Chapter 7: The New Specialist

 Wren

“She isn’t a patient anymore, Julian she’s an asset nearing its expiration date.”

The words sliced through the rain-soaked gloom before I could clear the threshold of the conservatory.

I froze, my hand gripping the icy brass handle, the guard’s knife hidden beneath the wet folds of my skirt.

It wasn’t a voice from the grave.

It was a man standing in the center of the dimly lit room, his back turned to me, framed against arched windows where the storm raged outside. He was broad-shouldered, dressed in a dark tailored overcoat that looked far too refined for the rotting mausoleum grounds I had just fled.

Julian stood opposite him, his hair disheveled from his trek to the crypt, his crisp white shirt stained with damp earth.

He looked small beside the stranger.

Frightened.

“Watch your tongue, Vane,” Julian hissed. “You were brought here to perform a specific service. Not to question my timing.”

“Your timing is sloppy,” the man replied.

His voice was smooth and calm, carrying the chilling cadence of a surgeon examining a ruined limb.

“The Zurich trade dropped three percent before midnight. Beatrix is panicking, and when old money panics, men like you end up in shallow graves. If you want her locked away in the Scottish facility without the board intervening, her psychological collapse needs to look absolute. Natural. Indisputable.”

My pulse hammered against my throat.

A new doctor.

Julian hadn’t simply arranged an asylum. He had brought in an executioner to sign my life away.

“I have everything under control,” Julian snarled. “The paperwork is being prepared”

“The paperwork is garbage,” Vane interrupted.

He finally turned.

The low silver lamp caught his face, and my breath caught.

Dr. Kaelen Vane did not look like the old, compromised physicians Julian usually paid to keep me quiet.

He was younger, perhaps in his late thirties, with sharp features, dark hair damp from the rain, and eyes so pale they seemed almost silver.

There was no warmth in his face.

Only intelligence.

Dangerous intelligence.

Then his gaze shifted.

Past Julian’s shoulder.

Straight toward the dark alcove where I stood hidden.

My heart started pounding heavily and faster against my ribs.

I didn’t made a sound. Yet those silver eyes locked onto mine with terrifying precision.

He knew I was there.

He didn’t call out.

He simply held my stare while Julian continued talking.

“She’s unpredictable, Kaelen!” Julian’s voice cracked. “She’s hallucinating. She thinks she hears voices in the cellar. She talks to herself. She’s completely unpredictable. I need you to sign the mandatory isolation order tonight.”

Kaelen didn’t take his eyes off me.

“Is she dangerous, Julian?” he asked softly.

His deep voice sent a strange shiver through me.

“Or is she simply reacting to the poisons in her tea?”

Julian went silent.

“What did you say?” he whispered.

“I reviewed her chart before I drove down from London,” Kaelen said, slowly stepping around the desk. “The synthetic belladonna extracts you’ve been administering in micro-doses cause severe auditory hallucinations, memory loss, and paranoia. Brilliant for creating a diagnosis of violent hysteria. Sloppy if an independent coroner orders a blood panel.”

I pressed my back harder against the wall.

He knew.

He knew about the tea.

He knew about the poisoning.

But instead of relief, dread settled over me.

If this man knew Julian’s plot and was still here, he wasn’t necessarily here to save me.

“You’re getting paid three times your standard f*e to oversee her containment, Vane,” Julian spoke quietly. “You don’t get to examine my methods.”

“I’m getting paid to make sure she doesn’t slip through your fingers,” Kaelen corrected.

He stopped less than three feet from where I stood behind the curtain.

The warmth from his body reached me through the damp chill.

Then I caught his scent.

Rain.

Cedarwood.

A faint trace of tobacco.

I hated that I noticed.

“Starting tonight, her care is entirely under my authority. No visitors. No staff. Total isolation.”

Julian laughed bitterly. “Fine. Take her. She’s upstairs in her room screaming at the walls, no doubt.”

“She isn’t upstairs,” Kaelen murmured.

Before I could react, his hand shot into the shadows.

His long fingers closed around my bare wrist.

I gasped.

His skin was warm against mine.

I yanked back, lifting the knife with my free hand and aiming for his chest.

Kaelen didn’t move an inch. 

His other hand caught my elbow, twisting my arm just enough for the knife to slip from my numb fingers.

It clattered onto the Persian rug.

I stumbled.

He caught me.

My soaked  body collided with his hard chest.

For one suspended moment, I forgot about Julian, the storm, and the knife.

All I could feel was Kaelen’s arm around my waist.

Strong.

Steady.

Dangerously close.

“Wren,” Julian choked out.

He stumbled backward, staring at me as if I’d risen from the dead.

“How, how did you get out?!”

I couldn’t answer.

I couldn’t breathe.

Kaelen’s arm remained firm around my waist, holding me against him. His breath warmed the top of my head, his chest rising steadily beneath his coat.

I slowly looked up.

Our eyes met.

Something changed in his expression.

His gaze moved over my bruised face, then lingered briefly on my trembling lips before returning to my eyes.

The intensity there made my heart beat faster.

It wasn’t only fear.

I didn’t understand what it was.

And that frightened me.

“She stays with me,” Kaelen said softly.

His voice was low and absolute.

“In the east wing. Under my personal, constant supervision.”

“She’s dangerous!” Julian shouted, pointing at the knife. “Look at her! She’s out of her mind!”

Kaelen tightened his arm around my waist.

My breath caught.

He pulled me closer until there was barely any space between us.

Then he lowered his head.

His lips brushed the shell of my ear.

I should have pulled away.

I should have fought him the way I had fought everyone who tried to control me.

Instead, I stayed frozen in his arms, painfully aware of every place his body touched mine.

His silver eyes held mine for another second.

There was danger in them.

But beneath it, something else flickered.

Something that made me wonder whether this stranger had just become my threat or my only chance.

“Don’t fight me, Wren,” he whispered.

His warm breath moved across my freezing neck, sending a forbidden shiver through me.

His grip was firm, but his voice was strangely controlled.

I couldn’t tell whether he was threatening me or protecting me.

“If you want to survive the night,” he murmured, “you belong to me now.”