Cora spun around.
Nothing. Just trees and shadows and the creeping darkness of twilight.
She took a step backward. Then another.
"Running again?"
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Low and familiar
She turned and he was there.
Damien stood ten feet away.
He wasn't out of breath. Wasn't even slightly disheveled. His suit was immaculate, his hair perfectly in place, his expression carved from ice. Only his eyes betrayed him — silver bleeding through the blue, his wolf pushing close to the surface.
"How " Cora's voice cracked. "How did you—"
"Did you really think you could run ?" He took a step toward her. "In my territory? In my forest?"
She backed away. Her heel caught on a root and she stumbled, barely catching herself against a tree trunk.
"Stay away from me."
"Or what?" Another step. "You'll scream? Fight?" His mouth curved, but there was no humor in it. "You have nothing, Cora. No weapons. No allies. No escape. You're mine, whether you accept it or not."
"I'm not yours." The words came out fierce despite her terror. "I'll never be yours."
Something flickered in his expression. That crack she'd seen before there and gone, too fast to name.
"You don't understand what you are," he said. "What we are."
"Then explain it to me." She pressed harder against the tree, bark biting into her back. "Tell me why you're keeping me. Tell me why you tortured me and then fed me with your own hands. Tell me why you look at me like—"
She stopped. Couldn't finish.
Damien closed the remaining distance between them.
His body caged her against the tree, his hands braced on the trunk on either side of her head. She could feel the heat of him through her thin clothes, could smell that scent that haunted her.
"Like what?" His voice was low. Rough. "How do I look at you, Cora?"
She couldn't breathe nor could she think. The bond was pulling tight between them, a physical pressure in her chest, dragging her toward him even as her mind screamed to run.
"Like you hate me," she whispered. "But you can't stop."
His jaw tightened.
"I should hate you." His breath was warm on her face. "You're everything I don't need. His hand left the tree, his fingers brushing along her jaw, tilting her face up toward his. "But I can't stop thinking about you. Can't stop feeling you in the back of my mind, this constant hum that won't go quiet."
Her heart was racing. Her skin burned where he touched her.
"What is this?" Her voice was barely audible. "What's happening to me?"
"The same thing that's happening to me."
He kissed her.
There was nothing gentle about it. His mouth crashed into hers, hungry and demanding, one hand fisted in her hair, the other gripping her hip hard enough to bruise. She gasped against his lips and he swallowed the sound, his tongue sliding against hers, tasting her like he was starving.
The bond roared to life.
Heat flooded through her, white-hot and overwhelming, erasing every rational thought. Her hands came up to grip his shirt, to pull him closer, to arch her body against his like she couldn't get enough.
He groaned into her mouth. The sound vibrated through her, settling low in her belly, making her ache in ways she didn't understand.
His thigh pressed between her legs. The pressure was sudden, perfect, and she whimpered, her hips rolling against him without her permission.
This was wrong. This was insane. He'd tortured her. Terrified her. Kept her prisoner.
But her body didn't care.
His mouth left hers, trailing down her jaw, her neck, finding the spot where her pulse hammered beneath her skin. His teeth grazed her throat, A promise of what he could do.
"Say you feel it," he rasped against her skin. "Say you feel this too."
"Yes." The word came out broken. Desperate. "I feel it. I—"
Reality crashed back.
Seraphina.
The name sliced through the haze . Seraphina, who had kissed him in front of Cora like she was marking territory. Seraphina, who was waiting for him right now.
"I would be waiting."
Cora's hands flattened against his chest. Pushed.
"Stop."
Damien didn't move. His mouth was still on her neck, his body still pressed against hers, his breathing ragged and uneven.
"Damien. Stop."
Something in her voice got through. He pulled back, his eyes finding hers. They were more silver than blue now, barely human, blazing with a hunger that made her stomach flip.
"What—"
"Get off me."
She pushed harder. This time, he moved. Stepped back. The cold air rushed into the space between them, and Cora felt the absence of his warmth .
Her whole body was trembling. Her lips were swollen. Her skin burned everywhere he'd touched her.
"I can't do this," she said. Her voice was shaking. "I won't be — I won't be something you use when you're bored with her."
His expression flickered changed to Confusion.
"What are you talking about?"
"Seraphina Your fiancée. The one you left me to go back to. The one who's waiting for you right now."
Understanding dawned in his eyes. And with it, something else .A closing off.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Then explain it to me." She was crying now. She didn't know when she'd started. "Explain why you keep me locked up like an animal, why you torture me .Explain how any of this makes sense."
He didn't answer.
The silence stretched between them, full of things neither of them could say.
Finally, Damien stepped back. His expression was ice again, all those cracks sealed shut.
