Chapter 13: A Bigger Cage




Evelina Sinclair:



"By the Royal Decree, Evelina Sinclair is hereby promoted to an Honored Lady of the House."


I stared at the man standing at the foot of my bed. Dark uniform. Silver insignia. One of the Royal Secretariat who carried the Supreme Alpha's orders.


Today, he was carrying mine.


An Honored Lady.


The words should have meant something. A month ago, they would have been a dream—rising from kitchen slave to palace nobility, the kind of fairy tale that girls like me weren't supposed to believe in. I should have felt grateful. Triumphant. Safe.


Instead, they felt like another lock clicking shut.


I looked at the document in his hands. My name sat at the top in elegant black ink, followed by a long list of privileges I didn't bother reading. Private chambers. Personal guards. A stipend. The right to dine at the high table. The right to wear colors instead of gray.


The right to be his.


"Evelina Sinclair," the secretary said, his voice perfectly modulated, perfectly empty. "Do you accept the rank bestowed upon you by the Supreme Alpha?"


I wanted to refuse.


The thought rose up in my throat like bile, sharp and desperate. I wanted to tear the paper from his hands and throw it in his face. I wanted to scream that I didn't want his honors, his protections, his attentions. I wanted to run back to the kitchen and scrub floors until my hands bled, because at least there I had been invisible. At least there, nobody wanted to possess me.


I wished I had died.


The thought came sudden and vicious, cutting through the fog of pain and fever that still lingered in my bones. I wished Morgana's whip had finished the job. I wished the infection had taken me in the night while I shivered on that narrow bed. I wished I had never survived the blood moon, never walked out of that room wearing his cloak, never become whatever I was now—an obsession, a puzzle, a thing to be owned and displayed.


Dead would have been cleaner. Dead would have been free.


But I wasn't stupid anymore.


Survival wasn't about pride. It wasn't about happiness. It was about calculating odds and playing the hand you were dealt, even when the deck was stacked and the dealer was a monster who collected broken girls like trophies.


I pushed myself upright.


Pain shot across my back—forty lines of fire that still hadn't healed, would probably scar, would forever mark me as property of the man who had "saved" me from them. I clenched my teeth, swung my feet over the edge of the bed, and stood.


The secretary didn't offer to help. He simply watched, patient as stone, while I steadied myself against the nightstand and took the document from his hands.


The paper was heavy. Expensive. The kind of paper that cost more than a month's wages for someone like Cora.


I lowered my head.


"I accept."


The words tasted bitter—like copper, like defeat, like the moment you realize you've stopped fighting and started cooperating with your own captivity.


"Thank you for the honor."


The secretary bowed—actually bowed, his spine bending toward *me*, a kitchen slave who had been scrubbing pots two weeks ago.


"Your new residence has been prepared," he said, straightening. "A royal guard will escort you there immediately."


He left without another word, his footsteps echoing down the corridor with the finality of a cell door closing.


Cora turned to me the second the door clicked shut, her eyes bright enough to light the room.


"My Lady, this is amazing!"


"For you," I muttered, sinking back onto the bed because my legs wouldn't hold me anymore. "Not for me."


Her smile faltered, confusion creasing her forehead. "But... you have standing now. Servants. Guards. Your own rooms." She dropped her voice to a whisper, glancing at the door as though Morgana might burst through it at any moment. "And Lady Morgana—that woman cannot touch you the way she did before. She wouldn't dare."


That part was true. The promotion came with protections, with status, with a target on my back that was simultaneously a shield. Morgana couldn't have me whipped now. She couldn't throw me in a closet and deny me medicine. The rules of the game had changed, and for now, at least, I was winning.


But I still didn't want any of it.


I wanted to leave. I wanted to walk out the gates of this palace and keep walking until I reached the border, until I found somewhere the Supreme Alpha's shadow didn't reach. I wanted to be nobody again. Invisible. Free.


Instead, I was an Honored Lady.


The cage had just gotten bigger, and Cora was celebrating the extra space.


A knock came at the door—sharp, official, inevitable.


A royal guard stepped in, his uniform crisp, his expression carefully blank. "My Lady. We have been instructed to escort you to the Inner Residence."


Cora helped me stand, her small hands surprisingly strong beneath my elbow. We walked out to the waiting black car—a sleek, predatory thing that smelled of leather and power. She could barely contain herself as she climbed in, running her hand over the seats with the wonder of someone who had never touched luxury.


"Real leather," she breathed. "My Lady, this is real—"


"I know."


The ride was smooth. Too smooth. I watched the palace grounds slide past through the tinted glass—the formal gardens, the training yards, the administrative buildings—until the car stopped at a gate I had never seen up close. Iron and silver, twisted into the shape of howling wolves.


The Inner Residence.


We got out.


I looked up and felt my stomach twist.


The Main Residence stood only a short distance away through the trees—dark stone, high windows, the private domain of the Supreme Alpha and his Beta. I could see the corner of his study from here, the window where he had stood watching me leave wearing his cloak. The Inner Residence sat right beside it, connected by a single pathway that wound through the garden like a vein.


