Chapter 4

Eleanor POV

The silver had left a deep, pervasive chill in my marrow that even the heavy hospital blankets couldn't chase away.

I floated in and out of a gray haze, my body waging a silent, desperate war to knit my internal organs back together.

My hearing, however, remained razor-sharp. It was a survival instinct honed over years of walking on eggshells-always listening for the heavy tread of footsteps, always gauging the tone of a voice.

"Marcus, you have to be careful."

The voice was a frantic hiss. Isabelle.

They were standing right outside my door. They must have assumed the sedatives still held me under.

"She's resilient," Marcus replied, his tone dripping with low, arrogant confidence. "Omegas are built to endure. Once she heals, she'll come crawling back. Where else would she go? She has no family. No money. I am her Alpha. I am her gravity."

"But what if she talks?" Isabelle whispered urgently. "About the elevator? About the silver coating on the cables? I told you, my father's men were sloppy."

My heart stuttered to a halt.

Sabotage.

It hadn't been an accident. Isabelle had orchestrated it.

And Marcus... Marcus knew? Or he suspected and simply didn't care?

"She won't talk," Marcus said dismissively. "Who would believe her over you? Over me? Besides, I have a plan. We let her stew for a week. Let her feel the cold. Then, I'll offer her a small scrap of kindness-maybe allow her to design a shed or something trivial. She'll be so grateful for the crumb, she'll forget she was starving. It's how you train a dog."

*Train a dog.*

The words ricocheted inside my skull, bouncing around until they coalesced into a pounding headache.

That was all I was to him. A pet. A utility. Something to be broken, reset, and used.

I felt a violent wave of nausea, but it was quickly scorched away by a cold, hard rage. It started in my toes and clawed its way up, thawing the magical chill of the silver.

He thought he could manipulate me? He thought he could use time as a weapon against me?

I snapped my eyes open. The ceiling was white, sterile, and indifferent.

I sat up. It hurt-god, it felt like tearing open fresh stitches-but I forced my body to obey.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed just as the door handle turned.

Marcus walked in.

He faltered, a flicker of surprise crossing his face to see me upright. In his hand, he clutched my sketchbook-the black leather-bound journal where I kept my *real* designs. Not the pack's busywork, but *my* soul. My dreams of a sanctuary, of a home that was actually safe.

"You're awake," he said, quickly masking his shock with a mask of bored indifference. He flipped through the book casually. "I found this in your room. Interesting doodles. A bit ambitious for someone of your... station."

He held it up, his fingers carelessly pinching the corner of a page detailing a solar-heated greenhouse.

"I was considering tossing it in the trash," he said, his voice smooth. "It's just clutter, right? Like you said."

He was testing me. He was executing his "plan" in real-time. Break me down, take what I love, and wait for me to beg for its return.

I looked at him. I mean, I *really* looked at him.

I saw the cruelty etched into the set of his mouth. The weakness hidden behind his desperate need to control me.

I didn't beg.

I stood up. My legs trembled violently, but I locked my knees.

I took a slow, deliberate step toward him.

"Give it to me," I said. My voice was raspy from disuse, like gravel, but it didn't waver.

Marcus raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at his lips. "Or what? You'll cry? You'll clean my boots?"

I lunged.

It wasn't the attack of a warrior. It was the feral desperation of a creator protecting her soul.

I grabbed his wrist. My grip was shockingly strong, fueled by pure adrenaline and hatred.

"I said, give it to me."

He looked down at my hand clamped around his wrist. Then, he looked into my eyes.

For the first time in years, I saw something flicker in his gaze.

It wasn't love. It wasn't pity.

It was fear.

He realized, in that split second, that the dog he thought he was training had just bitten the hand that starved it.