He didn't move from the doorway.
Cora's back was pressed against the armchair, her fingers gripping the fabric so hard her knuckles ached. The room felt smaller with him in it,the walls closer and the air thinner.
She couldn't look away from him.
Damien tilted his head, studying her the way you'd study an insect pinned under glass. His eyes caught the moonlight from the window, and for a second, they looked silver instead of blue.
"You haven't eaten."
His voice was low, calm. Like they were discussing the weather. Like she was kidnapped .
Cora swallowed. "It could be drugged."
"If I wanted you drugged, I wouldn't need to hide it in food."
He stepped into the room. One step. Two. Each one slow and deliberate, his shoes silent on the thick carpet. Cora's heart slammed against her ribs. She wanted to move, to back away, but there was nowhere to go.
"What do you want?" Her voice came out steady. A small victory.
He stopped a few feet from her. Close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. Close enough that she could see the sharp line of his jaw, the faint shadow of stubble, the way his mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"What do I want," he repeated. Not a question. He seemed to be tasting the words, turning them over. "That's a complicated question."
"Try a simple answer."
Something flickered in his expression ;amusement. It was gone before she could name it.
"You saw something tonight. Something you shouldn't have."
"I didn't see anything." The lie came automatically. "I dropped the bottle and ran. That's it. I didn't—"
"Stop."
One word. Quiet. It cut through her voice , and she found herself obeying before she could think. Her mouth snapped shut.
Damien's eyes narrowed. "You're a terrible liar."
"I'm not lying."
"You are." He took another step. "Your pulse jumped. Your breathing changed. You looked to the left before you spoke." He was close now. Too close. She could feel the heat radiating off his body,
"How do I know?" He reached out. His fingers caught her chin, tilting her face up toward his. His grip was firm, not painful, but there was no mistaking it for gentleness. "Because I can hear your heartbeat. I can smell your fear. I can see the vein in your neck pulsing."
She tried to pull away. His grip tightened.
"What are you?" The question came out before she could stop it.
His thumb brushed along her jaw. Slow. Almost thoughtful. "There it is. The right question."
"Then answer it."
He released her chin. She stumbled back a step, her legs hitting the armchair. He didn't follow. Just stood there, watching her with those pale, unnatural eyes.
"What do you think I am, Cora?"
Her name in his mouth sounded wrong. Too familiar. Too intimate. She hated the way it made her skin prickle.
"A criminal," she said. "A murderer. I saw what your men were doing to that man. I saw you watching like it was entertainment."
"All true." He didn't deny it. Didn't flinch. "But not what I asked."
"I don't—"
"The woman who brought your food. You noticed something about her." He tapped his temple. "Your confusion. Your fear. You asked yourself a question."
Cora's blood went cold.
"How did she move so fast?" He quoted her own thought back at her. "That's what you wondered. That's what you're still wondering."
This wasn't possible. He couldn't know what she was thinking. He couldn't—
"She's a wolf," Damien said. "Like me. Like everyone in this house."
Cora stared at him. The words didn't make sense. They were sounds without meaning, syllables that refused to arrange themselves into anything coherent.
"A wolf."
"A werewolf." He said it simply. Plainly. Like he was telling her the time. "We're faster than humans. Stronger. Our senses are sharper. We heal from wounds that would kill your kind." He paused. "And some of us can feel things. Sense things. Through certain... connections."
"You're insane."
"I'm many things." He took another step toward her. "Insane isn't one of them."
"Werewolves aren't real." Her voice pitched higher. She couldn't control it. "They're stories. Fairy tales. They're not—"
"Real?" He was in front of her now. She hadn't even seen him move. One second he was three feet away, the next he was there, his chest nearly touching hers, his face inches from her own. "Does this feel like a story to you?"
She couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. His eyes were definitely silver now, the blue swallowed by something brighter, something that glowed faintly in the dim room. It wasn't human. Nothing about it was human.
"I'm going to be sick."
"No, you're not." His hand came up again, pressing flat against her stomach. The touch burned through the thin fabric of her shirt. "Breathe."
She didn't want to obey him. But her body did it anyway.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you need to understand something." His hand slid from her stomach to her hip. His fingers curled around the bone, anchoring her in place. "You saw what you saw. You know what you know. And there is nothing can do with that information that will hurt me."
"I could tell people. The police. The—"
"Tell them what?" His voice was soft. Almost gentle. More frightening than if he'd shouted. "That you were kidnapped by werewolves? That you saw a man being beaten in a secret room above a restaurant that doesn't officially exist?" His thumb stroked along her hipbone. "They'd put you in a psychiatric ward. If you were lucky."
"And if I'm not lucky?"
His mouth curved. "Then you'd disappear. And no one would ever find the body."
