together.
"He is downstairs," she whispered, her voice like the rustle of dry leaves. "The one who smells of the storm. He's the reason we can breathe."
Stop it, I pleaded, my breath coming in shallow hitches. He's a High Alpha who took us to settle a debt.
I chose a dress from the rack with trembling fingers—a simple, deep navy silk that felt like water against my newly sensitive skin. I still felt like a fraud, a "dud" dressed up in an Alpha's finery, waiting for the moment someone realized I didn't belong.
I walked down the grand staircase, my heels clicking sharply against the marble. Every sound felt like a gunshot. The servants I passed stopped in their tracks, their nostrils flaring as they caught the new, sharp scent of my wolf. I wanted to hide, to tell them I wasn't the threat they smelled.
I pushed open the heavy oak doors to the dining hall, my heart drumming a frantic rhythm.
Silas was at the head of the table, his back to the room. His shoulders were corded with tension. The air in the room felt heavy, charged with a static electricity that made the fine hairs on my arms stand up.
"The fever has broken," I said, my voice small and brittle.
Silas didn't turn around immediately. I felt a sudden, massive surge in his Alpha aura—a wave of raw, possessive power so thick it made my knees buckle. I had to grab the back of a chair to keep from falling. I felt a pull in my gut, a physical yearning to walk toward him, just to see if the heat I remembered from my fever was real.
"Go to him," my wolf urged. "He smells like home."
"I can see that," Silas said. His voice was lower, strained, as if he were speaking through gritted teeth.
He finally turned, but he didn't move toward me. He took a deliberate step back, putting the long obsidian table between us as if it were a barricade. His eyes were no longer amber; they were a molten, glowing gold.
"You look... better," he said, his gaze snapping away from me to look at the wall. He seemed to be struggling to even keep his eyes on my face.
"Mrs. Vance will give you your instructions," Silas said harshly, his voice cracking. "The Silver-Moon Pack is holding a gala in ten days. Julian thinks he's free of his obligations. He thinks he's disposed of his 'embarrassment.' You're going. You'll wear my colors. You'll show them exactly what they threw away."
Ten days. Ten days to learn how to be the woman in the mirror.
"Ten days isn't enough time," I whispered, feeling the old, familiar fear of failure. "I don't know how to... I don't know how to be what you want."
"You will learn," Silas snapped, his nostrils flaring as he took in my scent. "You will spend every hour of those days learning to hold your head high. You will learn to walk like a Queen of Shadow-Crest, not a slave of Silver-Moon."
He moved toward the exit, passing me with such speed he was a blur of charcoal wool. He didn't touch me. He didn't let his sleeve brush mine. It was as if I were a plague he was desperate to avoid.
"Where are you going?" I asked, the panic of abandonment rising in my throat.
"To my study," he growled, not looking back. "I have business. You will remain in the wing adjacent to mine. You are not to leave this estate, Seraphina. You are not to leave my sight for a moment longer than necessary."
He stopped at the door, his hand gripping the handle so hard the metal groaned.
"I will be watching," he said, his voice tight. "Don't make me regret winning you."
The door slammed shut.
I stood in the silent hall, my heart drumming against my ribs. He wasn't leaving the estate. He was staying—right next door—and yet he acted as if touching me would burn him alive.