Chapter 2: The box was found.

I had been careless.

The box was warm that evening, restless and almost alive under the loose floorboard within my room.

It always answered to strong emotions, and today, sadness had delved darker than it should have.

It was the remembrance of my father’s death.

I take out the box from its hiding place to hold it. For only just one brief instant. Just long enough to remind myself that he loved me enough to leave behind.

That was my mistake.

The door was kicked open without notice.

Victor emerged from the entrance, imposing and sinister, his dark hair banded now with strings of silver. Power appeared to be a second hide to him, but his gaze fixed instantly on the box I held in my hands.

“What is that?” he asked calmly.

Too calmly.

I hold the wood in my hand more tightly. “Noth-ing,

His eyes darkened.

“Bring it here.”

I didn't move.

With one quick action, he crossed the room and pulled it from my hands. As his hands touched it, the box turned cold. Stone cold. Dead.

Victor glared.

He flipped it over, searching for a lock. A hinge. Anything.

“There’s no stamp," he mumbled. Then, he shouted, “Open it.”

“I’m unable to,” I said.

That was when his calm collapsed.

He bashed the box against the table.

“Don’t lie to me, girl.”

“I’m not lying,” I breathed, fear creeping up my spine. “It doesn’t open.”

His wife showed up behind him, eyes sharpened the moment she saw it.

“That’s it,” she muttered. “That’s what Vincent left her.”

Victor stiffened.

“So you are saying….?”

She came forward, voice low and serious. “The night he died, I saw him give her something. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it's important.”

Victor attempted again.

He used beast strength. Wolf strength. Enough to destroy stone.

The box didn’t even snap.

Instead, a sharp pain flowed through his palm. He winched, dropping it as if burned.

The box fell on the floor with a dull clunk—untouched.

Silence rained in the room.

Victor looked at it, then at me.

“Why can't I open it?" he demanded.

I swallowed. “My father said… only my fated mate could open it.”

The room went dead still.

His wife’s face was drained of color.

Victor’s eyes darkened with something dangerous—something calculating.

“A mate,” he repeated slowly.

Understanding dawned in his gaze.

That night, everything changed.

They didn’t kill me.

They couldn’t.

Instead, Victor ordered guards to watch me at all times. I was removed from servant quarters and placed in a locked room near the main hall—visible, controlled, contained.

From that day on, I was no longer just a burden.

I was an investment.

A human girl holding a secret meant for wolves powerful enough to claim it.

And Victor intended to be there when that box finally opened.

★Present Day★

I am twenty now.

Still human.

Still broken.

Still owned.

But something has changed.

The box has been warm for days.

Not flickering. Not reacting to emotion.

Steady.

Constant.

As if it knows something I don’t.

As if fate is no longer waiting.

Since then till now.

Quietness was my safest friend.

In the small room I was permitted to sleep in—not mine, never mine—the walls were plain stone, cold even during the day.

A lessened bed placed by the corner, its thin mattress squeak every time I shifted.

The one window in the room was too high for me to look through, but it allowed just enough moonlight to remind me that the world still existed beyond these walls.

I lay by the hem of the bed, fingers dusting over the rough fabric of my dress, listening.

In this house, silence meant peace.

Noise meant punishment.

The door squeaked open without warning.

I tensed.

“Elara.”

My cousin’s voice carried that familiar shrewdness—sweet on the surface, ugly underneath.

I rised immediately, lowering my head as Lyra Vale stepped inside. She was dressed in soft silk, pale blue today, her hair laced neatly down her back. She looked every bit the noble she believed herself to be.

Unlike me.

“Why are you sitting?” she asked icily. “Did I allowed you to?”

“No,” I replied quickly, standing straighter. “I just finished with my duties.”

She signed, unimpressed, eyes swooping the room as though searching for faults. “Mother wants to see you downstairs.”

My stomach twisted.

“You are not needed in the kitchen for now,” she continued, lips curve faintly. “We have… guests arriving.”

I said nothing. Guests never meant celebration for me.

“They’re important,” Lyra added. “Very important. Father wants everything perfect.”

Of course he did.

“You’re tasked to buy groceries at the market,” she said, going towards the door. “Buy supplies. Fresh meat. Wine. Spices. And don’t embarrass us.”

I responded. “Yes.”

She paused, looking back at me with a grin. “Oh, and don’t expect to eat with us tonight. You’ll be busy.”

Busy.

That was always the word they used instead of hungry.

The market teemed with life in a way the manor never does.

Voices rose, laughter carried across the air, and baking bread with its spices and smoke all combined. For one small moment, I let my breath run free as I stepped onto the stone pathway leading into town.

Here I wasn’t watched as closely.

Here I could be practically normal.

I kept my face coverd with my hood, holding the coin purse Lyra had forced into my hands. It wasn’t much—but then again, they never gave me much.

The sellers recognized me.

Some looked away.

Some pitied me.

A few whispered.

I ignored them all.

I moved from store to store, carefully checking for what I’d been told to buy. Meat covered in cloth. Bottles of deep red wine. Bundles of herbs I hardly knew the names of.

As I walked down a quieter street, my gut feeling flashed up.

Shouts sounded ahead.

Crude voices.

I hesitated.

I should have gone back.

But then I heard her.

“Please,” an old woman’s voice was heard,weak and exusted. “That’s all I have.”

I stood shaking.

Three men surrounded her near a broken stall, they laughed dangerously . One holds her arm, trying to take the small purse she gripped tightly.

“Hand it over, old woman,” he sneered. “You won’t need it where you’re going.”

Something twisted in my chest.

I didn’t think.

I stepped forward.

“Let her go.”

The men turned, surprised.

One of them laughed. “And who are you?”

“No one,” I said calmly in. “But you don’t need her money.”

The man holding her pushed her to the ground. “Mind your own business.”

I moved passed them without knowing it, helping the woman to stand up.

“She’s not worth it,” I added softly. “There are guards nearby.”

That was a lie.

But it worked.

The men looked at each other, muttered curses, and went away—eyes drag on me with promises I didn’t want to imagine.

When they were gone, my knees nearly gave out.

The old woman holds my hands tightly. “Thank you, child.”

I nodded, not knowing what to say.

Her eyes softened as she looked at me. “You carry pain far too heavy for someone so young.”

I swallowed. “It’s nothing.”

She smiled sadly. “The Moon sees more than we know.”

Before I could respond, she passed something small into my hand—a smooth, warm stone designed with a faint crescent.

“For protection,” she said gently. “You’ll need it.”

Then she was gone.

I gazed at the stone long after she disappeared into the crowd, a strange feeling flowing through my chest.

Unseen.

Unexplained.

But comforting.

By the time I returned to the manor, the sun was already setting.

Guards lined the entrance.

Foreign guards.

My heart skipped.

The box beneath my floorboard flashed in my mind, a feeling I had learned to recognize.

Warm.

Awake.

Something was coming.

Something that would change everything.

And for the first time in years… I'm afraid that It might not be something I could survive.