Chapter Five

AMARA

My heart was beating so hard against my ribs I was certain it would crack them.

For hours, I had sat on the edge of the plush, oversized bed, staring at the heavy oak door and windows too high up to jump out. The luxury of the room felt like a mockery. The silk sheets, the marble bathroom —it was all just velvet wrapping on a steel trap. I wanted none of it. I had plans, I was going to leave this godforsaken city and this cannot be how I end up, kidnapped to be some sex slave to a monster. I don’t belong here and I don’t plan to stay.

The Ghost Wolf.

I shuddered, rubbing my cold arms. When his men had snatched me from the street after my shift, I had fought. I had screamed until my throat was raw. And then I was staring into the cold, midnight eyes of Prizrak. He was supposed to be a myth told to keep the city’s syndicates in line, an outcast king living in exile. But he was real. And he had looked at me as if he owned the very air in my lungs.

A soft click broke the silence, and the heavy door swung inward.

It wasn’t one of the towering, silent guards who brought my meals. Instead, a young girl in a crisp grey maid’s uniform stepped inside, carrying a fresh stack of linens. She looked young, her hands trembling slightly as she set the towels down on the vanity. Her eyes darted to me, wide with a mixture of fear and curiosity.

She was shy, I realized instantly. A desperate spark of hope flared in my chest.

“Hi,” I said, keeping my voice soft, molding it into the harmless, exhausted tone I used when dealing with difficult customers at my second job. I slid off the bed slowly, holding my hands out to show I wasn’t a threat. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. I’m Amara.”

The girl swallowed hard, glancing back toward the empty hallway. “Y-Yana,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “It’s my first day on the south wing. I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

“Please, Yana,” I pleaded, taking a small step closer, making my eyes well up with genuine terror. It wasn’t hard to fake; I was terrified. “I’m not a criminal. I don’t know why I’m here. The lock on that door… it makes it so hard to breathe. I have terrible panic attacks in closed spaces. Could you… could you just leave it unlatched when you go? Just for a few minutes so I can get some air? No one has to know.”

Yana looked torn, her gaze shifting between my desperate expression and the heavy brass handle. She was young, naïve, and clearly overwhelmed. “I… I shouldn’t. If Mr. Volkov finds out…”

“He won’t,” I pressured gently, keeping my tone entirely innocent. “He’s somewhere else, isn’t he? Just a few minutes, Yana. Please.”

She hesitated for a grueling few seconds before nodding rapidly. “Okay. Just a few minutes. I have to finish the lower hall anyway.”

She gathered her tray and stepped backward out of the room. True to her word, she pulled the door shut until it clicked, but she didn’t turn the heavy iron key in the lock.

The moment her footsteps faded down the hall, the innocence dropped from my face. My heart rate spiked, an electric jolt of adrenaline flooding my system. This was my only shot.

I waited a few painfully agonizing seconds, counting the beats of my pulse. Then, I gripped the handle. I pressed it down.

The door swung open.

Freedom was a dark corridor. I slipped out of the room, my sneakers making no sound against the thick carpet. I kept my back pressed to the wall, navigating where I thought were blind spots of the grand staircase just as I had imagined in my mind over the last twenty-four hours. My breathing was shallow, a quiet gasp rattling in my throat.

I reached the bottom of the stairs, my eyes darting toward the heavy, arched front doors of the house. They were unlocked. I couldn’t believe my luck. I threw my weight against the wood, slipping out into the freezing night air.

But as I stumbled out onto the stone steps, a figure stepped out from the shadows near the pillars.

He was big, and I quickly recognized him. One of the men who had kidnapped me.

My breath caught in my throat, a choked sob escaping my lips. I froze, waiting for him to grab me, to throw me back into the dark room. But he didn’t move. He simply stood there, a cigarette dangling from his lips, an amused, mocking smirk plastered across his face. He looked right at me, took a slow drag, and watched me as if I were nothing more than an entertaining stray cat.

Panic, cold and sharp, shattered my paralysis. If he wasn’t going to grab me, I was going to run.

I bolted.

My lungs were burning, screaming for oxygen with every frantic step I took, but I couldn’t slow down. I couldn’t stop.

I felt a tiny pang of guilt for lying to the soft-spoken maid— pretending to have panic attacks—but guilt was a luxury I couldn’t afford right now. Survival was the only thing that mattered.

My boots hit the gravel courtyard, the sharp stones crunching loudly beneath my feet. The early morning was freezing, the wind biting into my skin like needles, but I barely felt it. The sheer force of survival pushed my legs faster, harder, driving me toward the massive, towering iron gates at the end of the long driveway.

