"YOU HAVE NO CHOICE"

"THE MOST DANGEROUS CAGES ARE THE ONES WITH NO BARS — JUST DEBT, DESPERATION, AND SOMEONE WHO KNOWS EXACTLY WHICH ONE TO RATTLE."

STELLA.

The room went very still.

Or maybe that was just me.

"Take my place during the night," she continued, her voice never once wavering. "Sleep with my husband. You would be his Luna in the dark — and when the sun rises, you return to your duties."

I opened my mouth.

"I’m sorry my lady but I can’t do that, it's forbidden and I can’t get punished for even thinking about the Alpha and sleeping with him could get me killed," I said.

Valentina smiled like she had expected that. "Your mother's bills," she said simply. "Every single one. Past and future. Covered entirely, for as long as the arrangement continues." Something in my chest cracked at the edges.

"No." She nodded slowly, setting her glass down with the quiet precision of a woman who had already won the argument and was simply letting me finish losing it.

"There is a healer in the Southgate district," she said. "Your mother has been attending his clinic for six months. Subsidized through a Night Wing medical relief fund." She paused. "Funds that require quarterly renewal. Renewal that requires a signature from someone with authority in this household." The fire popped softly.

I stared at the woman in front of me — beautiful, tired, desperate in a way she would never let anyone call it — and understood with perfect, terrible clarity that she had not summoned me here to make an offer. She had summoned me here to deliver a verdict.

"And if I say no?" My voice came out steadier than I felt.

Valentina looked at me for a long moment.

"Then you say no," she said pleasantly. "And your mother dies a very mysterious, unexplainable death and I would just use your very sweet sister Mira and I am very sure you don’t want that." 

She let the silence breathe just long enough. 

“You wouldn’t” I said, unable to believe she was actually threatening me to do what she wanted 

“Oh yes, I would sweetheart and the fun part is there is absolutely nothing you would be able to do about it, so pick the perfume up and do as I have asked of you. “ 

The jasmine perfume sat on the dressing table behind her, catching the firelight.

I thought about my mother's hands shaking that morning. The number folded in my apron pocket. The way she pretended not to feel pain because she thought I wouldn't notice. I had thirty seconds to make the decision that would change everything.

I picked up the perfume.

“I will do it.”  Lady Valentina smile and patted my shoulders “Good girl, I knew you were smarter than you looked.” 

*********************************************************************

I barely remembered leaving Lady Valentina's chambers. One second I was standing there holding a bottle of jasmine perfume, and the next I was walking through the palace corridors with my legs moving on their own while my brain struggled to catch up with what I had just agreed to. Yes. The word echoed inside my head the entire way back.

The palace felt colder than usual, or maybe it always had and I was only noticing now. Servants passed me carrying trays, guards stood near every archway with blank expressions, and somewhere down the hallway nobles were laughing about something like nothing in the world had ever hurt them. I walked through all of it feeling like I was moving underwater.

I pushed open the servants' quarters door harder than I meant to. My sister Mira looked up immediately from where she sat mending one of her dresses, and one look at my face made the needle stop moving.

 "Stella?" "I'm fine." I turned away and started unpinning my hair. "That doesn't look like fine." "I said I'm fine." The sharpness in my voice surprised both of us.

Silence filled the small room. Mira set the dress down. 

"What happened?" I shook my head and started changing back into my work clothes even though my shift had ended an hour ago — I just needed something to do with my hands.

 She tried again. Did somebody hurt me. Did one of the nobles. No and no. "Then what happened?" I finally looked at her, and immediately wished I hadn't, because the second I saw the worry on her face my chest started aching all over again. I sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Mama's treatments," I said quietly. "They know about them. Lady Valentina called me to her chambers today." Fear crossed Mira's face instantly.

 I told her Valentina had offered money — the kind we needed — and had asked for something in return. Mira went completely still. She knew me too well to wait patiently. "What did she ask for?"

I stared at the floor for a moment. "She wants me to take her place in Alpha Derek's bed."

