Chapter 3

Ophelia’s POV:

I curled into myself, my knees hitting the hard floor with a dull thud. My fingers went limp, and for a terrifying heartbeat, Ria slipped from my grasp. I scrambled to pull her back against me even as the world spun.

"It hurts... it hurts..." I whimpered, the words lost in the roaring of my own blood.

Raymond looked down at me, his blue eyes burning with a cold light. He didn't look like a man who had just severed his family; he looked like a man who had finally cleaned a stain off his rug.

"Don’t worry though," he began, his voice dropping to a low, mocking drawl. "I know you are too weak to survive out there. I won’t throw you out of the house just yet. You’ll stay here. You’ll stay as my side bitch, and you’ll watch in regret as I marry someone else. Someone worthy of the Vorthas name."

He sneered, the corner of his lip curling in a way that made my stomach churn. "Because the one who is actually weak here is you, Ophelia. Look at you. Kneeling in front of me, sobbing, already on your knees when all I have taken from you is a measly mark."

He bent down, his shadow eclipsing me. He gripped my chin in a bruising hold, forcing my head up so I had to look into the abyss of his cruelty. His gaze slid momentarily to my daughter—his daughter—with nothing but revulsion, before returning to me.

"The best part is that we both know this won't be the last time you'll be on your knees for me," he hissed. "Because you were born a whore. You will come back begging me for it... like you always do."

He shoved me back with such force that my head hit the wall for the second time. Dark circles invaded my vision. I tried to shake my head, to scream that he was wrong, but my tongue felt like a lead weight in my mouth.

I was drowning in the scent of his betrayal. I wanted to call out for Ria, to tell her I was sorry, to take her to safety, but my body refused to obey.

"Take them back to their room," Raymond barked, his voice sounding as if it were coming from the end of a long tunnel. I heard the guard's boots approach. "Lock them up. I don’t care how much she screams—do not let her out. That’s her punishment. And let the elders know to assemble for a meeting. I have news to share."

His footsteps echoed away, growing fainter and fainter until the darkness finally won, and I slipped into the void.

I woke with a violent gasp, my lungs burning as if I had been underwater. I scurried back across the carpeted floor, my eyes wild as I searched the dim room. We were back in the small, white-carpeted room.

"Ria?" I croaked.

She was right beside me, still swaddled in her thick wool blanket. Her eyes were closed, her face pale. I lurched forward, my heart stopping as I reached for her hand.

I let out a choked, horrified sob. Her entire hand had turned a deep, bruised blue. The cyanosis was spreading.

"Oh god. Oh god, no. Ria, honey, wake up!" I shook her gently, then with more desperation, but she remained limp. Her breathing was shallow—so shallow I had to press my ear to her chest just to hear the faint, erratic fluttering of her heart.

I jumped up and sprinted to the door, my fists raised to bang against the door. I wanted to scream for help, for anyone. But my hand paused inches from the surface.

“Lock them up... I don’t care how much she screams.”

"No," I whispered, the word trembling on my lips.

No one would open this door. It wasn't the first time Raymond had locked me away to "cool off," but this was different. He had broken the bond. He had revoked the marriage. In the eyes of the Vorthas pack, I was already a ghost. He wouldn't open the door, no matter how much I begged. And if I stayed here, waiting for his mercy, Ria would be dead by sunrise.

"Useless. Useless. Cursed," I muttered, the words repeating in my mind like a rhythmic lash. What was I worth if I couldn't save her?

I looked at her dark hair, so different from the blonde, crystalline perfection of the Vorthas line. Raymond’s hatred for Valeria—my sweet Ria—wasn’t a secret. The whole pack knew he viewed her as a stain. My ex-mother-in-law had been the first to point it out. Every Alpha in their bloodline was born like a golden god.

But not Ria. She was born with dark chestnut hair.

People whispered that I had cheated. They looked at me with filth in their eyes, and eventually, Raymond started looking at me the same way. I had begged him for a DNA test. I had pleaded with him to prove her parentage so the accusations would stop. I wasn't filthy. I hadn't cheated. She was his.

But he had refused every time, claiming a test wouldn't change the fact that she looked nothing like a Vorthas. He had never looked at her with love. And I, an orphan who had been adopted by a mother who couldn’t care less about me, and a father who now despised me, had no one to turn to for help.

I took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing the panic into a small, tight box in my mind. I wouldn't let Ria become like me. I wouldn't let her be a victim.

"You are not alone," I whispered to her, my voice hardening. "I've got you."

I moved, wrapping Ria back into her blanket, realizing with a pang of grief how small she felt. She was only nine kilograms—dangerously underweight for a three-year-old. I pulled her little winter hat and gloves from the cupboard, tucking her in.

I glanced in the mirror. I was still in the spaghetti-strap nightdress that barely reached my thighs. I ran to the small cupboard and pulled out the only piece of clothing I had kept in this room—something I hadn’t worn for over four years—a thick, oversized black hoodie that reached my knees. I pulled it on quickly.

I didn't have a phone. I didn't have money. I had nothing but a window.

I grabbed the sheets from the cot and used it to tie Ria securely to my back, knotting it tightly across my chest so she wouldn't slip. I walked to the singular window at the back of the room. It was the only reason I had readily agreed to stay in this room; it opened toward the dense forest at the rear of the estate, a blind spot in the guard patrols.

I pushed the window open, the biting December air hitting me and making me shudder. There was a large oak tree just a few feet away. I didn't think about the height. I didn't think about the cold.

I climbed onto the sill and jumped, my hands scrabbling for the rough bark. I felt the wood scrape the skin off my palms, the sting sharp and hot, but I didn't let go. I slid down the trunk as quickly as I could, my feet hitting the frozen ground with a thud.

I didn't stop to look back. I ran.

My chest was heaving, the air burning my throat by the time I crossed the forest perimeter. I was wearing nothing but thin socks, and my feet had gone numb from the cold within minutes. I couldn't tell if I was stepping on thorns or jagged stones; I only knew that I had to keep moving.

The forest was a labyrinth, the moon my only guidance. Every snap of a twig sounded like a gunshot and I ran until my lungs felt like they were going to burst, until the dense trees finally began to thin, revealing the grey ribbon of the highway in the distance.

The fear of not finding a ride suddenly overcame me. Who would even go through here in the middle of the night? And even if someone did, would they stop for me?

I reached the shoulder of the road, my breath coming in ragged gasps. Just then, two twin beams of light cut through the darkness. A car was approaching.

I didn't hesitate. I jumped forward, waving my arms frantically, my heart soaring as the vehicle began to slow. It was a sleek, black sedan. It came to a smooth stop right in front of me.

The darkened window of the driver's seat rolled down with a soft hiss and my entire body froze.

The man in the driver's seat was dressed in a sharp, black-on-black suit. His collar was open, revealing a neck covered in intricate, dark tattoos that crept up toward his jawline. He had a light stubble. But it was his eyes that stopped the world.

They glinted a sharp, piercing violet as they met mine.

Suddenly, time seemed to slow down, before it reversed. My head spun, memories flashing behind my eyelids like a fever dream.

It had been exactly 4,817 days since I first met those eyes at the age of nine. A year after my adoption.

And it had been exactly 1,530 days since I last saw them—the day I turned eighteen, the day I shifted, and the day I heard a single word echo in my mind with the force of a tidal wave, ‘Mate’.

"Da...mon?" I whispered, my voice trembling as I took a reflexive step back.

This was Damon Enzo Vitale. 

My step-brother. 

The man I had run from. The man…who hated me.