That was a mercy I did not deserve.

Clara’s POV

The dining room emptied in choked, ritual silence—a theatre of discomfort, each player bitterly rehearsed.

Evelyn, first. She stood with a dancer’s cruel precision, pristine skirt swirling, raking eyes up and down my trembling form. Her gaze lingered at my throat, at the bruised, bitten wound beneath brittle lace. I wondered if she counted the purple stains there like tally marks on a cell wall.

Minho followed her, leaving his knife askew on the silk runner, chair scraping farther than needed. He paused behind me. I could smell the pine and sweat of his skin; feel his contempt flickering over my scalp like drizzle. I did not turn to meet his gaze. I couldn’t.

Seol moved last, shoulders hunched, chin tucked—her plate trembling in both hands. She hovered, a whisper of apology dying unsaid on colorless lips, then shuffled out, eyes glued to the floor. Of all of them, her silence ached the worst.

I sat, a grotesque centerpiece—white-dressed, marked, exposed to the vast hush. The raw throb of Taehyung’s bite on my neck flared brighter every time my heart pounded. I pressed trembling fingers to the wound until wet heat bled through, hoping for the dullness of numbness, finding only shame and pain and the memory of his fangs.

Sunlight cracked in narrow ribbons between velvet drapes, barely touching shadowed floorboards. Even morning dared not trespass into this house, this prison of stone and expectation. Every surface—each tapestry, each packed bookshelf—breathed old hatred, old rules, things meant to break girls like me.

Taehyung remained. He did not eat; he watched, the slow curl of possessive satisfaction in his lips. My every move was a study in humiliation, his kept spectacle.

He stood, eventually—slow, deliberate, the scrape of his chair ringing command. He trailed two fingers along the table, pausing only by my plate.

“Get up,” he said.

No question. No hesitation. Only authority, old as the blood running this house.

I dragged myself upright, heart hammering. The white dress, ruined silk and spattered scarlet, caught at my knees. I kept my eyes down, counting tiles beneath ruined shoes.

He did not look at me directly; that was a mercy I did not deserve.

He led, and I followed. Out of the dining hall, down shadowed corridors lined with marble busts—stone ancestors whose features seemed etched in accusation. Their eyes followed, a hundred silent witnesses to disgrace.

His steps echoed, boots pounding out a rhythm—one I was forced to match. Whenever I lagged, he paused, jaw tight until I hurried forward again.

Not once did he touch me in the open hall. He didn’t need to; his presence anchored me, crushing as a snare’s wire between spine and throat. The pack melted from his path—guards dipping heads low, kitchen girls pressing flat against cool stone, all avoiding my eyes.

They saw the bite. They saw the dress.

They saw Luna: tainted, shamed, cursed.

We reached the study. Taehyung’s hand lashed out, raking gouges into the stained mahogany as he wrenched the door open and shoved me inside. I stumbled, catching myself on a velvet settee, the world spinning from his strength.

The silence inside the room pressed like water. Dust curled above shelves of ancient tomes—wolves, moons, histories of blood and vengeance. The fireplace was cold and dead. The air between us, though, burned with unshed violence.

He closed the door. The click of the latch felt like a death sentence.

He circled me—a predator savoring his captive, jaw carved from ice. He crossed to the window, backlit so the sun’s halo kin cast his features into monstrous relief. His eyes caught gold and crimson in the half-light.

“You disgust them,” he said, voice deadly calm. Each syllable was a condemnation. “You bring rot into my house with your cowardice. Your weakness is infection. Your tears, poison.”

I forced myself not to flinch, but the old bruise on my neck ached where his eyes landed.

He moved closer, a cold wind. His fingers found that angry bite at my throat, tracing the edges—not with the care of a lover but with a jailer’s spite.

“You disgust me,” he continued softly, venom threaded through honey.

He stopped a heartbeat from me, breath brushing my lip, his thumb digging at the already blackened bruise left by breakfast.

“Look at me,” he demanded.

I dragged my gaze up. It was an act of will, of pride refusing death. His eyes glowed red-orange, a wolf’s threat under human skin.

“You are mine,” he said. “That is your only value. My Luna? Maybe in title. In truth? You are a beast’s lesson. Do you understand who you are? Why you were spared the fang?”

I swallowed, throat raw. “Yes.”

He sneered, teeth flashing. “Say it. Show you understand, so I don’t have to paint another lesson on your flesh.”

“I understand.” The words sounded smaller than I meant.

He released me, stepping back as if the act of touching me left filth on his skin. He wiped his hand on his shirt.

“Good. Learn quickly. Weakness earns pain here. It earns nothing but contempt. Cry in front of my pack again—show even a sniffle—and I will tear a new mark. I swear on every Blackwood bone.”

He circled to the fire, knuckles white. “From now on, you walk where I tell you. You eat what, when, and if I command. You speak only when given permission—and, Luna, if you forget, the next time I draw blood, I will not stop at your neck.”

I nodded. The phrase “Luna” died ashes in my chest.

He gestured to the silver decanter on his desk.

“Water,” he said. “Quickly.”