Run. Just keep running.

As I sprinted past the manicured hedges and stone pathways, I passed under the stark, blinding glare of streetlights. I stopped running, my eyes darting frantically across the open courtyard to map out an exit route.

And then I saw it.

Yards ahead, cutting through the night mist, stood a gate. It was a massive, monstrous structure of wrought iron and reinforced steel, flanked on either side by imposing concrete security towers. Beyond those black iron bars, the streetlights lit up the narrow, winding asphalt road, and that was where I needed to be, on the other side. On the road leading down into the valley toward the distant, hazy silhouette of the city skyline.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of movement beneath an awning. Someone was standing there.

I flinched, bracing myself for the shout, the heavy footsteps chasing me down, or the sudden, sharp sting of a weapon.

But nothing happened.

I picked up running again and I risked a frantic glance over my shoulder as I ran. No one had moved. There were no shouts, no knives, no guns. It’s like everyone was watching my desperate flight with a terrifying, chilling indifference. They didn’t raise their weapons. They didn’t give chase. They just let me go.

Why weren’t they stopping me?

The agonizing confusion twisted in my stomach, but I couldn’t stop. The massive gates were getting closer, looming ahead like the pearly gates of my own personal heaven. Beyond those bars lay the dark tree line. Beyond those trees lay the road, the city, and a chance to disappear.

My lungs burned, every breath feeling like inhaling shards of glass as I gave it everything I had left.

Relief —sharp, blinding, and dizzyingly sweet— surged through my veins like fire. Tears stung the corners of my eyes as a hysterical laugh threatened to bubble up in my throat. I pushed my aching legs harder, pumping my arms, putting every last drop of adrenaline into the dash.

I’m going to make it. Oh God, I’m actually going to make it.

Civilization. Normalcy. Freedom.

I closed the distance in seconds, throwing my entire body weight forward, reaching my hands out through the air as if I could physically grab onto the world outside.

CLANG.

The impact vibrated through my bones as I threw myself against the iron bars, but the gate didn’t budge even a millimeter. It stood entirely flush against its heavy stone casing, locked down tight.

“No, no, no… Please come on!” I gasped, my chest heaving violently.

I grabbed the heavy brass handle, pulling with all my strength until my muscles trembled and my knuckles turned white. Nothing. I slammed my palms against the cold metal, my nails scraping against the dark paint as panic, hot and suffocating, clawed its way back up my throat.

“Open,” I gasped. “Please, open…”

I looked frantically around the frame—scanning for a manual release lever, a keyhole, a mechanical override… anything.

All I found was a sleek, black digital interface mounted to the stone pillar. Above the keypad, a single, crimson LED light blinked steadily, mocking me with its quiet, unyielding glow.

“Open! Please, open!” I sobbed out, hitting the keypad with the heel of my hand. The display beeped sharply in protest, flashing a harsh red prompt: ACCESS DENIED.

I rattled the bars, throwing my weight against the iron structure until my shoulders bruised, but the gate didn’t even vibrate. It was completely, utterly immovable.

The adrenaline began to drain from my body, leaving behind a hollow, paralyzing weight. I slid down to the ground and looked back at the vast, mostly silent courtyard. No one was there, but I could feel the mocking gaze of the silent night.

As I turned back to the gate, my hands slid down the freezing iron bars, my head resting heavily against the iron bars, willing it to open by some sort of magic.

The horrifying truth finally crashed over me. No one was bothered by my attempt to escape. They hadn’t stopped me because they didn’t need to. They all knew I wouldn’t make it past the gate.

Why can’t the universe be on my side?

The tears flowing freely down my face landed on my jean covered thighs. There was no way out. I was going to die here and there’s no one who would even remember that I had existed.

“You know, Little Bird, most people at least ask for a key, but most people don’t make it this far.”

The deep, drawling voice sliced through the silence of the courtyard, freezing the blood in my veins. My spine snapped straight, every nerve ending in my body screaming a warning.

Slowly, terrifyingly, I turned around.

The man who had watched me start to run was casually leaning against a carved stone pillar a few paces away, a lit cigarette held loosely between two thick fingers. He wasn’t reaching for a weapon; his posture was completely relaxed, almost lazy. He looked at me with an agonizing mixture of mild amusement and genuine pity, taking a slow, deliberate drag before exhaling a plume of gray smoke into the crisp air.

