Chapter 2

Evelyn POV

The gates opened before the car even slowed down.

No guard, no button, no voice on an intercom. Two towers of black iron simply swung apart, slow and soundless, as if the house had been listening for us.

I sat in the back seat with my knees pulled to my chest, my bare feet leaving smears of blood on the leather. I'd been wiping at it with the hem of my shirt for the last ten minutes, but there was less of it than there should have been. When I checked my soles again, the cuts from the garden had shrunk to thin pink lines.

I didn't look too hard at that. I had a limit for impossible things in one night, and I'd hit it.

"Miss Ashford." The gray-eyed man twisted around in the front seat. "We have arrived."

"Wow. Thank you, kidnapper. I never would have guessed."

His mouth twitched, almost a smile, and that annoyed me more than anything. "Mr. Draven's staff will see to you. I'd advise you to be polite."

"Or what?"

He didn't answer. He just opened my door.

Cold air rolled in, smelling of pine and wet stone. The mansion rose in front of me, enormous and dark, every window glowing a soft gold against the black trees behind it. It didn't look like a home. It looked like a place that kept secrets for a living.

I stepped onto the gravel, and the doors at the top of the steps opened.

I braced myself. I don't know for what. A leering businessman, maybe. A cruel housekeeper. Some smug man in a silk robe who thought he'd bought himself a pretty new toy.

What I got was a line of staff.

Twelve of them, maybe more, standing in two rows on either side of the entrance, every one of them dressed in black. They bowed as I climbed the steps. Not a quick nod. A real bow, deep and unmistakably respectful.

I stopped halfway up.

"Okay," I said slowly, "what the hell is this?"

A woman at the front straightened. She was around fifty, silver hair pinned back, a face as calm as still water. "Welcome, Miss Ashford. I am Mrs. Hale, the housekeeper. If you will come with me, we have a room prepared."

"I'm not staying."

"Of course." She said it so smoothly that I almost believed she agreed. "But you are bleeding on our steps, and I would hate for you to catch cold."

I looked down.

I was standing barefoot in a torn nightshirt, mud up to my shins, hair stuck to my face. Behind me, three men in suits waited like I might bolt at any second.

For the first time all night, I wanted to cry.

Not because I was scared. Because this stranger, this woman whose name I'd known for four seconds, had just looked at me and seen someone who needed help.

My own mother never had.

"Fine," I managed. "But I'm not changing, I'm not eating, and I'm not signing anything."

"Nobody has asked you to sign anything, miss."

That was the second thing that unsettled me.

Inside, the house was warm. Dark wood, marble floors, a staircase that curved up into shadow. Every painting on the walls seemed to be of someone staring at me. The staff trailed along behind us at a careful distance, and I noticed something strange. Whenever I looked at one of them, they looked away fast, the way you do when you've been caught staring.

Not with contempt. With caution.

As if I were something that might go off.

Mrs. Hale led me past the staircase and down a long corridor to a set of double doors. She knocked once.

"Enter."

A man's voice. Low, even and cold enough to make the hair rise on my arms.

Mrs. Hale opened the door and stepped aside.

I walked in with my chin up, because I'd learned a long time ago that you don't let people see you shake.

The study was lit by a single lamp. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a fireplace burning low, a massive desk covered in documents. And behind it, standing at a window with his back to me, a man in a dark suit.

He turned around.

I forgot how to breathe.

I'd expected old. Or fat, or smug. Someone my father's age with a signet ring and a bad smile.

He looked about thirty. Tall, broad through the shoulders, with black hair swept back from a face that belonged on a marble statue. A sharp jaw, a straight nose, and eyes so dark they looked like they swallowed the lamplight. He didn't smile. He didn't move at all. He just looked at me, and I had the unnerving feeling that he was reading every bruise on my soul.

"Miss Ashford," he said.

"Mr. Draven." My voice came out thinner than I wanted. I cleared my throat and tried again. "Let's skip the speech. I know why I'm here."

One dark brow lifted. "Do you?"

"My father signed a contract. You cleared his debt. And now I'm yours to do with as you please." I crossed my arms to hide the trembling. "So if you think I'm going to be grateful, or pretty, or quiet about it, you've got the wrong girl. I'll fight you every single day."

The room went still.

Mrs. Hale made a small, strangled sound behind me.

Lucien Draven stared at me for a long, long moment.

Then something in his face shifted. It wasn't amusement. It was something harder. Something dangerous.

"Who told you that you were mine?"

"My father."

"Your father," he said, very softly, "has made an assumption."

He walked around the desk. Slow, unhurried, hands in his pockets. Everything in me screamed to step back, but I held my ground.

