I open the door anyway. Property doesn't get to deny me entry.
She's exactly where I expected—standing by the window, surrounded by half-packed trunks and destroyed furniture. Her room looks like a battlefield. The vanity is shattered, glass scattered across imported carpet. The bed frame is broken, expensive linens torn and twisted. Clothes are strewn everywhere like casualties of war.
Another tantrum. She destroys beautiful things when she's upset—a clear sign of omega distress expressing itself through violence instead of submission. It would be troubling if I didn't know how to redirect that energy.
She spins toward me, auburn hair disheveled from sleep and crying, eyes red but fierce with defiance. Even in her rumplednightrobe, she's magnificent. All fire and fury and desperate, clawing need that doesn't know its own name.
"You can't just walk into my room."
"Your room?" I let the words hang between us while I survey the destruction. "No, Elise. This was never your room. This entire house is built on borrowed gold. Nothing here belongs to you. It never did."
She flinches like I've struck her. Good. The truth should hurt. Should start breaking down the illusions that have shaped her entire life.
"My father hasn't decided yet," she says, lifting her chin with the kind of desperate courage I find unexpectedly appealing. "You said dawn. It's not dawn."
I pull the transfer papers from my coat pocket, enjoying the way her face changes as I unfold them. Watch her spirit crumble in real time as she sees the legal reality of her situation.
"Edgar decided an hour ago. Signed and sealed." I hold up the document so she can see her father's signature, stark black against white parchment. "You've belonged to me legally since four this morning."
The color drains from her face so quickly I think she might faint. For a moment, something that might be sympathy stirs in my chest—she truly had no idea how thoroughly she'd been betrayed. Then her spine straightens. Her shoulders square. She reaches for the mask I watched her wear at dinner—that practiced composure, that merchant's daughter smile.
Fascinating. Even in complete defeat, she defaults to manipulation and performance. The human training runs deep, but underneath it, I can sense her omega nature stirring. Confused by the alpha presence in her space, uncertain whether to fight or submit.
"Then we can negotiate." Her voice steadies with impressive speed. "I'm sure we can come to some arrangement. Ihave jewelry, personal items of value. My mother left me a considerable inheritance?—"
"Nothing." I move closer, watching her fight the instinct to step back. Watching her body respond to my proximity with little shivers she doesn't understand. "Your mother left you nothing. Everything in this house is collateral against your father's debts. The jewelry, the gowns, the furniture—all of it technically belongs to the Frost Court already."
The truth hits her like a physical blow. She does step back then, hitting the window behind her. Frost blooms across the glass in response to her distress—unconscious magic that she still doesn't recognize as hers.
"Then what do you want from me?" Her composure cracks, revealing the frightened girl underneath. "If you already own everything, why do you need me?"
"Because you're not property, Elise. You're potential." I close the distance between us until I can smell the roses in her hair, the salt of her tears. Close enough to see the way her pupils dilate when I get near, her body's instinctive response to alpha pheromones. "Your bloodline carries something precious. Rare. The ability to transform into omega—to become what you were always meant to be."
"I don't understand what that means."
Of course she doesn't. Humans have spent decades convincing themselves that omega transformation is a medical condition rather than evolutionary destiny. That the women who disappear into Fae courts are victims rather than the lucky few finding their true purpose.
"You will." I reach out slowly, giving her time to see it coming. When my fingers brush her cheek, she gasps—a soft, breathy sound that goes straight to my cock. My skin is winter-cold against her fever-warm face, and I feel her shiver. "Your body already knows what your mind refuses to accept. Thathollow ache you carry? That desperate hunger? It's been calling for me your entire life."
"You're insane." But she doesn't pull away. Can't pull away, I realize. The bond is already forming, fragile threads of connection that will only grow stronger with proximity.
"Am I?" I let frost spread from my fingertips across her skin—delicate patterns that make her breath catch. "Then explain the ice, Elise. Explain why you can create frost without meaning to. Why the cold doesn't bother you anymore. Why you've spent twenty years destroying beautiful things because nothing satisfied the need."
She's trembling now, but not from cold. I can smell her arousal beneath the fear—sweet and sharp and completely involuntary. Her body knows what it wants even if her mind is still fighting.
"What are you going to do to me?"
The question hangs between us, loaded with possibilities that make my pulse quicken. So many things I could do to her. So many ways to break her down and build her back up exactly as I want her.
"Take you home." I step back, letting her breathe. "My carriage is waiting. You have ten minutes to gather whatever you'd like to bring. Choose wisely—you won't be returning."
The mask shatters completely. "No. I won't go. You can't make me?—"
"I can." I let her hear the certainty in my voice. The inevitability. "I can freeze this entire mansion room by room until your father begs me to take you just to make it stop. I can show every servant in this household exactly what you are—omega, unclaimed, desperate for an alpha you don't even understand yet. I can make this easy or I can make it brutal, but you are leaving with me. The only choice you have is how much you fight first."
She stares at me, and I watch calculations flash across her face—weighing options that don't exist, looking for escape routes that aren't there. She's intelligent, I'll give her that. Smart enough to recognize when the game is already over.
"What if I scream?" she asks quietly. "What if I fight you every step of the way?"
