Alaric chuckles, a dark sound that vibrates through his chest and into mine.
"Oh,petite," he whispers, his lips brushing my forehead as he carries me across the threshold of the grounds. "You misunderstand the game."
I force my eyes to focus on his face one last time. He is smiling.
"I didn't lock the gate to keep you in. I unlocked it to see if you would run."
He tightens his grip on me.
"It wasn't an escape. It was a fetch game. And the wolf just caught the rabbit."
Darkness takes me.
CHAPTER 01
THE GILDED CAGE
POV: Elodie Fray
Location:The Director’s Private Recovery Suite, Hallowed Halls.
Track:You Should See Me In A Crown– Billie Eilish (Slowed/Orchestral Version)
Sensory:Cool Egyptian cotton, scent of bergamot and rubbing alcohol, throbbing headache.
Mood:Disorientation & Violation.
Consciousness returns not as a flood, but as a slow, suffocating tide.
First, there is the darkness. Thick, heavy, and tasting of metal. Then, there is the sound. The rhythmic, steadybeep... beep... beepof a machine somewhere to my left. It matches the pounding in my temples, a synchronicity that feels artificial, engineered. Finally, there is the sensation.
Softness. Impossible, cloying softness underneath me. My body feels heavy, as if my bones have been replaced with lead piping. My limbs are distant concepts, things that belong to me in theory but refuse to obey my commands.
I try to open my eyes. The lids feel glued shut, weighted down by the remnants of whatever chemical cocktail is currently swimming through my veins. I force them apart, fighting the gravitational pull of the drug, and the world swims into view in a blur of greys and muted whites.
I am not in the mud. I am not in the rain. I am not at the gate.
The realization hits me with the force of a physical blow, spiking my heart rate. The monitor beside me speeds up instantly—beep-beep-beep-beep—betraying my panic before I can even gasp.
I try to sit up. I can’t.
It’s not just the weakness. It’s a resistance. My wrists are secured to the rails of the bed.
I yank at them, a guttural noise of distress trapped in my dry throat. I pull again, harder, ignoring the ache in my shoulders. The restraints aren’t the rough leather cuffs of the isolation ward or the cold steel of police handcuffs. They are thick, padded silk ties, wrapped expertly in a knot that allows for zero movement but leaves no mark on the skin.
He takes care of his things.The thought slithers through my mind, an echo of his voice in the storm.
"Easy, Elodie. You’ll bruise yourself."
The voice comes from the shadows in the corner of the room. I freeze. My head lolls to the side, fighting the dizziness, seeking the source of the sound.
Dr. Alaric Graves is sitting in a wingback leather armchair, his legs crossed, a file folder resting open on his knee. The lamp beside him casts a warm, golden glow over his features, highlighting the sharp angle of his jaw and the terrifying calmness of his grey eyes.
He has changed. The wet charcoal suit from the woods is gone. He is now wearing a black dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows to reveal forearms that are thick with muscle and veined like a roadmap of violence. His hands—surgeon’s hands, steady and capable of both healing and destroying—are holding a fountain pen.
He looks relaxed. He looks like a man who has just finished a satisfying day at the office, not a man who hunted a woman down in the woods less than an hour ago.
"Where..." My voice is a wreck. It sounds like I’ve been swallowing gravel. I cough, the movement sending a spike of pain through my skull. "Where am I?"