Complete silence. Mira stared at me like I'd started speaking another language, then laughed once — short and disbelieving — because she genuinely thought I was joking. 

When I didn't laugh back, her face slowly lost all its color. "You said no. Right?" When I looked away she stepped backward like I'd pushed her. "Stella. No." "She threatened Mama's treatment." "She can't do that." 

"She can, Mira." "You could have refused—" "And then what?" The words came out sharper than I intended. "We sit around watching Mama get worse? Tell me what other option I had." She flinched. The guilt hit me immediately. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry. What was I supposed to do?"

Neither of us spoke for a moment. Then she asked, almost too quietly — "When?" "Tonight." She covered her mouth and I looked away before she could see my eyes burning.

The worst part wasn't even the fear. Underneath all of it, underneath the humiliation and the dread, was something hotter and uglier that I didn't have a clean name for. Rage, maybe. At Valentina sitting beside her fireplace with her wine and her bruises, finding a solution to her problem that cost her nothing and cost me everything. At the way powerful people could quietly dismantle your life while still smelling like expensive perfume.

A knock cut through the silence. Three sharp, deliberate knocks. I forced myself up and opened the door. Valentina's personal maid stood outside with folded garments draped across both arms and two guards behind her. My stomach turned before she even spoke. Black silk. Silver embroidery. 

A small jewelry box balanced on top. Nightclothes. "A bath will be prepared within the hour," the maid said. "You are expected in the east chambers afterward." She glanced briefly at Mira before lowering her voice. 

"Don't keep him waiting." Then she left, guards trailing behind her, and I shut the door quietly and stood there holding silk that cost more than my monthly wages. Mira stared at the clothes. "She already had everything planned." "Of course she did."

The palace bathing room was all white marble and candlelight, steam rising from water scented with rose and cedar. Two servant girls worked oil through my hair in complete silence and didn't once look me directly in the eyes. 

They knew something unusual was happening — not the details, maybe, but enough. One of them handed me Valentina's perfume afterward and showed me where to press it. Jasmine. Her scent. My hands were unsteady the entire time.

I looked at myself in the mirror when they were done and barely recognized the girl staring back. Dark curls brushed smooth, lips stained with berry tint, the silk sitting against my body in a way that felt deeply wrong — too soft, too fine, like a costume for a role I hadn't auditioned for. I looked expensive. I looked like someone pretending to belong somewhere they didn't. A soft knock. Time.

The walk to Derek's chambers felt endless. My brain screamed at me to turn around with everystep, and every time I thought about it I saw my mother's hands shaking, the cloth she pressed to her mouth, the careful way she pretended not to be in pain because she thought it would worry me less. I kept walking.

The guard outside his doors opened them without a word. Warm candlelight spilled into the corridor and I stepped inside. 

The room was dim, rain tapping quietly against the tall windows, shadows stretching across the furniture. I thought for one brief, hopeful second that he wasn't there yet. Then his voice came from the darkness near the fireplace. "You're late."

Alpha Derek sat with a drink in one hand, black shirt open at the collar, firelight moving slowly across sharp cheekbones and silver eyes that lifted toward me with the lazy ease of someone who had never once been told to wait for anything. 

Beautiful. The kind of beautiful that had clearly caused a great deal of damage. He took a slow sip and looked me over without hurrying, and something shifted in his expression — not much, just a small flicker, like a thing had snagged his attention that he hadn't expected.

He stood and the room immediately felt smaller. He walked toward me with the unhurried confidence of someone who had never doubted the world belonged to him, stopping close enough that I could smell whiskey and woodsmoke and underneath it something that was simply, plainly him. 

For a moment he just looked at me. Then his hand lifted and his fingers brushed along my jaw, and I used every bit of self-control I had not to flinch. His thumb dragged slowly across my lower lip. Then he smiled. Not warmly. More like a man turning something over in his mind.

"Valentina," he said softly. My stomach dropped straight through the floor. His fingers tightened just slightly beneath my chin, tilting my face up toward his. "I have missed you so much baby"