جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 10

POV: Nyx Nobody asked where i had wanted to seat. i was taken in a pack carriage, with one bag, two enforcers up front who hadn't spoken a single word to me since the Calloway gate. I sat in the back and watched the land change outside the window and told myself this was fine. I was fine. I had been fine in worse situations than this.I had been telling myself that my whole life. I was getting tired of how much practice I had.The forest closed in on both sides as we rode, old trees that had been standing longer than any pack alive. Then came the checkpoints. Iron gates, stone walls, each one heavier than the last. I counted guard positions out of habit, the way I had been counting exits and escape routes since I was twelve years old and realized that nobody in the Calloway house was going to protect me except me.Three guard rotations visible from the road.Then the trees broke open, and I saw the estate.My chest did something small and involuntary. Not awe but something closer to

POV: NyxThe reception ended and the maids came for me. Again.Three of them, appearing at my elbow with the seamless timing. They guided me upstairs without making it feel like guiding, which was its own kind of skill, and the bath was already drawn when we got there, steam rising from water that smelled of crushed flowers and warm oil. Something expensive. Something chosen by someone else, like everything in this house.I let them work.That was the thing about being handled your whole life. You learned when resistance cost more than it bought you. I stood still while they unhooked the dress, unwound my hair and helped me into the water. I kept my face neutral while their hands moved through the practiced steps of an arrangement I had no part in designing. They were kind in the way that professionally instructed people were kind. Thorough and Impersonal. Nobody asked how I was feeling. Nobody was going to.They oiled my skin after and Let my hair fall loose. And then one of them o

POV: NyxThe tray was outside my door when I woke up.It left on the floor with the specific care of someone who had decided not to knock, which told me something about the person who left it. A bowl of something warm. A cup of tea that was still steaming, which meant they had timed it. And beside the cup, wrapped in a small cloth, a moon-cake and a folded note beneath it with one word written inside.*Eat.*Just that. No signature, No title, No Good morning, my lady performance.I sat on the floor of my doorway and ate the moon cake before I touched anything else, and I did not examine why.Hilda came an hour later with the efficiency of someone who had a schedule and intended to keep it. She walked me through the estate's structure. Very clear, thorough, and entirely without warmth. My rooms and the east corridor were mine. The Alpha King's wing was on the west side of the upper floor and I was not to go there unless summoned. The public rooms like the dining hall, the receiving roo

POV: Elara (Limited Third) Elara Crane rode through the estate gates with the wind still in her hair and a grin she couldn’t quite kill. Six weeks on the training circuit had left her sore, filthy, and starving for home. She had missed the smell of the pines, the weight of familiar stone under her boots, and most of all, the particular way her brother’s face changed when he saw her. Lucian was already waiting on the steps when she dismounted. “Elara Crane,” he said, voice warm with that rare, reserved affection he saved only for her. “Welcome back.” “Lucian Crane,” she shot back, striding up to him, “I was on a training circuit for six weeks, not a pilgrimage.” They stared at each other for a beat, the old game, then she laughed and threw her arms around him. He hugged her back hard, the way he only did when no one else was watching. “Rumor is you got a wife while I was away,” she said against his shoulder. “Rumor is true.” Elara pulled back, searching his face. He was smiling

POV: Nyx I was four years old when I learned that silence could scream. It started with a crash downstairs. Then my mother’s voice became sharp, terrified in a way I had never heard before. My father’s low urgent reply. And then a sound that wasn’t human at all. A growl that vibrated through the floorboards and into my bones. My mother burst into my room with wide eyes. She didn’t waste time. She yanked me from the bed and dragged me toward the hidden panel behind the wardrobe I never knew existed. "Mama" "Quiet." Her hands were shaking as she pushed me into the dark space. She pressed her forehead to mine, just for a second. "Stay silent no matter what you hear and do not come out. I will always love you" The panel slid shut and I stayed quiet. I stayed quiet while the fighting started. While my mother screamed and my father roared. While wet, violent sounds filled the house and then… nothing. Just silence. The kind of silence that feels heavier than noise. I don