Chapter 2 Trapped
(Thalia's POV)
I'm still lying face-down on my bed when my phone buzzes. The screen lights up with Isla's name, my best friend from the human school I attended before Mother pulled me out for "private tutoring." We've kept in touch through texts and occasional calls, though Mother monitors everything.
I grab the phone like a lifeline and answer before the second ring.
"Thalia! Finally! You've been ghosting me for like three days." Isla's voice is warm and familiar, exactly what I need right now. "What's going on? Your texts have been super weird."
"Isla." My voice cracks on her name, and I press my palm against my mouth to stifle the sob threatening to escape. "I need to tell you something."
"Oh God, what happened? Are you okay?"
I sit up, wrapping my free arm around my knees. The London skyline glitters through my window, so many lights, so many lives happening out there while mine implodes. "I'm getting married."
Silence. Then: "I'm sorry, what?"
"My mother arranged it. Some businessman from Prague. The wedding's in six weeks."
"Thalia, that's insane! You can't just... this isn't the eighteenth century! You have rights!"
"Not in my world." I close my eyes, fighting the tears burning behind my lids. "I tried to refuse. She said people would die if I didn't go through with it. That it would be my fault."
"That's manipulation! That's abuse!" Isla's outrage makes something in my chest crack open. "Thalia, you need to leave. Come stay with me and my parents. We'll figure something out."
"I can't. You don't understand..."
A hand clamps over my mouth from behind.
My scream dies in my throat as someone tackles me backward onto the bed. The phone flies from my grip, clattering somewhere on the floor. Isla's voice continues tinny and distant: "Thalia? Thalia, are you there?"
I thrash wildly, my elbow connecting with solid muscle. My attacker doesn't even grunt. An arm bands across my chest, pinning me against a body that radiates heat like a furnace.
"Stop fighting." The voice in my ear is familiar, accented, desperate. "Please, Thalia. I'm not going to hurt you. I just need you to listen."
Lucien. It's Lucien Voss.
I buck harder, terror overriding every rational thought. He's in my room. He was in my room the entire time I was on the phone. Hiding. Waiting.
"I know you're scared," he continues, his breath hot against my ear. "But if you scream, security will come. They'll kill me on sight—no questions, no trial. And then you'll never get answers about what you are. What your mother's been doing to you."
I freeze. Not because I believe him, but because my body does. That same inexplicable pull from the market thrums through me now, even stronger with his skin touching mine. My wolf, the part of me I've always dismissed as imagination, surges forward with a force that makes me gasp against his palm.
"I'm going to remove my hand," Lucien says carefully. "If you promise not to scream. One minute. Give me one minute to explain, and if you still want me gone, I'll leave. I swear it."
My heart hammers so hard I'm certain he can feel it. Every self-defense instinct I have screams to fight, to scream, to activate the emergency beacon hidden in my necklace. But beneath the terror, curiosity burns.
What your mother's been doing to you.
I nod once, sharply.
Lucien's hand lifts from my mouth, but he doesn't release me entirely. His arm remains across my chest, not restraining now, but ready to silence me again if I scream.
I don't scream. Instead, I twist in his grip and drive my knee toward his groin.
He blocks it effortlessly, catching my leg and using the momentum to flip us both. Suddenly I'm pinned beneath him on the bed, his weight holding me immobile, his hands capturing both my wrists above my head.
"I deserved that," he admits, breathing hard. "But please, moya dusha, just listen."
"Get. Off. Me." Each word is a knife.
"Not until you hear me out." His dark eyes bore into mine, and this close I can see gold flecks in their depths. "How did I get in here, Thalia? Your window was locked. Your door was locked. This is the fifteenth floor."
"You climbed..."
"Look at the window."
I crane my neck to see. The window is still firmly latched, exactly as I left it. No signs of forced entry. The glass isn't even smudged.
"The air vent," Lucien says quietly. "In your bathroom. It connects to the building's ventilation system. I've been planning this infiltration for three days, mapping the security rotations, studying the building schematics, timing everything perfectly." He pauses. "I know that's not reassuring. But I need you to understand, if I wanted to kill you, you'd already be dead."
The brutal honesty chills me more than any threat could.
"What do you want?" I whisper.
"To talk. To explain what's happening to you, what you're feeling." His grip on my wrists loosens slightly. "And to show you something your mother has been hiding your entire life."
"You don't know anything about me."
"Don't I?" Something shifts in his expression.
He releases my wrists slowly, giving me the option to push him away. "I've spent the last three days investigating you, Thalia. I even bribed one of your mother's former assistants who quit two years ago."
"That's insane. That's..."
"Thorough." He sits back on his heels, hands raised in surrender. "I'm a trained operative. When the Voss pack sends someone to eliminate a target, we don't just show up and attack. We gather intelligence. We learn everything."
"And what did you learn?" The question emerges steadier than I feel.
Lucien reaches slowly into his jacket pocket. I tense, but he pulls out a folded paper, not a weapon. He offers it to me.
"This is a toxicology report on the 'vitamins' delivered to your penthouse monthly. I intercepted last week's shipment and had the contents analyzed." His voice hardens. "They contain wolfsbane extract, silver particulate, and a compound called Suppressin-7. All three are used specifically to inhibit werewolf transformation."