She believed him. That was the worst part.
"So what happens now?" Her voice was barely a whisper. "You keep me here forever? Kill me when you get bored?"
Something shifted in his expression. That flicker again, there and gone. "I haven't decided yet."
"You haven't decided." She laughed. It came out broken, edged with hysteria. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"
"I don't care how you feel."
But his hand was still on her hip. His body was still close to hers. And beneath the fear, beneath the revulsion, something else was stirring. That pull again. That warmth in her chest that made no sense, that had no right to exist.
"Then why am I still alive?"
The question hung between them. Damien's jaw tightened. For a moment, she thought he wouldn't answer.
"You ask too many questions."
"You took me from my life." The anger surprised her. It rose up from somewhere deep, hot and sudden, burning through the fear. "You dragged me here, locked me in this room, and you won't even tell me why. I think I've earned some questions."
His hand tightened on her hip, and suddenly she was moving—spun around, her back hitting the wall beside the window. The impact knocked the air from her lungs. Before she could recover, he was there, his hands planted on either side of her head, his body caging her in.
"Earned?" His voice was Low and rough and barely human. "You've earned nothing. You're alive because I allow it. You're breathing because I haven't decided to stop it. You have nothing—no leverage, no power, no allies. You are alone in a house full of wolves, and the only reason they haven't torn you apart is because I told them not to."
His face was inches from hers. She could feel his breath on her lips, could see the silver bleeding through his irises, could feel the barely leashed violence radiating off him.
She should have been terrified. She was terrified.
But she didn't look away.
"Then do it." The words came from somewhere she didn't recognize. Somewhere reckless and broken and tired of being afraid. "If you're going to kill me, kill me. Stop playing games."
Something changed in his face.
The silver in his eyes flickered. His breath caught, just for a second. His gaze dropped to her mouth, then back up to her eyes, and the rage in his expression shifted into something else. Something hungry.
"You don't know what you're asking for."
"I'm not asking for anything." Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it. Could he hear it too? He'd said he could. He'd said— "I'm telling you to stop pretending. You want to hurt me? Hurt me. You want to kill me? Do it. But don't stand there and act like you're in control when we both know—"
His hand closed around her throat.
"When we both know what?" His voice was silk over steel. "Finish that sentence."
She couldn't. The words had died in her throat, replaced by something else—a memory, rising up from the dark place where she kept it buried.
Another hand on her throat. Older. Rougher. Yellow fingernails and the smell of stale cigarettes. A voice in her ear, low and slick: "No one's coming for you, girl. No one cares. You belong to me now."
The room tilted. Cora's vision blurred, the present sliding into the past. Damien's face wavered, replaced for one horrifying second by another—Mr. Abernathy, his thin lips stretched into a smile, his eyes flat ,empty and hungry.
Something cracked inside her chest.
The lights in the room flickered. The window behind her rattled in its frame. Damien's eyes widened, and for the first time since she'd met him, she saw something that looked like surprise.
Then the lamp on the bedside table exploded.
Glass sprayed across the room. Damien moved faster than her eyes could track, his body shifting to shield her from the shards. The hand on her throat disappeared, replaced by an arm across her chest, pressing her back against the wall as the room plunged into darkness.
Silence.
Cora was shaking. Not just trembling—full-body shaking, her teeth chattering, her hands spasming at her sides. The heat in her chest was fading, leaving something cold and hollow in its wake.
"What—" Her voice cracked. "What was that?"
Damien didn't answer. He was still pressed against her, l In the darkness, she couldn't see his face. Could only feel him,his breath uneven .
He was affected too. She could feel it.
"Damien."
"Be quiet." His voice was rough. Strained in a way she hadn't heard before.
"The lamp—it just—I didn't—"
"I said be quiet."
The door burst open.
Light flooded in from the hallway, silhouetting a massive figure in the doorway. His eyes scanned the room, taking in the broken glass, the darkness, Damien pressed against the wall with Cora pinned beneath him.
"Alpha." His voice was carefully neutral. "We heard a disturbance."
Damien pulled away from her. The absence of his warmth was sudden and jarring. Cora sagged against the wall, her legs barely holding her up.
"It's handled." Damien's voice was cold again. Whatever had cracked in him a moment ago was sealed back up, hidden behind that mask of indifference. "Have someone clean this up. And bring her another lamp."
He walked toward the door without looking back at her.
he paused. Still didn't turn around.
"Tomorrow," he said. "We'll continue this conversation."
The lock clicked into place.
Cora slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, surrounded by broken glass, shaking in the darkness, and trying to understand what had just happened.
Her hands were glowing.
Faint. Barely visible. A pale, silvery light emanating from her palms.
She stared at them until the light faded.
Then she buried her face in her knees and screamed.