"I did not request a woman," he said. "I did not ask for a daughter. A subordinate of mine negotiated a financial settlement with Richard Ashford. When your name appeared in the terms, I was not informed. I learned of it tonight, from a report, an hour before you arrived."

I blinked.

"I don't understand."

"I'm saying that your family offered you as payment, and I never asked for it." His jaw tightened. "And that, Miss Ashford, is the most disgusting thing I have heard in a very long time."

My throat closed.

I'd braced for cruelty. For a threat, for a leer, for a hand on my arm.

I had not braced for this.

"You are not my property," Lucien said. "You are not part of any agreement I recognize. You are a guest in this house until I can ensure you leave safely, and after that, you will do exactly what you choose."

"That's..." I shook my head. "That's not how this works. Men like you don't just give things away."

"No," he agreed. "They usually don't."

"So what do you want?"

"Nothing."

"Everyone wants something."

"Then you've known the wrong people."

The words landed like a slap, soft but true.

I wanted to argue. I wanted to find the trick, the trap hidden inside the kindness. Because in twenty-two years, I had never once been given something for free. Every gift had a hook. Every kind word came with a bill.

"Why should I believe you?"

"You shouldn't." He held my gaze. "Not yet. Trust that comes quickly is worthless. Watch what I do, not what I say."

Silence stretched between us. The fire popped. Somewhere in the walls, an old clock ticked.

"Mrs. Hale will show you to your room," he said finally. "You'll find clothes, food and a lock on the inside of the door. The key is yours."

I stared at him. "You're giving me the key."

"Yes."

"To my own room."

"Yes."

"In your house."

"Miss Ashford." Something that might have been exhaustion flickered across his face. "I am trying very hard to be patient with you. Please do not make me say it a third time."

Unexpectedly, I laughed. One short, cracked sound, and it surprised us both.

He didn't smile. But the hard line of his mouth softened, just slightly.

"One more thing," he said as I turned to go. "The men who brought you. Did any of them hurt you?"

"A bit." I held up my scratched arm. "I gave worse than I got."

For the first time, I thought I saw something flicker behind those dark eyes. Respect, maybe. Or just curiosity.

"I'll deal with it."

I didn't ask what that meant.

The room was bigger than my family's entire living room.

A canopy bed with cream sheets. A bath already steaming. A wardrobe full of clothes in my size, which should have creeped me out, but I was too tired to care. I locked the door, turned the key twice, then sat on the edge of the bed and stared at my hands.

They were still shaking.

I showered. I ate half a bowl of soup. I put on soft clothes that smelled like cedar and lay down on the biggest bed I'd ever slept in.

I did not sleep.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Richard's face. Heard his voice say, You've always had nothing.

Around midnight, I gave up.

I padded barefoot into the hall, telling myself I only wanted water. The corridor was empty, lit by wall lamps that burned low and amber. Somewhere far off, a clock chimed twelve.

I wandered without thinking, past closed doors and portraits, down a short flight of stairs and along a gallery I hadn't seen before. Glass cases lined the walls, filled with objects I couldn't name. Old daggers. Carved bone. A goblet of dark crystal. Everything looked ancient and expensive and slightly wrong, like it belonged in a museum that didn't want visitors.

At the far end, one case stood alone beneath a spotlight.

Inside it, resting on black velvet, was a piece of silver.

A small crescent, no bigger than my palm. Worn smooth with age. Three curved lines etched into its surface.

My hand flew to my collarbone.

My necklace.

The same shape. The same lines. The same impossible mark.

My feet carried me forward before my brain caught up. I stopped inches from the glass, my breath fogging the surface, and stared.

"What are you?" I whispered.

The pendant against my skin began to burn.

It started as warmth, then heat, then pain, white and sharp, like a coal pressed to my chest. I gasped and clutched at it, but it only flared hotter. The silver crescent in the case began to glow, a pale and sickly light that crawled up the glass and spilled across my hands.

I tried to step back.

My legs wouldn't move.

The light exploded.

It hit me like a wave, bright enough to blind, and somewhere through the roar in my ears I heard something that sounded like a voice. A woman's voice, soft and broken, saying a name I didn't recognize.

The floor tilted.

My knees gave out.

I don't remember hitting the ground. I only remember arms, strong and cold, catching me before I fell, and a face swimming above mine.

Dark eyes. Wide. Shocked.

"Evelyn."

It was the first time he'd said my name.

His fingers closed around my wrist, and I felt him go rigid.

"What the hell are you?" Lucien Draven breathed.

Then the dark swallowed everything.