Chapter 2 The Mark Of The Beast

The East Wing was a labyrinth of cold marble and haunting silence. Elara stood in the center of her new "bedroom"-a suite larger than her father's entire house-feeling like a ghost in a museum. The walls were a deep, velvety charcoal, and the bed was draped in silk the color of dried blood.

She walked to the window, pressing her forehead against the cool glass. The Blackwood Estate was isolated, cut off from the city by miles of dense, ancient forest. As she watched, a movement in the tree line caught her eye. A shadow, larger than any dog, slipped between the pines. Then another. They weren't just security; they were a pack.

A soft click at the door made her whirl around.

A woman stood there, dressed in a sharp, grey uniform. She looked to be in her fifties, with hair pulled back so tightly it made her eyes look permanently startled.

"I am Martha," the woman said, her voice devoid of emotion. "I've brought your dinner. Master Silas expects you to be dressed and in the dining hall by eight. Do not be late. He hates waiting."

"I'm not hungry," Elara said, her throat tight.

"Master Silas didn't ask if you were hungry. He told me to bring you food," Martha replied, setting a silver tray on the table. She paused, her gaze flickering to Elara's neck for a moment before she turned to leave. "And Elara? Wear the green dress in the wardrobe. It was chosen specifically for you."

Once the door clicked shut, Elara rushed to the wardrobe. Inside hung a single garment: a floor-length gown in emerald silk. It was beautiful, expensive, and felt like a shroud.

As she pulled it on, she noticed a small, faint scar on the back of her shoulder. She'd had it as long as she could remember-three jagged lines that her father always told her were from a childhood accident with a fence. But under the dim lights of the Vane Estate, the scar seemed to throb, a dull heat radiating from the skin.

The dining hall was lit by a massive crystal chandelier that cast dancing shadows against the walls. Silas was already there, seated at the head of a table that could easily sit twenty. He had traded his suit jacket for a black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing forearms corded with muscle and etched with strange, swirling tattoos.

He watched her approach, his eyes tracking her movement with a terrifying intensity.

"Sit," he commanded.

Elara sat at the opposite end of the long table. "Is this part of the debt? Playing house with you?"

"We aren't playing, Elara." Silas stood up, picking up a crystal glass of dark red liquid. He didn't walk; he prowled toward her. "And the distance is unnecessary."

He stopped beside her chair, leaning down to place the glass on the table. The scent of him-leather, woodsmoke, and that intoxicating citrus-swirled around her again. He reached out, his fingers brushing the hair away from her shoulder, exposing the hidden scar.

His touch was electric. Elara gasped, her body arching involuntarily toward him.

"Does it hurt?" he whispered, his voice vibrating in her chest.

"No," she lied, her breath coming in shallow hitches. "It's just a scar."

"It's a mark," Silas corrected, his thumb tracing the jagged lines. "I gave it to you the night you left. A claim that not even time or your fragile human memory can erase."

Elara twisted away, standing up so quickly her chair screeched against the marble. "I don't know what kind of game you're playing, Silas. I don't know anything about wolves or marks or past lives. I'm just a girl whose father sold her to a madman!"

Silas didn't look angry. He looked patient-the way a wolf is patient when it knows the deer has nowhere left to run.

"You think you're human because they told you that you were," he said, stepping closer until she was backed against the cold stone of the fireplace. "But tell me, Elara... when the moon is full, do you not feel the pull in your blood? Do you not feel the urge to run until your lungs burn? Do you not feel the hunger?"

He pressed his palm against the wall beside her head, looming over her. "Tonight is the eve of the full moon. By tomorrow, the lie will break. And when it does, you won't be running from me. You'll be begging me to let you in."

Before she could scream or push him away, a deafening howl ripped through the night-closer this time, right outside the window. The glass rattled in its frame.

Silas's eyes bled into a brilliant, molten gold. "The pack is restless, Elara. They smell a stranger in the house. Or perhaps... they finally smell their Queen."

He leaned in, his lips a breath away from hers, and for a terrifying second, Elara didn't want him to stop. Then, with a low growl, he turned and vanished into the darkness of the hall, leaving her trembling in the flickering candlelight.

She wasn't just in debt. She was being hunted by a man who claimed to own her soul.