CHAPTER 2: The Beast's Territory

Caspian didn’t move his heavy and warm hand for the rest of the drive.

I should have pushed it away. I didn’t.

The silence inside the SUV felt deliberate, as if he was giving me room to panic and waiting to see what I would do with it.

I stared out the window instead.

“You paid five million dollars," I said eventually.

His gaze stayed on the dark road ahead. "I did."

"You didn't even hesitate. I don't understand. You came to that auction specifically for me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because the alternative was unacceptable."

The SUV turned off the main road onto a private drive that seemed to go on forever. Trees pressed close on both sides, their branches turning the road into a tunnel of darkness.

No streetlights.

No other houses.

Just miles and miles of nothing.

Perfect place to murder someone and dump the body. The thought should have terrified me more than it did.

“Almost there,” Caspian said.

There.

"Almost where?"

"Home."

Home?

I wasn’t ready to call wherever we were going home.

Massive iron gates appeared out of the darkness and opened as we approached. Beyond them, an estate rose from the night... all stone and sharp angles, more fortress than home. Gothic architecture fused with modern edges, lit just enough to make it look beautiful and dangerous.

“Welcome to Thornhold,” Caspian said.

The SUV stopped in front of double doors that looked like they belonged on a cathedral.

He got out first, then offered me his hand.

I ignored it and climbed out on my own.

Bad idea.

My knees nearly folded the second my heels hit the gravel. Fear, exhaustion, adrenaline... apparently my body had decided it was done pretending to be brave.

Caspian caught me before I hit the ground.

“Easy,” he said.

“I’m fine.”

“Clearly.”

Before I could argue, the doors opened.

A woman stood just inside, maybe in her fifties, dressed in dark gray from throat to wrist. Her eyes flicked to me, then lowered.

“Maren,” Caspian said. “Prepare the guest room. Something for her to eat too. Tea first.”

“Yes, sir.”

Guest room.

Not his room.

Something in my chest loosened, just a little.

The foyer beyond her was enormous... black-veined marble underfoot, and a chandelier overhead made of iron and glass. Everything about Thornhold was expensive, but none of it felt soft. It looked built to impress people who understood the difference between wealth and power.

Caspian guided me inside. His hand stayed at my lower back, steady and warm, never drifting lower.

We crossed the foyer and climbed a curved staircase that belonged in a palace. Upstairs, a long hallway stretched ahead of us, lined with closed doors and low golden lamps.

The silence in the house was so complete I could hear my own breathing.

He stopped at the third door on the left and opened it.

“This is where you’ll stay tonight,” he said.

The room was large, elegant, and warm... a king-sized bed dressed in dark silk, a fireplace already burning, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking grounds swallowed by darkness, a bathroom beyond a half-open door and enough space to fit my entire apartment three times over.

It was too prepared.

That was what unsettled me most.

Not the luxury...

The readiness.

“How long have you known?” I asked.

Caspian leaned one shoulder against the doorframe. “Known what?”

“That I’d end up here.” I turned to face him. “This already prepared room. The fire. The food. You don’t arrange all this in an hour.”

His expression didn’t change, but something sharpened behind his eyes.

“Six weeks,” he said.

I went still. “What?”

“Your scent appeared in system records tied to the auction network six weeks ago. Before that, I had pieces. Nothing solid. But after that, I had a trail.”

I stared at him. “You tracked me?”

“Yes, I did.”

The bluntness of it should have shocked me more than it did. I wondered why it didn't.

“And instead of warning me earlier, you let me walk onto that stage.”

His jaw tightened. “If I had approached you before the auction, Marcus would have moved you, hidden you, or sold you somewhere I couldn’t reach in time. The auction was the only place I knew for certain you would appear.”

“So you bought me instead.”

“Yes.”

“Like property...”

“Like the only move that kept you alive.”

The words landed harder because he didn’t dress them up. No apology. No excuse.

Just the truth.

I hated that part of me understood.

Maren appeared a minute later with a tray... tea, bread, fruit, and water. She set it down quietly, then left without asking questions.

Caspian waited until the door shut again.

“Eat,” he said. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”

“That almost happened already.”

One corner of his mouth moved. It was not a smile, but it almost was one.

I picked up the teacup because my hands needed something to do. It was hot enough to sting my palms. Good. I welcomed the pain. It gave me something small and simple to focus on.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“Tonight, you stay here.”

“And tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, we start answering questions.”

“Such as?”

“Why Marcus Thorne was willing to put you on an auction block in the first place.”

I wrapped both hands around the cup. “You already know it wasn’t just Kieran’s debt."

“No.” His voice dropped. “It wasn’t.”

I waited for more.

It didn’t come.

“You keep talking like I’m part of something I don’t understand,” I said. “Maybe stop speaking in riddles and tell me what’s going on.”

“If I could tell you everything tonight, I would.”

“That sounds like another non-answer.”

“It is.”

I let out a humorless laugh. “At least you’re honest about it.”

His gaze dipped to the cup in my hands, then came back to my face.

“Lock this door tonight,” he said. “And don’t open it for anyone but me.”

I frowned. “Just you? Because...?”

“Because it'd be a terrible incident if anyone else gets in.”

The calm in his voice bothered me more than panic would have.

“You really think they’d move that fast?”

“I think men like Marcus don’t lose gracefully.”

“And if I decide to leave before morning?”

His eyes settled on mine... silver, cold and certain.

“You won’t make it past the gates.”

There was no threat in those words, they were just fact.

I took a slow sip of tea, buying myself a second to breathe.

“Should that scare me?”

“Yes,” he said. “But not as much as what’s waiting outside them.”

He turned toward the door.

“Caspian.”

He paused.

“What are you?”

He looked back at me.

For one long moment, the room seemed to hold its breath with me.

Then he said, “The answer to that question changes things.”

“They already changed.”

Something unreadable crossed his face.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “They did.”

His phone rang.

He glanced at the screen, and whatever had been in his expression went cold.

“What?” he said into the phone.

He listened for several seconds, not looking at me.

Then his gaze snapped up.

“Stay here.”

He stepped into the bathroom and shut the door behind him.

I stood in the middle of the room, teacup still in my hand, my pulse climbing.

What the hell was happening this time?

I had been sold at auction, bought by something that wasn’t a werewolf, taken to a fortress in the middle of nowhere, and told to lock the door because a man I had never met might come for me before sunrise.

And the worst part?

A small, traitorous part of me felt safer here than I had in weeks.

The bathroom door opened.

Caspian came back into the room, his expression grim.

“Get dressed,” he said. “We have a problem.”

The words knocked the air out of me. “What kind of problem?”

“The kind where someone just put a fifty-million-dollar bounty on your head.”

For a second, I thought I’d heard him wrong.

“Fifty... million?”

“Dead or alive.”

My fingers tightened around the teacup. “That’s insane.”

“Yes.”

“But why?” The question came out sharper than I intended. “I’m nobody.”

His gaze didn’t leave mine.

“Not to Marcus,” he said. His voice was flat now, dangerous in a different way. “And not to me.”

That should have comforted me.

It didn’t.

It only made the large room feel smaller.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“David called. He has eyes in places Marcus forgets to check.” Caspian crossed the room and took the cup from my hand before I could drop it. “We’re leaving.”

“Where are we going?”

He set the cup down and turned back to me.

“To the only man I trust to tell me why Marcus Thorne wants you badly enough to start a war.”

Before I could answer, he took my arm and pulled me toward the door.

I looked back once at the room... the fire, the untouched bread, the bed I would never sleep in.

Safe for less than an hour.

That was all Thornhold had given me.

Then Caspian opened the door, and I followed him out into the waiting dark.