Chapter 5

Seraphina POV

The revelation of his flexing muscle still burned in my mind as Caleb escorted me from the freezing mud of the Wolf Run into a cold, minimalist sitting room inside the fortress.

Kaelen sat in his custom wheelchair behind a polished obsidian coffee table. The room was devoid of any personal touch, feeling more like an interrogation chamber. The air was suffocating, thick with his oppressive scent-pine needles before a violent storm, laced with the sharp tang of cold steel.

On the table lay the meager contents of my suitcase.

"Did you really think I wouldn't check the baggage of a traitor's leftover?" Kaelen's baritone voice sliced through the silence. He gestured coldly to a wooden box I had never seen before.

Caleb stepped forward and flipped the lid open. Inside lay a bundle of forbidden, heat-inducing herbs, a silver heart necklace engraved with the letter *A*, and several letters written in handwriting that perfectly mimicked Aidan's.

My blood ran cold. Cassandra. She had packed my bag before I was sent away.

"A wolfless whore," Kaelen sneered, his obsidian eyes filled with absolute disgust. "You planned to drug me, force a Lycan heir to secure your power, all while keeping my pathetic cousin's love letters close to your heart."

"That's not mine," I rasped, my throat still raw from screaming in the woods. "Cassandra must have-"

"Save your lies," Kaelen cut me off, his Lycan aura flaring so violently the glass on the table vibrated. "Your *Luna* title is nothing but a joke. A temporary label until I decide how to dispose of you."

I looked at the fake evidence, then at the monster in the wheelchair. There was no point in defending myself. In his eyes, I was already guilty. I swallowed my tears, wrapping myself in a shield of numb silence.

For the next few days, I was confined to my luxurious bedroom prison. I was a ghost haunting a beautifully furnished tomb.

Desperate for a lifeline, I managed to use the sleek landline phone on the nightstand to call the only person I trusted in the human world.

"Sera? Oh my god, are you okay?" Curtis's voice crackled through the receiver, frantic and tight.

"I'm trapped, Curtis," I whispered, tears finally spilling over my lashes. "But I still have the Bellbanks University fellowship. If I can just find a way to sneak out-"

"Sera... you haven't checked your email, have you?" Curtis interrupted, her voice breaking. "The university revoked your full scholarship and the researcher position yesterday."

The room spun. "What? Why?"

"Someone from the Stonehaven Pack made an anonymous report to the board," Curtis explained bitterly. "They claimed you have a history of severe mental instability and fabricated your academic records. The board didn't even give you a chance to appeal."

Cassandra. She wasn't just trying to ruin my forced marriage; she was salting the earth of my entire future. She had severed my only tie to the human world, destroying the one thing I had built with my own hands.

I couldn't breathe. The walls of the massive bedroom felt like they were closing in on me.

Clutching the cordless phone to my chest, I wandered out of the bedroom, my bare feet silent against the cold marble of the corridor. I didn't care if the guards saw me. I didn't care about anything anymore.

I reached the top of the grand staircase, staring down into the cavernous, silent hall below.

"He's a monster, Curtis..." I whispered into the phone, my voice trembling uncontrollably as I slowly descended the black marble steps. "A cruel, manipulative bastard. I have nothing left. Nowhere to run."

I reached the final step and looked up.

My heart stopped beating.

Standing by the massive, unlit fireplace, dressed in dark casual clothes, was Kaelen Knight.

*Standing.*

He wasn't in his wheelchair. His tall, broad-shouldered frame radiated an overwhelming, lethal power. His obsidian eyes were locked onto mine, dark and unfathomable. He had heard every single word.

I dropped the phone. It clattered against the marble floor, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the dead silence.

Kaelen didn't speak. He didn't need to. He simply stared at me for ten agonizing seconds, letting the sheer terror of his unmasked reality sink into my bones. The secret I thought I held over him was gone. It was no longer a shield; it was an open, terrifying threat.

Then, without a single word, Kaelen turned and walked away, his strides perfectly fluid and predatory.