Chapter 7: Acceptance

The silence was oppressive, a living, heavy silence, that was seeping over me on all sides. I had counted every crack in the ceiling above my bed, every shadow that fell across the floor as the torches flickered in their sconces.

Three days.

Three days of locked doors, wary eyes, and the unbearable weight of being owned. My body ached with desire to do something, anything.

On the fourth day, when Rylan, the guard assigned to me, appeared in my cell with a tray of food with his usual grunt, he dropped it and left, the lock at his back clanging shut, but something snapped in me.

I waited, drawing breath in silence as softly as I was able, till I caught the sound of his footsteps receding down the corridor. And then I crossed to the door and listened against the cold wood.

There was silence.

I worked at the rusty lock with a hairpin I had concealed. A skill I had learned from Garrick himself in those stolen, secret afternoons. The irony tasted bitter. The lock groaned open and I walked down the corridor, my pulse thudding like a thudding a frantic rhythm in my breast. The corridor was deserted, stretching into darkness in both directions. I followed the left turn, moving quickly, my soft-soled boots silent on the stone ground. I drifted past alongside locked doors, gateways to secondary wings, but I did not hesitate, driven by a whirlwind to find someplace that didn’t feel like a cell.

I found a narrow sloping down stairs behind a very thick tapestry. The air grew cooler and carried the scent of wet minerals. At the bottom was a huge, dark wood door, with moons and wolves painted on it, it was open about an inch. This one felt different, it felt like it was out of bounds but I ignored the feeling and pushed it open.

The air welcomed me as I entered, humid and heavy with the smell of sulfur and rock.

It wasn't an open room; it was an arched room, a closed-in natural room with a high arched roof with stalactites dripping from it. There was a big foaming hot spring in the center, its water creamy and steam curling in loose tendrils. It had nothing but the crevice glow of the rock way up there above, where the slivers of moon sliced and drilled the steam to allow the pool to flow through. It was beautiful, primal and private, but I was not alone.

A low, rumbling growl sound echoed off the walls. From the darkness at the spring's side emerged a massive wolf. Its coat was stormy gray, its eyes blazing with unnatural amber. It was Garrick. I knew it with a strangling certainty. This was his wolf, the real predator behind the Alpha's tightly controlled facade.

I was trapped, my instincts screaming at me to get out. But I didn't, I stood my ground, teeth gritted and chin up. The wolf stepped forward, its muscles tensing under its coat, it was testing me .

"I know you're the one," I said, trying to sound more courageous than I was.

The wolf hesitated.

Shivers coursed through its body, a burst of light and motion. In an instant, the wolf was gone, and in its place was Garrick, naked and dripping with water from the spring. Water clung to the hard planes of his chest, over the sharply pointed crests of his belly, and still farther. The moonlight caught the droplets of water on his skin in a way that made him look like a stone carved from living rock. He did not move to cover himself; his arrogance was absolute.

"This area is off-limits," he growled, the words suspended in steam-scented air. "You were given explicit instructions."

Your instructions are designed to drive me crazy," I snarled, struggling to keep my eyes on his face, though they betrayed me, tracing the water’s path down his body. "Am I a prisoner or a guest? The distinction seems to escape you."

"You belong to me," he said, stepping closer. His body heat reached me through the distance. "Property does not question its boundaries."

The word 'property' kindled my blood to rage so strong that it reduced my fear to ash. "I am human, Garrick. Or has that fact become inconvenient to you?"

His face was a grim line. A muscle flickered in his cheek. "Don't."

"Don’t what?" I exclaimed, moving forward, closing the gap between us. The steam wrapped around my calves, hot and damp. "Don't remind you that you once treated me like a human being? That once you promised me a life, not a cage?"

"I promised a naive girl a dream," he growled, his hand shooting out to clasp my upper arm like an iron shackle. His fingers branded like hot metal, searing through the fabric of my dress and into my skin. "That girl is gone and the dream is dead, all that is left is the reality of my rule."

“You're a coward," I spat, the words cutting between us. "Hiding behind your title because you are afraid to face what you have become."

His eyes seethed with feral anger, he pulled me flush against his chest. My body arced back, tense and rigid, against his. I gasped with shocked breath, my hands coming up to push against his chest, but it was like trying to push a boulder. His skin was warm and damp against my palms. The scent of him; wild and clean and pure male hit my senses, overwhelming me.

"Afraid?" he breathed, his cheek inches from my own, so I could feel the warmth of his breath on my lips. His eyes blazed with a searing rage that threatened to consume me. "You think this is fear?"

“I think you brought me here to punish me," I stated, shivering now at the sparks between us, not from fear. "I think you can't bear to look at me because I make you remember the man you used to be."

His other hand came up, his thumb running down my jawline roughly, then down the curve of my mouth. It was a touch that was shockingly soft and intimate, a sharp contrast to his tight grip on my arm. My breath hitched and my lips parted instinctively.

“You're wrong," he murmured, tracing the curve of my lower lip with his thumb. His voice was rough, dropping into a whisper that was for me alone. "I can't stand to look at you because every time I do, I want to break every rule that I ever imposed."

The admission between us, more lethal than any threat. My heart raced against my chest, wild and out of control. His eyes dropped to my mouth, and the world narrowed to this connection, to the heat of his body, and the grip he had on me.

"You drive me crazy, Anika," he whispered, his thumb tracing across my lip lightly. "Really crazy.”

He was going to kiss me, the intention was clear in his eyes. It would not be a soft kiss, it would be a kiss of possession, conquest and revenge. And every part of me longed for it, leaned into it, aching with a hunger I refuse to name.

The groan of the massive door opening rebounded off the walls of the grotto. We both jerked apart, but Garrick gripped my arm more tightly, holding me in place.

"Alpha?"

Calder's voice cut through the tension, sharp and urgent. He loomed in the doorway, his figure defined against the brightness of the torchlit corridor behind. "You're needed, one of the men said there's a lead."

Garrick did not move for a long time. His eyes never left mine, a storm of conflict raging in his eyes. The moment stretched on, taut and cracking. Then, with a gentle, rustling sound that was almost a growl, he released me so fast that I stumbled back.

He turned his head towards Calder, his expression shifting from raw desire to cold command in an instant. “I’m coming,” he bit out, his voice like ice.

He spun and glanced at me once more, his eyes following the contours of my face, focusing in particular on my lips. His lips were set in a firm line. He spun on his heel and began walking towards the door, his nudity a testament to his mastery and disregard for anything other than the danger to his pack.

He shut the door with a resonant thud that echoed through the silence. I stood alone in the warm, steamy grotto, my arm throbbing where he had held it, my lips tingling from the kiss that never happened. The air remained charged with his scent, with the trace aftersmell of his warmth. My body shuddered, not in fear, but in the mere, un-held power of what had almost happened.

The silence closed in on me once more, but it was different.

It was filled with the echo of his voice, the ghost of his hand against me, and the terror of learning that the line between hate and desire had been blurred. I was more vulnerable in my life than I had ever been before, and the greatest danger wasn't the locked door or the rules; it was this part of myself that wanted him to break every single one of them.