Chapter 1: Soaked

Thalia's POV

I woke to the sound of footsteps echoing across the floor like a warning. I stirred with my eyes barely fluttering open, and my limbs stiff from sleeping curled in the same position all night. The cold in the room was already biting. I had pulled the thin blanket tight around me before falling asleep, but it hadn’t done much. The sheets beneath me remained cold even from hours of lying still.

But I didn’t have time to think.

A second later, a sudden wave of freezing water slammed into me.

I gasped, choking on the shock. My body jerked upright and my lungs seized from the chill. The blanket clung uselessly to me, soaked, heavy, and icy as it dropped from my shoulders. The water had drenched everything...my clothes, the mattress, my hair. My fingers clawed at the fabric sticking to my chest as if I could pull it off fast enough to stop the sting. My breath came in sharp, broken bursts.

My eyes immediately flew up and there he was.

Kael.

He was standing just a few feet away, towering in the gray light that slipped through the curtains. In his hand was an empty metal bucket hung at his side. He wasn’t out of breath. He wasn’t angry.

He was rather calm and composed.

That made it worse.

He looked at me like I was something beneath him...like I was an insect he was tired of watching crawl.

“You’ve had enough sleep,” he said flatly. “This isn’t your personal sanctuary.”

I sat frozen, soaked to the skin as water dripped from my chin and pooling at my knees. My lips trembled as I opened my mouth to speak, but all that came out was a breathless, “Kael…”

He cut me off with a cold laugh. Not amused but mocking.

“Don’t act like you don’t enjoy this, Thalia.” His eyes narrowed. “Isn’t this what you wanted? My attention? My time?”

He stepped closer.

Every step he took forward made me shrink inward. I tried to gather the blanket around myself again, but it was useless. It was soaked, useless, and only made me colder.

“I told you before,” he said, now standing just inches from the bed, towering over me. “You wanted to be in her place so badly...you wanted what Alina had. Well, congratulations. You’re her now.”

“Kael, please…” My voice was barely audible as it sounded small and cracked.

“I gave you exactly what you wanted,” he hissed, reaching down suddenly to grab my arm.

His fingers clamped hard around my wrist, yanking me up from the mattress like I weighed nothing. I cried out at the force of it. My knees buckled as I stumbled and my feet slipped on the wet floor.

“You killed her for this,” he said near my ear, dragging me upright. “Don’t act like you’re the victim now.”

“I didn’t!” I choked, struggling against his grip. “I didn’t kill Alina!”

My voice cracked mid-sentence, loud and desperate, but he didn’t flinch. His grip only tightened. I whimpered as pain shot through my arm, radiating into my shoulder.

His face was close now, and for a second I looked for any trace of the boy I once knew. The boy I’d loved since high school. The boy who once made my heart flutter with nothing more than a smile.

But that boy was long gone.

This man...this version of Kael only looked at me with pure contempt.

“You were always so quiet,” he muttered, pushing me backward roughly until I hit the edge of the dresser. “So sweet. Always hovering on the sidelines. I thought maybe you were harmless.”

I braced my hands behind me on the wood, trying to stay upright. My back stung where it had slammed against the sharp corner.

“But you’re worse than I ever imagined.”

Tears spilled down my cheeks, hot despite the cold clinging to my skin. I shook my head, trembling violently now not from the coldness of the water, but from the heart slowly breaking inside me.

“You’re wrong,” I whispered, voice splintering. “I never wanted her gone. I never wanted this—”

“I don’t care what you wanted,” he snapped.

Then he shoved me back onto the bed, hard.

I hit the mattress with a dull thud, breath knocked from my lungs as the soaked sheets clung to me again. The water had seeped all the way to the mattress foam. It was icy...and suffocating.

“Clean this mess up,” he said, already walking away.

But before he completely left, he paused at the door.

“And when you’re done,” he added without looking back, “take a bath and serve me...”

Then the door slammed shut and I was alone again.

I lay there for a moment, motionless as my body shook.

A breath escaped my lips, broken and hollow.

“Serve him…” I murmured under my breath then I let out a laugh that cracked with disbelief.

Tears slipped from my eyes, indistinguishable now from the water dripping from my hair.

“Why did it come to this?” I whispered into the empty air.