The air in my father's study tasted like ash and arrogance.
I knelt on the cold marble floor, a bucket of soapy water turning grey beside me, scrubbing a wine stain from the rug that cost more than my life. From the head of his gargantuan oak desk, Alpha Roland Martin didn't glance down. I was part of the furniture the defective daughter, the silent Null.
"The terms were clear, Blackwood," my father's voice boomed, rattling the crystal decanters. "The southern territory or its market value. Three million. The debt is due at midnight."
A quieter voice answered, smooth and sharp as a surgical blade. "I didn't come for dirt, Martin."
I risked a glance upward. Damien Blackwood stood framed in the floor to ceiling window, backlit by the city's electric dusk. He was taller than I remembered from society tabloids, all lean lines and restrained power in a tailored obsidian suit. But it was his stillness that unnerved me. Werewolves fidgeted, pulsed with predatory energy. He was a statue. A ghost.
My brother, Scott, lounged against the bookshelf, a smirk playing on his handsome face. "Then what do you want, Blackwood? We don't deal in human trinkets."
Damien finally turned. His eyes weren't the fiery gold of an Alpha. They were pale grey, like a winter sky minutes before a storm. They passed over my father, over Scott, and landed on me.
"Her."
The word dropped into the room like a stone in a pond.
My scrubbing hand froze. My father's head swiveled. Scott barked a laugh.
"Her? The Null?" Scott pushed off the shelf, circling me like a buyer at a livestock auction. "She's worth less than the rug she's cleaning. Can't shift, can't sire strong pups, scent's so faint she might as well be human. She's a servant. A waste of good food."
Humiliation, hot and familiar, burned my cheeks. But beneath it, a colder fury stirred. I kept my eyes on the stain, on my reddened knuckles submerged in water.
"My business acumen is my own concern," Damien said, his tone devoid of emotion. "The debt is three million. Her value, as you so eloquently stated, is negligible. This isn't a purchase. It's a foreclosure. She clears the balance."
My father's Alpha aura flared, a suffocating wave of dominance meant to make other wolves submit. The air grew thick with the scent of pine and aggression. Damien didn't flinch. He didn't even blink. He just… absorbed it.
A chill skittered down my spine. That wasn't normal.
"You insult my bloodline," my father growled.
"I'm balancing your ledger." Damien pulled a single sheet of paper from his inner pocket and laid it on the desk. "A six month indenture contract. Room, board, and duties at my discretion. After which, she walks free, and your debt is cleared."
Indenture. A pretty word for slavery. My heart hammered against my ribs. This was my escape. A gilded cage was still a cage, but it wasn't here. It wasn't Scott's casual cruelty or my father's withering disdain.
"Daddy, you can't be serious!" Scott whined, the 'Golden Boy' facade cracking. "Giving her to him? It makes us look weak!"
"Silence," my father snarled at Scott, but his eyes were on Damien, calculating. I saw the moment greed outweighed pride. Three million was a blow. Losing the territory was a war. Losing me? That was discarding a used tissue.
He walked to the desk, snatched up a pen, and scrawled his signature without reading the fine print. "Take her. She's your problem now."
Damien's gaze returned to me. "Can you stand, or do you prefer the floor?"
The quiet challenge in his voice snapped something inside me. I rose, wiping my wet hands on my worn trousers, ignoring the trembling in my legs. I met his winter grey eyes. "I can stand. And I can speak. My name is Lydia."
A flicker. Something infinitesimal moved behind his impassive mask. "Pack a bag. You have ten minutes."
In my barren room in the servants' wing, I shoved my meager possessions a few clothes, my mother's old journal, a locked metal case containing my chemistry tools and vials into a duffel bag. My mind raced. Damien Blackwood. The Shadow Billionaire. CEO of Blackwood Bio-Secure. Rumored rogue Alpha. Rumored monster. Rumored dead inside.
Why? Why me?
The answer came as I zipped the bag: because I was the only one who couldn't fight back. A Null couldn't challenge an Alpha. I was the perfect, powerless pawn.
Scott blocked my doorway as I left. "Running away to play human with the freak who can't shift?" He leaned in, his wolfish scent bergamot and malice cloying. "He'll get bored of you in a week. And when he throws you out, don't come crawling back. You're no sister of mine."
I didn't answer. I just walked past him, my shoulder brushing his, and didn't look back.
A black car with opaque windows idled in the circular drive. Damien held the door open. Not a gesture of courtesy, but of efficiency.
"Where are we going?" I asked, sliding in.
"Home." He shut the door, sealing me in silence.
The drive was a blur of city lights. He didn't speak. He didn't look at me. He checked his phone, the blue light etching stark lines on his face. He was beautiful in a terrifying way, like a glacier immense, cold, and capable of crushing everything in its path.
We arrived at a monolithic steel and glass tower that pierced the sky. His penthouse wasn't a home; it was a fortress. Everything was shades of grey, white, and silver. Sterile. Silent. No personal effects. No art. Just floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city's beating heart.
"Your room is there," he said, pointing to a doorway. "It's locked from the outside at night. Meals are delivered. Do not leave this floor. Do not touch the windows. Do not attempt to contact anyone."
His voice was flat, automated. I hugged my duffel bag tighter. "What are my duties?"
He finally looked directly at me, and his gaze was so intense it felt like a physical weight. "You are a Null. You have no scent that matters. No wolf essence to interfere with sensitive equipment."
"So?"
"So you will work in my private laboratory. You will handle materials that are… reactive to shifter biology. You will follow my instructions without question."
A lab. My chemistry. A spark of interest fought through the fear. "What kind of materials?"
Instead of answering, he walked to a panel on the wall, pressed his palm against it, and a seamless door hissed open, revealing a stark white laboratory that looked like it belonged in a bioweapons facility. Inside, on a central steel table, lay a single object.
A syringe, filled with a viscous, swirling substance that seemed to be both black and iridescent, like oil on water. It pulsed with a faint, sickly light.
"This," Damien said, his voice dropping to a whisper that echoed in the vast, cold room, "is what's killing me."
He picked up the syringe, his movements precise. Then, before I could process his words, he rolled up his sleeve, revealing forearm muscles corded with tension and… scars. Thick, silver, vicious scars that no normal werewolf healing should have left behind.
With clinical detachment, he injected the swirling black liquid into his own vein.
A shudder wracked his powerful frame. His knuckles turned white where he gripped the table. For a second, his eyes bled from winter grey to a feral, glowing amber the color of an Alpha's shift before dulling back to grey, now clouded with pain.
He exhaled, a ragged sound, and met my horrified gaze.
"Your first duty, Lydia Martin, is to watch. And learn. Because the man who just bought you isn't a werewolf anymore. He's a time bomb. And you're the only one in this city who can be near me when I finally explode."
He dropped the empty syringe into a biohazard bin. It clattered, the sound echoing in the silent lab.
"Welcome home," he said, and walked out, leaving me alone in the blinding white light, the echo of his confession hanging in the air like a death sentence.