For a second, I didn’t move. I don’t even think I breathed. I stood there, frozen, pulse mming in my ears. My fingers twitched at my sides as I tried to gauge his reaction.


    His eyes didn’t narrow. His tone didn’t rise. There was no cruelty in it. It was simply… an order.


    He raised the wine to his lips and took a slow sip. Still watching as the air in the room thickened.


    I could feel the difference in power stretching between us, his ease, his control. And me… standing there like a sacrificial doll, unsure whether to obey or run. But running wasn’t an option.


    Not anymore.


    So I reached up slowly. Fingers trembling just enough to betray me.


    And I began to undo the first button.


    Thece snagged slightly, and I had to pause to steady my grip. My pulse thundered in my throat, loud enough I feared he could hear it. I didn’t dare look at him. Not while I stood there peeling off thest defense I had.


    I felt exposed before I was even bare.


    When thestyer fell to the floor, I stood there. Uncovered. Cold.


    Every breath felt like a knife scraping across my ribs. My arms instinctively twitched to cover myself, but I forced them back to my sides. I had already shown him everything, my ability and my ce in this broken exchange.


    There was no turning back now.


    His eyes stayed on me. Not hungrily. Not even curiously. It was like I was just… there. A figure to observe. To dissect. And for a few seconds, I wondered what was worse, being objectified or being dismissed.


    Then he spoke, breaking the stillness between us. “Come here.”


    The words dropped like a chain and my legs moved before my mind could argue. The floor felt colder with every inch. I reached him and stopped.


    Still, he didn’t touch me.


    81


    55 vouchers


    Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded parchment. Thick, cream–colored. Sealed earlier, now creased from being carried.


    He then ced it on the table beside his ss and gestured toward it.


    “Can you read?”


    I nodded.


    “Then read it.”


    I reached for the parchment, my fingers brushing his wine ss as I unfolded the document.


    At first, the words were a blur. My eyes scanned the page, adjusting to the formal script, but as the lines began to register, my breath stalled.


    It wasn’t a marriage certificate or a dowry list. It was a contract.


    My hand trembled slightly as I read the first paragraph again.


    A formal agreement between Lord Cassian Valemont and Atasha Genevieve ck. Terms ofpanionship, expected conduct, confidentiality uses. The second half of the parchment shifted tone. If the first part read like rules, the next unfolded like a im.


    I was to bear his child. No one else. If an heir was to be born, it would be mine, no concubines, no alternate brides, no whispered politics about stronger bloodlines. I would be the only woman permitted to carry the Valemont name forward.


    He would not take another bride. I was it. The one and only.


    He named me mistress of his estate.


    The servants, the guards, thends tied to his name, they would answer to me in his absence. I would rule in his stead, should he leave. I would carry the authority in his house. Me. A wolfless girl who had once been told not to speak unless spoken to.


    It read like a reward. Power, position, protection, all handed to me like a crown. But underneath the promises, I felt the weight of chains.


    My healing wasn’t mine anymore.


    From the moment I signed, that ability, the one thing that made me more than wolfless, would belong to him. I would be expected to use it at hismand. Whoever he pointed to, whatever injury he deemed worth fixing, I would obey. No questions. No refusals.


    If he asked me to heal an enemy, I would. If he asked me to let someone die, I would.


    The gift wasn’t mine. It was his to wield. And I was the vessel.


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    55 vouchers


    It was a throne, yes, but one bnced on a knife’s edge. If I betrayed him, even once… if I disobeyed, hesitated, or dared to act on my own… He would not exile me.


    He would end me.


    And no one… not my pack, not my parents, not even the King, would lift a finger to stop him.


    My breath caught. I read the line again, as if it might soften.


    It didn’t.


    I looked up from the parchment, heart thudding hard against my ribs. Cassian hadn’t moved, his expression hadn’t changed.


    “You’ll have power,” he said, still seated, fingers resting on the armrest like he had all the time in the world. “You’ll have protection, influence,mand. No one will touch you without losing a hand.”


    I said nothing. The words on the paper said enough.


    “But if you cross me…” His gaze locked with mine, cold and certain. “You won’t need to worry about exile.”


    He stood.


    The space between us shifted.


    “If you sign that contract with your blood, you will belong to me,” he said quietly, without ir or venom, just truth. “That includes your name, your body, your loyalty… your life.”


    Then his hand lifted, two fingers grazing beneath my chin, tilting my face up until our eyes


    met.


    “But,” he murmured, “I’m not without mercy. So I’ll give you a choice.” He leaned in, voice softening into something far more dangerous. “You can refuse. Tear the contract, walk away, and stay in this ce you call home. You’ll keep your name. Your freedom.”


    Then he chuckled. “Assuming, of course, you survive your father’s fury… and whatever punishment this lovely little pack has nned for their disposable offering.”


    His thumb brushed my jaw. “Stay, and you live like prey in a house full of wolves who want you gone. Or youe with me…” he paused, gaze lingering on my mouth. “And at least the monster you serve will be honest about it.”


    I looked down at the parchment, hands trembling. For a girl who had always been treated like


    nothing… this felt dangerously close to everything.


    And it terrified me.


    In the end, choice was an illusion.


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    55 vouchers


    I brought my thumb to my mouth and bit down, hard. The skin broke beneath my teeth, and blood welled up instantly, warm and metallic on my tongue.


    My hand trembled as I reached for the parchment.


    Then, with him watching, I pressed my bleeding thumb against the bottom of the contract.


    The mark bloomed red against the cream paper.


    I had just sealed my fate in blood.


    Seeing the signed paper, a smile appeared on his face. Then he leaned closer, his breath hot against my skin. “Now… shall we begin?”