Chapter 5

Hazel’s pov

The bath was warm, but I barely felt it. Two women had led me out of the dark room the moment Blade walked away, their hands gentle in a way that confused me more than it comforted me. They didn't speak much. One of them washed the dried blood from my hands, my father's blood and I sat there because I didn't have the strength to stop her.

I kept waiting for someone to explain what was happening. Nobody did.

After the bath, they gave me a plain dress and led me to a small room with a bed and a tray of food waiting on a table. I stared at the food for a long time before I finally forced myself to eat a few bites. My stomach turned with every swallow, but I made myself finish it anyway. I needed my strength. I needed to be ready for whatever came next.

"Where is my brother," I asked one of the women when she came back to collect the tray. "Please, just tell me if he's safe."

She glanced at the door before answering, like she was afraid someone might be listening. "He's fine," she said quietly. "He's being kept in the east wing. Nobody has touched him."

Relief hit me so hard my knees nearly gave out. I grabbed the edge of the table to steady myself. "Can I see him?"

"That's not up to me." She picked up the tray and left without another word.

I sat alone in that room for what felt like hours, my mind racing through every possible reason Blade would suddenly decide to feed me and clean me up instead of killing me the way I had expected. None of it made sense. A man who had shot my father in front of me without blinking didn't suddenly develop mercy.

Whatever this was, it wasn't kindness. I knew that much.

The door finally opened, and one of the guards who had dragged me from the car earlier stepped inside. "The Alpha wants to see you," he said. "Now."

I stood on shaking legs and followed him out of the room, down a long hallway lined with paintings of people I assumed were Blade's ancestors. Their eyes seemed to follow me as I passed, cold and judging, like they already knew something I didn't.

The guard led me into a large office at the end of the hall. Blade was standing near the window with his back to me, his hands clasped behind him. He didn't turn around right away.

"Sit," he said.

I lowered myself into the chair across from his desk, my hands clenched tightly in my lap.

He finally turned around and walked toward me, taking his seat behind the desk. Up close, in the light of the office, he looked even more intimidating than he had in the dark room, his eyes were sharp and unreadable.

"I have a proposal for you," he said.

"A proposal," I repeated, my voice barely above a whisper.

"You will marry me," he said, as if he were discussing the weather. "You will carry my child. Once that child is born, you and your brother will be free to leave this country and never return. I will give you enough money to build whatever life you want, far away from me."

For a moment, I couldn't speak. I stared at him, waiting for him to laugh, to tell me this was some cruel joke before he pulled the gun out again but his expression never changed.

"You want to marry me," I finally said. "After everything you just did. After you killed my father in front of me."

"Your father was a traitor," he said flatly. "This has nothing to do with him."

"You think I would ever agree to this?" My voice cracked, but I kept going. "You think I would willingly give you a child after what you've done to my family?"

"I don't care whether you're willing." He leaned forward slightly. "I care whether you're smart enough to understand your position. You have nothing. No money, no protection, no family left except a sick little boy who is currently living in my house because of my mercy." His eyes became hardened. "That mercy has an expiration date."

My chest tightened. "Don't you dare touch him."

"Then give me what I want," he said. "Marry me. Give me an heir and I will let both of you walk away with your lives."

I sat there, my mind spinning, searching desperately for another option, any option that didn't involve tying myself to this monster but every path I imagined ended the same way, with Ian in danger and me with nothing left to protect him with.

"And if I refuse," I said quietly.

"Then I have no more use for either of you." He said it so simply, so casually, that it took a second for the weight of it to land.

Tears burned behind my eyes, but I refused to let them fall in front of him. I thought of Ian's small hands gripping mine at the airport, the way he had cried out my name when they dragged him away from the car. I had already failed to protect him once today.

"Fine," I said, the word barely making it past my throat. "I'll do it."

He raised one of his eyebrows and reached into a drawer and pulled out a folder, sliding it across the desk toward me along with a pen.

"Sign," he said.

My hand trembled as I picked up the pen. I didn't even bother reading the pages in front of me. Nothing written on that paper was going to change what he had already decided. I signed my name on the line at the bottom and set the pen down.

Blade picked up the folder, glanced at my signature, and nodded once, satisfied.

"Good," he said. "Now we don't waste any more time." He pressed a button on his desk, and within seconds, the office door opened behind me.

I turned around, expecting to see the guard who had brought me here. Instead, three people in white coats walked in, carrying trays of medical equipment I didn't recognize. My stomach twisted.

"What is this," I said, standing up so fast the chair scraped against the floor.

"You signed the contract," Blade said, not even looking up from the papers in his hand. "Conception begins tonight."

"Tonight?" My voice came out strangled. "I thought I would have time, I thought there would be a wedding, something, I—"

"There's no time to waste." He finally looked up at me, and there was nothing in his eyes I could reach, no mercy. "My throne runs out in two years. I don't intend to lose it because you wanted a ceremony first."

One of the doctors stepped toward me with a needle in her gloved hand, and I stumbled back until I hit the wall behind me, my heart raced faster this time.

That was when the second door on the far side of the room swung open, and a woman I had never seen before walked in, dressed in a long black robe. She didn't even glance at me at first. She walked straight to Blade and leaned close to his ear, her voice was too low for me to catch a single word.

I watched them, my heart was about to give up, the doctor with the needle still frozen a few feet away from me like she was waiting for some signal I couldn't see.

Blade's face changed just for a second but I saw it. His jaw went tight as his eyes widened slightly, and his whole body went still in a way that made the air in the room feel heavier.

Then both of them turned and looked at me. Neither of them said a word. They just stood there, staring, like I was something they needed to figure out before they decided what to do with me.

I didn't know what that woman had told him, but whatever it was, it had shaken him. A man like Blade didn't look shocked over nothing.

My mind raced through every possibility, and none of them were good. Maybe they had found out something about my father or maybe they had decided I wasn't worth the trouble after all, and this was the moment right before everything ended for me.

Whatever it was, I couldn't stay here and wait to find out.

I glanced toward the door the guard had brought me through, still slightly open, still unguarded for the moment. My whole body tensed, every instinct screaming at me to run. I didn't know where Ian was being kept. I didn't know how I would get past the walls, the gates, the dozens of armed men outside. I needed to get out of that room before whatever they were planning reached me.

I took one slow step backward, my eyes still fixed on the two of them.

Neither Blade nor the woman noticed. That was all the chance I was going to get.