7

The silence of the room was shattered by the crash of glass breaking against my feet.

Everything was a damn mess; wine splattered everywhere, and a bitter sigh escaped my lips.

Why did everything have to go wrong for me? With trembling fingers digging into the carpet, I tried to pick up the remains of the vase that the intruder had knocked over.

"Damn it..." I whispered, feeling the sharp sting in my palm.

In seconds, blood began to gush from the deep wound in my hand, staining the carpet crimson.

I stared at the thick, glistening blood while tears streamed down my cheeks. I wasn't crying from the pain, but from all the humiliation I was enduring in that moment.

I felt so damn human in a den of wolves who were only waiting for a mistake to devour me. However, in the midst of my pain, a loud shout made me shudder.

"MADELINE!" James’s roar echoed from the hallway, making the walls vibrate.

His voice wasn't human; it was a growl of pure agony and blind fury. I heard his heavy footsteps getting closer as my body shook with nerves.

BAM!

The door flew off its hinges, hitting the opposite wall with supernatural force. James burst into the room like a demon.

Suddenly, the air in the room shifted as the scent of a deep forest flooded my senses. His claws were out, his fangs peeked out from under his upper lip, and his eyes were completely black and fierce.

However, James walked toward me until he stopped just a meter away. His chest rose and fell violently, and the hair on his arms stood on end.

For a second, I thought dread would be reflected in his eyes, but it vanished, turning into his typical dangerous and possessive aura.

"Look at you... You’re pathetic, Madeline."

His voice dropped several octaves, becoming a dangerous growl as he approached me step by step, like a predator deciding whether to kill its prey or play with it.

"I thought someone had dared to touch what is mine, but it's just you, breaking yourself."

I didn't even have to look him in the eye to know he was there, blocking the exit with his imposing six-foot-three figure.

"It was an accident," I managed to articulate, clutching my wounded hand to my chest, soaking myself in my own blood.

"In my world, accidents are paid for with your life."

He walked around me, watching me with contempt. The heat radiating from his body was scorching.

"Get up, human."

I tried to stand up, but stupidly fell to the floor again. I had lost little blood, but the lack of food and exhaustion had taken their toll, weakening my entire body.

"I said get up!" he shouted at me.

I had no time to process his words when he grabbed me by the arm with a force bordering on pain and forced me up abruptly.

With a powerful roar, James slammed me against the cold wall, cornering me with his body. His eyes, usually dark, had turned a deep purple that seemed to flash with ancestral power.

"Why are you trembling?" he murmured, leaning in until his hot breath hit my face. "Are you afraid of me, or is it that your weak human body cannot handle my proximity?"

"Let me go, James. You hate me, remember?" I snapped at him, though my voice betrayed me with a thread of desire.

James let out a mocking chuckle before clicking his tongue.

"I hate you so much it sickens me that you even breathe my air."

His fingers slid along my jaw, squeezing possessively. As soon as I heard that, my eyes widened in surprise.

I knew James felt a bond with me, that he could even be my mate, but I felt nothing; as long as I wore my family’s pendant, I would never feel a thing.

On the other hand, my wolf, who should be dormant, reacted to him, purring like a bitch in heat in my head.

However, while I wandered in my mind, James looked down at my hand. The contempt on his face struggled against a primal need I couldn't decipher. Yet, when I thought he would humiliate me again, James only took my wrist, raising my wounded hand between us.

"You are just a damn toy I want to send to the dungeon... but your blood... your blood has a scent that is driving me crazy... driving my wolf crazy," he roared, with a devouring expression that caused me immense terror.

"Then break the toy and let me go," I challenged, my heart hammering against my ribs.

He didn't respond with words. Instead, he brought my palm to his mouth.

My eyes snapped wide open when I felt the tip of his tongue, hot and rough like sandpaper, lick the wound from one end to the other.

An involuntary moan escaped my lips as an electric shock traveled straight to my womb. What the hell?

"What are you... what are you doing?" I gasped, trying to pull my hand away, but he held it with the strength of a shackle.

"Healing you," he growled between licks, sucking the blood with a devotion that terrified me.

With each pass of his tongue, I felt the pain transform into a pulse of dark pleasure. "If you’re going to bleed, Madeline, you’ll only do it for me. No one else has the right to taste your weakness."

At that moment, under my clothes, I felt a sudden heat. The amulet hanging from my neck began to pulse, emitting a faint glow that James didn't seem to notice.

However, when a second gasp escaped my lips, James stopped abruptly, as if he had just woken up from a spell.

His pupils were so dilated that his eyes appeared completely black. He released me with such brusqueness that my knees failed, and I had to lean against the wall to keep from falling.

He regained his mask of coldness in a second, though his lips were still stained with my blood.

"Clean up the rest," he ordered, his voice now dry and sharp. "Let this be the last time you injure yourself while working. If you’re going to be the King’s maid, you’d better learn not to die before dawn. I don’t like my toys breaking before I’m finished with them."

Without another word, he turned and walked out of the room without looking back, leaving me there, trembling and confused.

I looked at my palm: there was no trace of the wound, only a pale mark that burned. How was it possible? He called me trash, he treated me like a useless intruder, yet he had healed me with his own tongue.

I didn't want to think about it anymore and walked right to close the door, but at that moment, I noticed something on the floor that James had dropped.

A small folded piece of paper with a seal I knew all too well: the seal of the Shadow Hunters. I picked it up with trembling fingers.

As I unfolded it, the breath caught in my lungs.

It was a list of names of humans who had disappeared at the border. And my name was at the bottom, circled in a ring of dried blood.