"Go back to the house."
"Damien—"
"Now."
Cora stood there long after the sound of his footsteps faded.
The forest pressed in around her, dark and silent. The cold was seeping through her thin clothes, settling into her bones. Her feet throbbed. she'd been too focused on running, on him, to notice the damage. Now she felt every cut, every bruise, every sharp stone that had torn into her skin.
Go back to the house.
Like she knew where that was. Like she could just stroll through the forest in the dark and find her way to her pretty prison.
She wiped her face with the back of her hand. Her cheeks were wet. When had she started crying? She couldn't remember. Couldn't remember anything except his mouth on hers, his hands in her hair, the way her whole body had burned for him.
Cora pushed off from the tree. Took a step. Pain shot up her leg and she hissed, stumbling. Her feet were worse than she'd thought. She looked down and saw dark smears on the leaves beneath her , blood, black in the moonlight.
She couldn't walk back. Could barely stand.
She was going to die alone out here. In the forest of the man who'd kissed her like she was air and then left her like she was nothing.
A sound broke through the silence.
Soft. Fluttering.
Cora looked up.
A bird sat on the branch above her.
Small. Pale grey. Its head tilted as it watched her, black eyes catching the moonlight like tiny mirrors.
Cora stared at it. Another sound , more fluttering and a second bird landed beside the first. Then a third. A fourth.
They came from everywhere. From the darkness between the trees, from somewhere high in the canopy, from places she couldn't see. Dozens of them, small and pale, settling on the branches around her like they'd been summoned.
None of them made a sound.
Cora's breath caught.
This wasn't normal.
But she wasn't scared.
Something stirred in her chest. this was different. Softer. Warmer. Like a hand reaching out in the dark, offering comfort she hadn't asked for.
One of the birds, the first one hopped down to a lower branch. Closer. Its head tilted again, and it let out a single chirp. Questioning.
Cora laughed.
It came out broken, half-sob, half-sound. But it was real. She was standing in a dark forest, bleeding and crying and completely lost, and a bird was looking at her like it was waiting for instructions to cheer her up .
"I don't know what you want," she whispered.
The bird chirped again.
"I don't know what I am either."
It spread its wings. Fluttered down to a branch barely a foot from her face. This close, she could see the details — the soft grey feathers, the darker markings around its eyes, the way its small chest rose and fell with each breath.
It was beautiful.
Cora reached out. Slowly. Her fingers trembling.
The bird didn't move.
She touched it. Just barely. The tips of her fingers brushing against feathers softer than anything she'd ever felt.
Warmth spread through her hand. Up her arm. Into her chest.
The birds rose as one.
A rush of wings, pale shapes catching moonlight, swirling around her like a living storm. She closed her eyes, felt the wind of their passage on her face, heard the soft flutter of a hundred wings.
And then silence.
She opened her eyes.
They were gone.
But the warmth remained. A small flame in her chest, steady and sure.
This was the moment she knew that something changed when she clocked 18
She wasn't human , She was something else.
And she was going to find out what.
Footsteps.
Cora tensed. Her body was too broken to run, too exhausted to fight. If it was Damien coming back to finish whatever twisted game he was playing —
It wasn't Damien.
The man who emerged from the trees was tall, broad-shouldered, with dark skin and a shaved head. She recognized him — Marcus. The one Damien had called his beta.
He stopped a few feet away. His eyes swept over her, the tear-streaked face, the bloody feet, the way she was leaning against the tree like it was the only thing holding her up.
"Can you walk?"
"No."
He nodded. Crossed the distance between them.
"This is going to hurt."
Before she could respond, he lifted her. One arm under her knees, the other behind her back. The movement jarred her feet and she gasped, pain flaring white-hot.
"I know." His voice was steady. Not gentle, but not cruel either. "It'll be over soon."
He carried her through the forest. Cora kept her eyes closed, focused on breathing, on not crying out every time her feet bumped against his arm.
"The birds," she said after a while. Her voice was hoarse. "Did you see them?"
Marcus was quiet for a moment. "I saw."
"What does it mean?"
"I don't know." A pause. "But I've never seen anything like it."
Neither had she.
The forest thinned. The estate emerged from the darkness . It looked different now. Still cold. Still imposing. But not quite as terrifying.
Marcus carried her inside. Through hallways she was starting to recognize. Up stairs. Past doors.
He stopped outside her room.
"I need to speak to Damien."
Marcus looked down at her, something unreadable in his expression.
"He's not available."
"Then make him available."
A beat of silence. Then, unexpectedly, the corner of his mouth twitched,Almost a smile.
"What do you want to say to him?"
Cora met his gaze. Held it.
"I want my freedom."