I woke up to the smell of lemon polish and old money. My eyes fluttered open, adjusting to the dim light filtering through heavy, floor-to-ceiling curtains. I was lying in a bed so vast it felt like a continent, the sheets impossibly soft against my skin. The ceiling above me was a canvas of ornate plasterwork.
Panic, cold and sharp, shot through me. This wasn't my apartment.
The memories of last night crashed back in. The rogue wolf. The fight. The impossible transformation. Damien Blackwood.
I sat bolt upright, my heart hammering against my ribs. I was in a cage. A beautiful, gilded cage, but a cage nonetheless. I scrambled out of bed, my bare feet sinking into a plush oriental rug. The room was the size of my entire apartment, furnished with dark, imposing antiques. I ran to the window and pulled back the heavy velvet.
A perfectly manicured lawn stretched out below, bordered by a dense, dark forest that seemed to go on forever. There was no sign of a road, no hint of the city. I was trapped.
The heavy wooden door clicked open, and I spun around.
Damien stood there, fully dressed in a tailored black suit that made him look more like a CEO than a monster from a fairytale. His golden eyes swept over me, cold and assessing, lingering for a second on the borrowed silk pajamas I was wearing before meeting my gaze.
“Don’t leave this room,” he commanded. His voice was flat, devoid of any emotion. It wasn’t a request. It was a law.
He didn’t wait for a reply. He simply turned and closed the door, the click of the latch echoing the finality of a prison cell door slamming shut.
I stared at the door, a storm of fury and terror warring inside me. Who the hell did he think he was? He couldn’t just—
The door opened again, but this time it was an older man in a crisp butler’s uniform. He was slender, with kind eyes and neatly combed grey hair. He carried a silver tray laden with breakfast.
“Good morning, Miss,” he said, his voice gentle. “My name is Edgar. Mr. Blackwood asked me to bring you some nourishment.”
“I don’t want nourishment,” I snapped, my voice trembling. “I want to know what the hell is going on. Why am I here? What was that… that thing last night?”
Edgar’s kind expression didn’t falter. He set the tray down on a small table. “Please, eat. I will explain what I can.”
His calmness was more unnerving than Damien’s cold command. I sank into a chair, watching him warily as he poured a cup of tea.
“Miss,” he began, his voice low and serious. “What you witnessed last night… the rogue, and Mr. Blackwood’s intervention… you saw something that is protected by a very old, very strict law. The law of secrecy.”
I just stared at him. The word ‘rogue’ sounded clinical, matter-of-fact.
“Normally,” he continued, “when a human witnesses our world, there is only one solution: their memory is wiped. A spell is performed that removes the event, and any knowledge of our existence, from their mind.”
A cold dread, heavier than anything I had felt before, began to seep into my bones. He was talking about magic. Spells. He was talking like it was real. And deep down, a terrified part of my brain knew it was. Because I had seen it.
The sound of bones cracking and re-shaping. The snout flattening. The fur receding into skin.
My breath hitched. The memory wasn't a dream. It was vivid, visceral, and horrifyingly real. My entire world, the solid, logical world I had always known, was beginning to fracture at the seams.
“But this magic is not precise,” Edgar said, his eyes filled with a sudden, deep sadness. “It is a brutal, damaging thing. To erase a memory so profound… it often takes a piece of the soul with it. The person is left… vacant. An empty shell, living out their days in a fog of confusion. Their mind, for all intents and purposes, is broken.”
My teacup rattled in its saucer as my hand began to shake uncontrollably. He was talking about me. That was supposed to be my fate. To become a walking ghost, my personality and memories scoured from my brain, all because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Mr. Blackwood refused to allow that to happen,” Edgar said softly.
I looked up at him, my mind reeling in shock. “What?”
“He invoked a different law. One that has not been used in over a century. The Alpha’s Sanction. It allows the Alpha of a pack to claim responsibility for a human who has seen the truth, placing them under his direct protection. By doing so, he has personally guaranteed your silence to the council of elders. He has tied your life, and your secrets, to his own.”
The pieces began to click into place, forming a picture that was more terrifying and complex than I could have ever imagined. This wasn’t a simple kidnapping. This was something else entirely.
“He is the Alpha,” Edgar clarified, seeing the confusion on my face. “The leader of his pack. Lycanthropes. What you would call… werewolves.”
The word hung in the air, absurd and impossible. Werewolves. Like something out of a cheap horror movie. My first instinct was to laugh, to dismiss this kind old man as insane. But the laughter died in my throat, choked by the memory of teeth and fur and a transformation that defied all logic.
And then, a colder, more terrifying realization washed over me.
Julian.
Damien was Julian’s brother. If Damien was… one of them… then Julian was too. The boy I had loved for five years. The man I thought I knew. My mind reeled, desperately trying to reconcile the image of my charming, frustrating, human boyfriend with the monstrous creature Edgar was describing.
Suddenly, flashes of the past began to stitch themselves together into a horrifying new tapestry. The times Julian would disappear for days on end, especially around the full moon, coming back exhausted and irritable with vague excuses. His explosive temper, a strength that seemed more than human. The way his eyes would sometimes flash with a feral, golden light when he was angry. I had explained it all away. I had been a fool.
My entire relationship, five years of my life, had been a lie. I hadn't just been dating a cheater from a wealthy family. I had been dating a monster.
“He has personally guaranteed your silence to the council of elders,” Edgar was saying, his voice pulling me back from the dizzying abyss of my thoughts. “He has tied your life, and your secrets, to his own. If you were to speak of what you saw, if the secret were to get out… the punishment would fall upon him. And it would be absolute.”
I stared out the window again, at the endless sea of trees. Damien hadn’t brought me here just to be his prisoner. He had brought me here to save my mind. To save my very soul from a secret I was never meant to know.
This room wasn't a cage to keep me in. It was a fortress to keep the world out.
The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow. The cold, terrifying man who had claimed my life as his own had, in his own brutal, domineering way, saved it.
Edgar’s voice was a soft whisper. “So, please, Miss. Understand. Mr. Blackwood did not bring you here to imprison you. He brought you here… to keep you alive.”