Close.


Far too close.


"So do we walk?" Cora asked, squinting at the gate.


I shrugged, trying to ignore the way my heart was hammering against my ribs. "Looks like the title of Honored Lady doesn't come with an inner car."


I was about to reach for the bell when a guard stepped out, bowed low, and the gate swung open with a groan of well-oiled hinges. Another car waited just beyond it—black, polished, ridiculous.


"My Lady, please. This way."


Of course. We couldn't walk like commoners. We had to be driven the fifty meters to preserve the dignity of my new position.


We got in. The second car drove us the short distance to the entrance of the Inner Residence, and I felt every second of it—the eyes of gardeners on us, of guards, of nobles who peered through windows to see the new favorite being installed like a piece of furniture.


The same noble lady who had stood beside Morgana the day of the flogging came out to meet us. She bowed her head—not as low as she would bow to the Alpha, but lower than she had ever bowed to me before.


"Good morning, My Lady."


"Well, well, well," Cora muttered under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear. "Look who learned how to bend."


I gave her hand a small warning squeeze. Now wasn't the time. We were in the wolf's den now, surrounded by enemies who smiled while they sharpened their knives.


The noble lady only smiled slightly, her eyes carefully empty. "Please. This way. Let me show you to your rooms."


We followed her inside.


She led us to a suite of three connected rooms in the east wing—sunlight streaming through tall windows, furniture that probably cost more than a house, rugs soft enough to lose your feet in. The first two were mine. The third was for Cora, connected by a private door that meant she would never be far from me.


Five maids waited in a neat line, along with two personal guards who looked like they could snap a neck without breaking a sweat.


"Your staff, My Lady," the noble lady said. "They have been instructed to attend to your every need. If any of them displeases you, you may dismiss them and select replacements from the household registry."


I looked at the maids—five pairs of eyes fixed carefully on the floor, five bodies held perfectly still. They were afraid of me. Or afraid of what I represented. Either way, I hated it.


"Thank you," I said, because I had to say something. "That will be all for now."


She bowed again and left, her footsteps retreating down the hallway with the sound of someone escaping a dangerous animal.


I dismissed the maids and guards with a wave of my hand—my hand, giving orders like I had been born to it—and stepped into the main bedroom with Cora.


She spun in a slow circle and let out a scream that could have woken the dead.


"My Lady—this is heaven!"


She threw open the wardrobe and started pulling out dresses, shoes, jewelry, everything, her voice rising to a pitch that made my head ache. "Look at this silk! And these pearls! My Lady, do you know what these shoes cost? More than my entire family makes in a year! And this—oh, look at this—"


"Cora—"


"—and your own bathroom, with actual hot water that comes from pipes, not buckets, and—"


"Cora—"


"—and did you see those guards? They looked like they could kill a bear with their bare hands, which is good because Morgana probably has bears on her payroll—"


"Cora!"


She stopped, a silk gown clutched to her chest, her eyes wide and innocent. "Yes, My Lady?"


I opened my mouth to tell her to calm down, to remember that this was all theater, that we were still prisoners even if the cell had velvet walls. But a knock cut me off—sharp, insistent, wrong.


We both turned.


The door opened.


Lady Morgana stood there.


She looked different than she had in the courtyard. Smaller somehow, despite the perfect posture and the expensive gown. Her hands were bandaged—I could see the white wraps peeking out from her sleeves—and there were shadows under her eyes that makeup couldn't quite hide.


She looked at me, and I saw something complicated move across her face. Not just hatred. Fear, maybe. Or calculation.


I automatically began to lower my head. Habit was a powerful thing, and fear was stronger than any title.


Cora's hand shot out and caught my arm, her fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.


"My Lady," Cora said clearly, her voice ringing through the room with a confidence that made my stomach drop straight through the floor. "An Honored Lady bows to no one but the Supreme Alpha himself."


Morgana's eyes widened. She stared at both of us—at me, frozen halfway into a bow, at Cora, standing there like she owned the place with her chin up and her shoulders back.


The silence stretched, thin and sharp as a wire.


Morgana's mouth opened. Closed. Her bandaged hands twitched at her sides.


I stood there, caught between the instinct to grovel and the terrifying realization that Cora was right. That I *couldn't* bow now, even if I wanted to. That the title wasn't just a cage—it was a weapon, and I had to hold it properly or someone would take it from me.


Shit.


This maid is going to get my head cut off.


Or worse—she's going to get *hers* cut off, and I'll have to watch.


I could feel sweat prickling at my hairline. Morgana was staring at Cora now, her expression shifting from shock to something dark and calculating, and I knew—*knew*—that she was memorizing every detail of this moment to use against us later.


"Cora," I said carefully, my voice barely above a whisper. "Do you have a death wish for both of us, or are you just trying to see how many ways we can be executed before dinner?"