I unfold the paper with shaking hands. The letterhead reads "Supernatural Medical Laboratory - Geneva." Technical jargon fills the page, but certain phrases jump out: concentrated wolfsbane, metabolic suppression, designed to prevent first shift in adolescent subjects.
"This could be fake," I say, but the words sound hollow.
"It could be. So could the prescription records showing your mother has been ordering these 'vitamins' since you were five years old. And the testimony from Dr. Helena..."
"I don't have a Dr. Helena...."
"Exactly. Because your mother fired her three years ago when Dr. Helena questioned why a healthy nineteen-year-old werewolf hadn't shifted yet." Lucien pulls out his phone, tapping the screen before turning it toward me. "This is from the doctor's personal journal. She kept detailed notes because she suspected abuse."
The screen shows a photograph of handwritten notes.
My hands are shaking so badly I nearly drop the phone. "Why are you showing me this?"
"Because you deserve the truth." Lucien takes his phone back, pocketing it carefully. "When I was sent to kill you, I was told you were a spoiled heiress who'd been raised to hate my kind. That you'd been training your whole life to help destroy the Voss pack." His laugh is bitter. "But the more I learned, the more I realized, you're not our enemy. You're a prisoner who doesn't even know she's in a cage."
"That doesn't explain the mate bond." I force myself to meet his eyes. "You expect me to believe some mystical connection is real?"
"Feel your pulse," he says simply.
"What?"
"Your pulse. Check it."
I press two fingers to my neck, counting. My heart rate is elevated, about ninety beats per minute. High for resting, but understandable given the circumstances.
"Now look at me," Lucien says.
I do. His dark eyes lock onto mine, and suddenly the air between us feels charged, electric.
"That's not fear," Lucien says quietly. "And it's not adrenaline. That's the mate bond recognizing its other half."
I yank my fingers away from my throat, breaking eye contact. My pulse immediately begins to slow. "That proves nothing. That's just..."
"Attraction? Chemistry?" He shakes his head. "Then explain why it hurt when you ran from me this morning. Why your chest felt tight, like you couldn't breathe properly until you got far enough away that the bond went dormant."
He's right. God help me, he's right. The moment I was back in the penthouse, the pain had eased. I'd assumed it was panic, relief, exhaustion. But now, sitting here with him, I feel complete in a way I've never experienced before.
"This is insane," I whisper.
"Yes." He shifts his weight, giving me space to move if I want. "But it's real. And it's why I can't kill you, even though failing my mission means my own pack will hunt me as a traitor."
The confession hangs between us, heavy with implications. Before I can respond, Isla's voice crackles from somewhere on the floor: "Thalia? THALIA! I'm calling the police!"
I lunge for the phone, snatching it up. "Isla! I'm fine. I'm sorry, I just... I dropped the phone. Everything's okay."
"You scared me half to death! I heard crashing and..."
"I tripped. Clumsy. You know me." The lie tastes acrid. "Listen, can I call you back? I need to... I need to process everything."
"Are you sure you're okay? You sound weird."
"I'm sure. I promise. I'll call you tomorrow."
I end the call before she can argue and look up at Lucien, who's watching me with an expression I can't quite read.
"Thank you," he says. "For not screaming."
"Don't thank me yet." I climb off the bed, putting distance between us. My mind races, trying to organize the chaos of information he's dumped on me. "Let's say I believe you about the suppressants. About my mother drugging me. Why? What does she gain by keeping me weak?"
"Control." Lucien stands slowly, hands still raised in that non-threatening gesture. "A fully shifted werewolf is stronger, faster, more perceptive. We can detect lies through scent, read emotions in heartbeats, sense danger before it materializes. You'd be nearly impossible to manipulate if you had access to those abilities."
"But she's my mother. She loves me."
"Does she?" The question is gentle, but it cuts deep. "Or does she love what you represent? The Thornewood bloodline. A valuable bargaining chip for alliances and power."
I want to argue, but memories crowd my mind. Mother's cold affection, doled out like rewards for good behavior. The way she discusses me like I'm a asset rather than a daughter. Her complete lack of interest in my thoughts, my feelings, my dreams for the future.
"The wedding," I say slowly. "Marrying me to Casimir Dragomir. That's about power too, isn't it?"
"A Thornewood-Dragomir alliance would control over sixty percent of European territories. With that much land and that many wolves, they could crush the Voss pack in months. Maybe weeks." His jaw tightens. "That's why I was sent here. To stop the alliance before it could begin."
"By killing me."
"Yes."
The blunt admission should terrify me. Instead, I feel oddly calm. "But you can't. Because of the bond."
"I couldn't even before I knew about the bond." Lucien takes a half-step closer. "You're innocent in this, Thalia. You didn't choose to be born into a powerful bloodline. You didn't ask to be used as a political pawn. Killing you would make me exactly the monster your mother has convinced you my kind are."
Something in my chest cracks open at the words.
"What happens now?" I ask quietly.
"Now we..."
My hand moves to my necklace before I consciously decide to do it. The ruby at its center is warm against my palm, and I remember Mother's instructions from years ago: If you're ever in danger, press this. Help will come immediately.
I'm in danger. A Voss assassin is in my bedroom.
I press the ruby.