Threshold To Death

Ziason halts in front of Heaven, lazily looking down at her.

This time, his eyes are dark red, and his wet hair falling flat over his forehead and lashes does something overwhelming beneath Heaven’s stomach.

It’s not fear. Heaven can’t decipher what the hell it is either. All she knows is it isn’t a good feeling.

“In case of next time, Heaven, remember to say Alpha,” he notes in disgruntlement. “Besides, I would like to know how I cheated you. The content of that contract has no business with whether I reveal my identity or not, especially if I pretend I don’t know the things I do about you.” Ziason’s one step covers the gap between he and Heaven. Now he gives her no breathing space as brings his face down to hers with a whisper. “If I should sue you for refusing to adhere the contract, your life would be totally ruined on the outside world, and to hell will I make sure you do not have a place in this world either.”

Stunned, Heaven blinks rapidly, her chest and shoulders rising with each second she holds her breath. When she realizes herself, she suddenly stumbles backward, puffing out air.

“Wow,” she huffs with a smile of disbelief, “nice to see you shedding your skin, Alpha. So killing your lawyer was part of the contract?”

Ziason rises to his full height, slinging his towel on his left shoulder as he retracts into the gym to sit down on the bench press machine.

“In case you haven’t noticed, you are a secret. David has seen you,” he mutters while looking at Heaven. “Besides, plainly abducting and making you do my bidding was my first choice. I was considerate enough to accept his ‘solid’ idea. He made me waste my time and energy.”

“If I’m a secret, then I know you can’t sue me. That’ll be exposing yourself, right?” Heaven turns and runs across the ground hall, making for the main entrance. “I’m leaving this shit.”

She tries the handles of the double doors several times to find it’s locked again. Even analyzing the keyhole doesn’t help. Because even if she could pick locks, this one wouldn’t be one of those.

Next, she tries violence, banging hard on the metal door while still pulling the handles to no avail.

“Those doors have a password mechanism, Heaven,” Ziason mutters from the gym. “I’m the only one around who can open them.”

“Then open the damn door!” Heaven shrieks. “I’m going to walk out of here, and I know you can’t sue me! You wouldn’t want to expose your secret now, would you?”

“Exactly. You really think I value that contract, Heaven, don’t you? You are not so important to me, my dear. Leave or not, so much more talent lies out there. I only picked you because you looked miserable and in absolute need of help. Without the contract, my own way of doing things would be to threaten and force you.”

“Is that why you checked my background; to see if I had a family to threaten me with?” Heaven blurts out, her eyes stinging with tears that refuse to fall. “You found nothing, so you went for a contract instead. There must be a reason you were hellbent on picking me despite knowing nothing that could force submission out of me.”

Ziason comes out of the gym, revealing his smirk to Heaven as he inclines against the wall.

“Interest?” he whispers, “I just had this slightest interest in you all because I hated that I could not discover core things about you. Yet, as much as my curiosity peaked, it could easily sink as well. And, just like I killed that lawyer, I could end you right here and now.”

“You wouldn’t,” Heaven challenges as she hides the shiver in her voice.

“Do you want to try?” Ziason responds with a dangerous depth in his voice. “Me being open with you, Heaven, should tell you cannot walk out of here now. You know my two utmost secrets already—Kaicha and my curse. Now you are bound here with me for half a decade. By the fifth year, those would not be a secret anymore, and you will be free. That is why I warn you to stay put. If you repeatedly try to escape, I would just get rid of you. And being rid of you means you would not walk out of here alive. Understood?”

Heaven doesn’t know what it is—the force that pushes her to nod. Is it respect, or cowardice, or fear, or… a mysterious liking to this man? It’s definitely not the first option.

However, it’s clear now—this situation she finds herself. This is just a dreaded threshold to death. It’s as if her fear of death has tangled with her fate and brought her here.

The world indeed is at it again. Yet, she won’t let it watch her fail. She’ll endure; five years isn’t so small as long as she gets to live.

“Will you still pay me though?” she asks, fighting the urge to bite her nails.

“Money is not an issue to me. I won’t hold that back.”

Ziason returns to the gym, leaving Heaven alone in the ground hall. She looks up at the cylindrical rising of floors, and wonders if she can ever reach the climax of her existence.

She just hopes it isn’t a bad climax. Hopefully, in five years, she’ll get there.

And once she walks out of here with her payment, she’s no longer stepping foot in the wolf world ever again. She won’t even peek. After all, her mother warned her and she ignored that warning.

Heaven thought she was Ziason’s secret. But when he mentioned it, she realized who it is. Kaicha.

The real question is: why is she a secret? And why would he go to such a length as killing his lawyer just to maintain that secret?

Also, she doesn’t exactly understand what the second secret is. Sure, she knows he’s cursed. A cursed Alpha wouldn’t survive a day in a pack, as all other packs would come rushing to try and dethrone the Alpha, since it’s in the law that a cursed Alpha shall not rule. But she doesn’t know what the curse is.

If only she could decipher what exactly is Ziason’s curse, and if only she knew why Kaicha is a secret, then Heaven would have understood why she has to go through this for five years.

>>>>>>>>

As it’s a new day, Heaven is scheduled to teach Kaicha, so she makes for the child’s room.

Entering the room, she finds Kaicha standing in front of a floor-length mirror as a young woman, who looks to be in her middle twenties, fixes the child’s hair into a bun.

Heaven sits on Kaicha’s bed as the young woman bows to her.

Watching the standing duo from the mirror, Heaven concludes that the young woman must be Kaicha’s maid, whom Ziason mentioned would serve her as well.

“Do you remember how you got here, Kaicha?” Heaven asks all of a sudden. Even she doesn’t know where the question came from. It just resonated in her ears as she watched the child.

Kaicha glances at her through the mirror, but says nothing.

“I’m sorry for being straight up,” Heaven continues as more questions pop in, “but… were you captured? Do you recall what your mom looks like? Was your family threatened?”

She stops for a moment to question why she would be asking the girl these things. Even if anything of such happened, would she even remember?

“Forget I said anything,” she mutters, waving her hand in dismissal.

However, Kaicha suddenly opens her mouth wide. And, as Heaven looks at the child through the mirror, she realizes something.

Kaicha’s tongue has been cut off!