Death would be mercy I’ll never grant.

Clara’s POV

Later at night, I stood motionless, staring at the flickering cinnabar flames in the cold stone fireplace. The bed—massive, ancient, draped in black velvet—loomed at the room’s heart like an altar for sacrifice. Shadows shifted and thickened in the corners. I clutched my arms around myself, blood from my bit lip streaking my chin.

“Take it off.”

Taehyung’s voice slipped from the shadows. He leaned against the window, the last blue traces of dusk highlighting his silhouette—a carved black wolf with a demon’s eyes. Savagery lingered in every movement, every calculated absence of warmth. He stalked toward me, boots crackling over broken glass no one had bothered to sweep from the night before.

“I said, take it off.” His gaze named me prey.

My shaking hands reached for the buttons at my throat. The dress—lace and silk, heavy as guilt—fought me, catching on my trembling fingers. I struggled. Each snap and tear seemed to fill the room. My skin prickled with shame and vulnerability.

He watched me with a hunger more akin to hatred than desire.

When I hesitated, he moved in a heartbeat, gripping my wrists so hard pain splintered up my arms.

“Pathetic,” he spat, shoving me toward the bed. I stumbled, barely catching my balance. His eyes narrowed as he circled me, animal and impatient. “You wear her dress. Do you even know whose? Or do you not care to count the dead you leave behind?”

I squeezed my eyes shut against hot tears. “Please—Alpha. I’ve done nothing—”

His hand tangled in my hair, jerking my head back so I stared straight into his inhuman red gaze.

“Don’t say my name. You haven’t earned it.”

He shoved me onto the bed, the mattress shock-cold beneath me. The dress tangled around my legs, trapping me. I tried to sit up, but he pressed his knee against my thigh, trapping me in place.

He tore the rest of the gown open, the sound of ripping silk like a scream in the dark. The air hit my bare skin, goosebumps rising all over. I curled inward, humiliated—body aching, heart splintered beyond repair.

His fingers slid over my collarbone, lingering on the mark he’d bitten. He pressed, hard, and I gasped, fresh pain blooming through my whole body.

“You’ll wear this forever,” he hissed. “So the world remembers who you are—and what you did.”

The accusation seared more than his touch. I tried to turn away, but he seized my face, forcing my gaze to his.

“You don’t look away,” Taehyung said, voice low, almost thoughtful. “Not from me. Not ever.”

There was a reflection in his eyes—a haunted, hollow girl, not anyone I recognized.

He let go only to pace, hands braced at his waist as though fighting a war within himself. Rage and grief rippled off him in waves.

“You deserve so much worse than this,” he spat suddenly, spinning to face me again. “Death would be mercy I’ll never grant.”

I squeezed my knees to my chest, cold and ashamed. “I didn’t kill her,” I whispered, the words lost among shadows.

With a snarl, Taehyung seized the bedside lamp and hurled it against the wall. The impact sent shards of light splintering across the chamber. Flames guttered and flared. I pressed myself into the mattress as if I could vanish entirely.

He stalked to me, body looming, shadow enveloping. I flinched as he crawled on the bed, caging me with his arms. His lips grazed my ear, voice little more than a snarl: “You’ll never be free. No matter how you beg. No matter how you scream.”

The bite throbbed—a visceral reminder.

His breath came ragged. From across the room, the shattered lamp still flickered. I realized with sickening clarity that he was just as broken as the glass—dangerous, sharp, always on the verge of drawing blood.

Taehyung's hands found my wrists, pinning them over my head, chains from earlier lying ominously nearby on the nightstand, as though he considered using them again.

He pressed his forehead to mine, and for a flicker of a moment, I saw not just anger, but something deeper—an abyss, equal parts loss and wrath.

"You’ll wear my name. My mark. My grief. Every day, until you break—and everyone sees you for what you are."

I shivered, my body aching from restraint and cold. "Why are you doing this?" I asked, voice raw from earlier screams and new despair.

He sneered, teeth glinting. "Because if I can't make you pay with blood, I’ll make you suffer every way that remains."

Taehyung’s lips crashed down on mine—nothing gentle or fated. He forced every ounce of dominance into the bond, magic sizzling between us, the taste of iron and hatred. I whimpered as he bit my lower lip again, reopening the wound to taste my blood.

He trailed his lips down my neck, licking his own mark, the wound pulsing, raw and fresh. I tried not to weep, not to give him that satisfaction, but the tears were hot and silent anyway.

His hands roamed not out of lust, but out of a need to remind me of my helplessness. He dug his fingers into my sides, leaving bruises that would bloom deep purple by morning.

“You’ll sleep in my bed every night,” he whispered against my jaw. “Every night, you’ll remember her. And every day, you’ll see their faces—the pack that hates you, the mate you cost me, the future you stole.”

The word 'stole' echoed, filling the room with ghostly accusation.

He released me with a final shove, sending me sprawling onto the cold edge of the bed. Taehyung stood, backing away to the window. He stared out at the moonlit forest, rigid and silent. For a long time, only the sound of my shuddering breaths filled the vast chamber.

"I should let the guards have you," he said finally, so softly that dread crashed over me anew. "But I won't. I want you broken, but alive. Because the dead can't suffer—and I want your suffering."

I curled into myself, wrapping the tattered remains of the dress around my bruise-dappled body.

The room was cavernous, but I had never felt smaller. Or more completely alone.

After a stretch of silence that might have been minutes or hours, he rounded on me again. “You’ll stay in this room until I allow otherwise. Move without my command, and you’ll regret it.”

I flinched as he slammed a fist into the stone wall, not far from the bed. The sound snapped through me, and a fine dust drifted down. He grabbed a decanter of whiskey, pouring himself a glass with a shaking hand, never breaking his furious glare.

“You don’t speak unless spoken to,” he said coldly. “You don’t touch anything that’s not given to you. You are—nothing.”

I nodded mutely, knowing argument was useless.

He finished his drink in one swallow and crossed to the heavy door, pausing as if he wanted to say something more. Instead, he just looked at me, wild and ruined, as if seeing a ghost.

Then he left me there—alone in a sea of torn silk, bruises, and smoke.

The door’s lock clicked, sealing my cage.

I bit down on a sob. My body trembled. The mark on my neck still bled, the pain refusing to ebb.

Above the fireplace, dust danced in the stale air. Somewhere beyond these stone walls, the pack gossiped and judged, condemned and celebrated.

The wedding night ended with no love, no comfort, only the knowledge that I was a prisoner—a scapegoat, a possession. My veins still thrummed with the echo of the forced bond.

I stared at the moon through a sliver of window and wondered, for the first time, if I might actually prefer death to this torment.