“You’re fast,” he said, checking an imaginary watch on his wrist with a light chuckle. “Slipped right past poor Yana, sprinted straight past two outer patrol checkpoints, made it to the inner gate perimeter in under ten minutes. Really impressive printsessa. But useless.”

“Let me out,” I breathed, backing up until my shoulder blades touched against the cold, unyielding iron bars. I held my trembling hands up between us, trying desperately to steady my shaky voice, to sound braver than I felt. “Please. I don’t belong here! Whatever debt my uncle owed Marco, I didn’t sign for it! I didn’t take his money!”

“Nobody signs for debts in our world, Little Bird,” he replied softly, his tone strangely gentle despite the cold reality of his words. He dropped his cigarette to the cobblestones and crushed it beneath the heel of his boot. “They just pay them.”

Before I could form another sentence, a long, dark shadow stretched across the gravel, swallowing both me and Dimitri in its chill.

The ambient noise of the night —the rustling wind, the faint distant hum of generators— seemed to vanish instantly. The temperature in the courtyard dropped ten degrees, heavy and dense with a suffocating, lethal presence.

I didn’t even need to look up to know who it was. The sheer weight of his aura announced him before his boots stepped off the stone pathway onto the gravel.

The man who made his men kidnap me. The one who killed Marco. Prizrak emerged from the shadow of the arched walkway.

He moved with an unbearable, predatory silence, his tailored dark coat draped over broad, powerful shoulders. He didn’t look angry. He didn’t look flustered or rushed. That was the most terrifying part. His icy, pale blue eyes locked onto mine, completely devoid of heat, rage, or passion. They were utterly, chillingly empty—the eyes of a sovereign king looking down at a minor, nuisance anomaly in his perfectly calculated environment.

My breath hitched in my throat, trapped behind a wall of pure terror. I pressed myself as flat as I could against the iron gate, wishing the metal would swallow me whole.

Prizrak stopped barely three feet away from me. He towered over my frame, his sheer physical dominance filling my entire field of vision. The faint, expensive scent of cedar wood, rich tobacco, and cold rain wafted off him, wrapping around me like a velvet leash.

“You have remarkable spirit, Moya Zhizn,” Prizrak said quietly. His voice was a low, velvet rumble that vibrated straight down my spine, cutting through my defenses with terrifying ease. “Foolish. But remarkable.”

“Fuck you,” I snarled. I forced my chin up, raising my trembling fists to my chest, trying to lock eyes with the monster standing over me. “I swear to God, Mister… don’t you dare touch me!”

A ghost of a smirk touched the corner of his sculpted lips—cold, dangerous, and entirely devoid of warmth. He didn’t even bother to raise his fists. He didn’t even look angry.

“You make good threats for someone who has nowhere left to run,” he murmured softly, his gaze drifting down to my hands before snapping back to my eyes. He didn’t raise his voice as he cast a brief, indifferent glance over his shoulder toward the guards standing rigidly at attention to the side. “Take her back to her room, the south wing.”

“No!” I shrieked as two towering men immediately stepped forward, closing the distance between us in three terrifying strides.

“Get your hands off me!” I fought with everything I had. As the first guard grabbed my forearm, I twisted violently, sinking my teeth into his gloved hand. He grunted, loosening his grip for a fraction of a second, and I used the opening to drive the heel of my shoe sharply down into the second guard’s shin.

The man grunted, but before I could make another break for the open courtyard, an iron grip clamped down around both of my wrists, pinning them firmly behind my back. They hoisted me up off my feet, my toes barely scraping the ground as they locked me into a vice-like hold.

“Prizrak! You bastard! Let me go!” I screamed, thrashing wildly against the men, my feet kicking at the empty air as tears of rage and humiliation finally spilled over my lashes. “You can’t keep me here! You hear me?! I’ll kill you!”

My desperate screams echoed off the high stone walls of the courtyard, sharp and helpless against the silent night.

Prizrak didn’t move a single inch. He stood motionless beside the sealed iron gate, his hands tucked calmly into the pockets of his heavy coat, watching my desperate, pathetic struggle with cold, unwavering indifference. He didn’t blink. He didn’t frown. He simply watched me fight while the guards dragged me away, back into the house and through the heavy wooden doors of the south wing, and into the room he had called mine, slamming the heavy door shut with a definite click, and cutting off the outside world.

My knees hit the ground as tears rolled down. I could feel the room, this house, swallow my cries whole, and I knew no one could hear me.

The Wolf had just captured his prey. Again.