Amelia didn't have fifteen minutes; she
had five. The granite-faced representative, who had introduced himself only as
"Vance," was a wolf of terrifying efficiency. When he said fifteen
minutes, he meant that he would be standing by the elevator in exactly nine
hundred seconds, and any delay would be treated as a breach of contract—a
breach that would undoubtedly cost the Reeds more than forty-two million
dollars.
She raced back to her small room, the
silence of the upper floor a fragile shelter from the cruel festivities still
echoing faintly below. She grabbed the cheapest, sturdiest suitcase she owned—a
dark, unremarkable carry-on—and began shoving clothes inside. She didn't pack
her most beautiful things; she packed her most durable and forgettable. She had
no idea where she was going, only that it was to a cold, dark, and dangerous
place.
As she frantically folded jeans and
sweaters, the hushed, urgent tones of her parents drifted down the hallway.
They weren't speaking to each other in their usual clipped, corporate fashion;
they were arguing with the low, frantic intensity of criminals covering up a
massive felony.
Amelia stopped packing, holding a stack of
books—her only real treasures—to her chest. The walls of her room were thin,
and she pressed her ear against the door, the chill of the wood seeping into
her skin.
"...I tell you, Eleanor, we dodged a
missile," Mr. Reed's voice was shaky, laced with residual panic. "He didn't
even flinch at the price. Forty-two million—gone, just for a plain girl."
"A plain girl who is now going to live in
a gilded cage with a monster!" Mrs. Reed hissed back. "Do you think we'll ever
get her back? He's the War God. They say he keeps his former rivals chained in
the dungeons."
"He won't touch her, Eleanor! That's the
key," Mr. Reed argued, the confidence returning, rooted in his terrible,
self-serving logic. "He can't. The accident… the rumors are too consistent. The
facial reconstruction failed. They say his body is a mass of scar tissue, and
that the beast inside him is permanently unstable. He can't risk a close,
intimate bond."
Amelia's blood ran cold. She had heard the
whispers, but hearing her parents articulate the details with such chilling
indifference made the rumors materialize into a tangible horror.
"He requires a mate for the contract, but
his wolf rejects any kind of intact female," Mrs. Reed murmured, a note of
cruel satisfaction in her tone. "That's why he was forced to choose a human
like Amelia. A woman with no scent to provoke the beast. A purely decorative,
temporary contract holder."
Mr. Reed cleared his throat, his voice
dropping slightly, forcing Amelia to strain to hear. "The true danger is the
temper. He's called the War God for a reason. Five years ago, when the accident
happened, it was a rogue Pack attack on his territory. He shifted, but the
trauma was so severe—physical and emotional—that his wolf went feral. They say
he tore apart not just the attackers, but nearly half his own security detail,
before they managed to subdue him."
A moment of heavy silence stretched
between her parents, a silence pregnant with the horrific images their words
had conjured.
"His wolf, they say, is now housed in a
body that can barely contain it," Mrs. Reed whispered. "He can't maintain a
full shift, only a kind of terrifying, half-shifted monstrous state. He lives
in constant agony, which is why the manor is dark, and why no one ever sees his
face. He's a recluse. A crippled King on a dark throne."
Amelia's hand clamped over her mouth,
muffling a quiet gasp. This was not just a difficult marriage; this was a
sentence to a lifetime of terror, potentially ending in a horrific, violent
death at the hands of a wounded, unstable beast.
She had thought the worst pain was Liam's
betrayal. But that was a paper cut compared to the deep, mortal wound her
parents were inflicting now. They were trading her soft, insignificant life for
their comfortable future, fully aware of the monster they were delivering her
to.
"We need to make sure Annabeth is
protected from any association with this," Mr. Reed stated, his tone
businesslike again, dismissing Amelia's fate as a closed file. "She is engaged
to a Beta; she cannot be linked to the Black Moon's instability. Amelia's
transfer must be immediate and clean. We must ensure the world believes she was
the one who was chosen, not the one who was pawned."
Mrs. Reed sighed dramatically. "It's such
a shame. If only Liam hadn't been so slow to propose to Annabeth, we wouldn't
be in this position. But thank heavens Amelia was here. Truly, her only use has
been saving the family."
The cold finality of those words echoed in
the small room. Her only use.
Amelia stepped away from the door, the
precious stack of books sliding to the floor. The horror was complete. Her
parents viewed her as nothing more than a spare key to unlock their financial
prison.
The terror was immense, but it was now
laced with an equally potent dose of pure, cold rage. They think I will break.
They think I will go quietly to my dark corner and never threaten their perfect
lives again.
A fierce, small flame ignited in the pit
of her stomach—a sense of self-preservation she had never known she possessed.
She wouldn't die in that dark manor. She would survive. She would wait. And one
day, she would watch the Reed family crumble under the weight of their own
greed.
She picked up her books—a volume of
ancient Greek philosophy and a novel about a defiant Queen—and carefully placed
them on top of her clothes. She needed intellectual armor now.
She quickly changed out of the old
cashmere sweater into a dark, functional travel outfit: black jeans, a simple,
thick grey tunic, and sturdy boots. She braided her unremarkable brown hair
tightly down her back, preparing for battle, not a marriage.
As she snapped the suitcase shut, the
clock on her phone hit the fifteen-minute mark.
It's time.
She lifted the suitcase, its weight
comforting in its familiarity, and walked out into the empty hallway. She
didn't look back at her childhood room. It was not a place of fond memories,
but a monument to loneliness.
As she reached the top of the main
staircase, the granite wall of a man, Vance, was already waiting by the foyer
doors, radiating impatience and immense power.
"Miss Reed," he rumbled, his deep voice
confirming the passage of time. "Punctual. Good."
Mr. and Mrs. Reed hovered nearby, wringing
their hands, their eyes fixed on Amelia with a combination of relief and
profound embarrassment. They needed her gone to save their perfect night.
"Amelia, darling, be a good girl," Mrs.
Reed said, attempting a pathetic final show of affection, though she kept a
safe distance. "Do your duty. We will call you… when we can."
Amelia stopped at the edge of the
staircase, her shadow long and distorted under the crystal chandelier. She
looked not at her parents, but past them, toward the conservatory where
Annabeth and Liam were still celebrating their 'true love.'
She turned back to her father and
stepmother, her eyes glacial. The girl who used to cry was gone.
"You won't have to worry about me,
Father," she said, her voice clear and unnervingly flat. "I hope your forty-two
million dollars brings you all the peace you sacrificed for tonight. But
understand this: I am no longer your daughter. I am a debt settled."
She walked past them, not waiting for a
response, and approached Vance.
Vance took the handle of her suitcase, his
massive hand dwarfing the luggage. He gave her another long, unreadable look, a
look that seemed to acknowledge the full tragedy and injustice of the
transaction.
"The War God's territory is secured, Miss
Reed," Vance said, stepping toward the grand oak doors. "Once you cross the
Black Moon border, you are under the Alpha's law. There is no turning back."
He opened the doors, revealing a sleek,
black armored SUV waiting in the driveway under the flickering carriage lamps.
Amelia took one last look at the house—the
beacon of her betrayal—and stepped out into the cold night air. The sounds of
the cruel celebration, Annabeth's laughter, and the distant jazz band, were
swallowed by the closing doors behind her.
She was alone, being driven toward a
disfigured, feral monster, her future reduced to a contract line item. But for
the first time, she felt a terrible freedom: she was completely unbound, an
asset owned by an enemy, no longer a pawn of her family.