Chapter 8 Compaction

Monon's POV

Lyra moved with a quiet precision as she set the food before us. Her every step, every gesture, was practiced, controlled. She didn't fumble, didn't flinch. Her face remained an unreadable mask, pale and calm, like she was someplace else entirely. Like this wasn't happening to her at all.

She served without complaint. Without a word.

And then she stood. Still. Silent. Waiting.

No hunger in her eyes. No pleading on her lips.

It irritated me more than I expected.

We made sure to eat every last bite. Scraping the plates clean. Not because we were starving, because she was. Because I wanted her to feel it. The ache in her belly. The sting of humiliation. I wanted hunger to wear down her pride until she was raw and hollow enough to beg. Until she understood that everything she needed flowed through us now.

We controlled her air. Her sleep. Her food. Her time.

Let her hate it. Let her break.

"Take the plates to the kitchen and return here," Kael commanded, his voice clipped and sharp like broken glass.

She moved swiftly, gathering the dishes with robotic efficiency. She didn't spare us a glance. Not even a flicker of eye contact. Her jaw was tight. That mouth set in a thin, bitter line.

She was trying so hard to appear composed. Untouchable.

But I could already see the cracks forming beneath it.

"You have fifteen minutes," I added coldly, watching her disappear down the hall.

She didn't nod. Didn't speak. She simply walked away, her silence feeling more like defiance than obedience.

Fifteen minutes turned into twenty.

When she returned, her steps were slower. Her eyes red-rimmmed and puffy. She kept her chin raised like it didn't matter, but it was obvious-she'd cried. She'd found some shadowed hallway or empty closet to break in, mufffled her sobs behind her fist like no one would notice.

She should've known better.

I leaned back, arms folded, a thin curl of satisfaction coiling in my chest.

Already, she was starting to unravel.

Dax might've whispered about patience. But patience was mercy.

And mercy was for the innocent.

Lyra? She was guilty.

I stood slowly. Letting the weight of my presence stretch and settle across the rooom like a tightenning noose. The silence thickened with anticipation, the only sound the subtle scrape of my chair against the floor. I wanted her to feel it-the shift. The shift from tolerance to control. From observation to ownership.

"Here are your duties," I began, my voice measured and cold. Every word deliiberate, chosen for effect. "You will clean our room and the rest of the apartment. Every inch. You'll scrub the floors, wipe down the surfaces, dust the corners."

She didn't blink. But I saw it, the smallest tensing of her shoulders, the faintest pull in her jaw.

"You will do our laundry. Properly. No mix-ups, no excuses. Whites stay white. Blacks stay black. Folded, ironed, returned to the right drawers. You'll arrange our wardrobes by preference-by color, by function. Learn what we wear and when. You will serve our meals. Hot. Timed. No delays. You will eat nothing unless given permission. Not a crumb."

I paused, letting the list hang in the air like a sentence being handed down.

Her face was still unreadable, frozen in that eerie calm she always wore, but the tension in her posture betrayed her.

She was cracking, quietly, methodically.

"You are here to serve us," I continued, voice dipping lower. "You do not leave a room unless you're dismissed. You will remain within our presence unless one of us tells you otherwise. If we separate for any reason, you will wait for further instruction. If none is given, you'll return to this room and remain here until told what to do next. Do you understand?"

Her lips twitched, just slightly. A reaction she tried to hide but failed.

"There will be no socializing," I said, sharper now. "No idle talk. You are not to speak unless spoken to. You're not to look for company, not to ask for kindness. You don't deserve it. And if you ever steal again, anything, even a scrap of bread, you'll be punished without hesitation."

That was when she looked at me. Finally.

Her gaze lifted, fleeting but sharp, and in it, I caught the shimmer of something raw, not fear. Not yet.

Bitterness.

The kind that burned slow in the gut. The kind that made people do stupid, desperate things.

"Understand this," I said, taking a slow step forward, dropping my voice into something darker, like a verdict. "We will never claim you. Not as mate. Not as kin. Not even as pack."

Her breath hitched, so faint I might have missed it if I hadn't been looking for it.

"You are already tainted."

The words echoed in the quiet, settling over her like ash. Heavy. Final.

Still, she didn't move. Didn't speak.

She just stood there.

Arms at her sides. Head high.

A statue carved from all the grief and guilt she refused to wear on the surface.

But she wasn't unshaken. No, not anymore.

I saw it now.

The war behind her silence.

And she was losing.

But the silence was different now.

It wasn't stubborn.

It was heavy. Tired.

I thought she'd be this wild thing, brave and arrogant. I thought she'd demand revenge for her mother, for her blood. But no. What she'd done... the destruction she'd brought upon our people, upon me, it hadn't been blind vengeance.

It had been targeted. Calculated. A knife pressed exactly where it would cut deepest.

This silence now? It wasn't defiance.

It was defeat.

And I didn't care.

She had wrecked lives.

She had wrecked my life.

She owed us. And I'd make sure she paid her debt, inch by inch, day by day.

"Are we clear?" I snapped, watching her like a hawk ready to strike.

She gave the smallest of nods. Almost invisible.

Not good enough.

"Answer me properly!" I barked, the room shaking with the weight of my voice.

She flinched, just barely. And then... it happened.

Her expression cracked.

Fear flickered in her eyes. Real. Raw.

And just beneath it, rage.

She tried to bury it. But I saw it.

And I liked it.

"Yes... Alpha," she muttered. The words were sluggish, reluctant, each syllable like rusted iron scraping down her throat.

There it was.Fear.Obedience.Bitterness.

Perfect.

"Go to the living room," I ordered.

She turned stiffly, leaving the room without another word.

But just before she vanished from view-

I heard it.

A quiet exhale. A soft, almost inaudible sigh of relief.

Like she'd been holding her breath the entire time.

As soon as she was gone, Dax broke the silence.

"You saw how she made the beds?" he asked, his voice more thoughtful than usual. "How she served the food?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Yes," I said cautiously. "What about it?"

"She's been trained. That's not just obedience, that's survival."

Kael's eyes flashed immediately, his jaw tightening.

"I think we should take it easy on her," Dax added softly. "Just a little. She's already been through"

"No," Kael cut in, his voice steel. "She hasn't even begun to pay."

Dax hesitated. Then raised his hands in surrender, stepping back.

I didn't say anything. I didn't need to.

Because we all knew the truth.

Whatever pity Dax was reaching for, it wouldn't save her.

Not from us.

Not from the past.

Not from the debt she owed.

And the time for softness had long since passed.