Chapter 47

Esther’s POV

The corridors of the Blood Moon Pack’s main house seemed longer at night, echoing with my own footfalls. When Nicholas’s guards came to summon me, they didn’t even bother to say why anymore. They only said, “The Alpha calls.” And everyone knew what that meant: I was to go to him—again.

I clutched the hem of my simple dress, forcing myself to keep my breathing steady. Each summons pulled me deeper into the gilded cage. But I reminded myself, over and over, why I was here. For Carl. For Sofia. For Sharon’s awakening. For survival.

Nicholas’s private suite opened before me like a maw. Candles burned low in the wall sconces, their scents sharp and herbal. He always chose scents to steady his nerves, but tonight even the candles couldn’t hide the restless thrum of his wolf. Norman’s presence prowled just under Nicholas’s skin, and when his dark eyes flicked up at me, the weight of them pinned me where I stood.

“You’re late.” His voice was a low growl, silk wrapping a blade.

“I came as soon as I was summoned,” I answered evenly. I had practiced this tone: quiet, unyielding but not overtly defiant.

He gestured to the chair near his bed. “Sit. You look pale.”

It would have been easier if he had barked orders, if he had treated me as the slave he thought I was. But Nicholas had learned the art of subtle cruelty. He spoke softly, almost kindly, but each word reminded me of the imbalance between us.

I sat, tucking my hands in my lap to keep them from trembling.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said finally. “The headaches again. Norman’s agitation. You’re the only one who calms it.”

He didn’t ask. He stated. As though my presence, my touch, were his right.

I reached for the herbal compress I’d prepared earlier, pressing it to his temple. The act was automatic now; I knew the map of his body better than my own. Where his scars tightened, where his tension built. He closed his eyes under my touch and exhaled, and for an instant, the tension in the room shifted—lighter, almost human.

“You do this better than anyone,” he murmured.

I didn’t answer. If I let silence stretch, sometimes he filled it himself. Tonight he did.

“I should hate you,” he said softly. “For what you’ve done. For what you took from me.”

The words still stung, even though I knew they were born of misunderstanding. I swallowed. “Then why keep me here?”

He opened his eyes, the wolf flashing through them for a heartbeat. “Because Norman wants you near. Because I—” He stopped, jaw tightening. “Because you’re useful.”

That word cut deeper than a slap. Useful. Not needed. Not wanted.

I kept my face neutral, but inside my wolf stirred. Sharon’s faint pulse brushed against my mind like the brush of a moth wing. Each night near him, she flickered a little stronger, like coals catching. If I could endure this—if I could keep my hands steady and my voice flat—maybe she’d wake soon. And then we could save Carl.

Nicholas leaned forward, catching my wrist before I could withdraw the compress. “You’re trembling,” he said.

“I’m tired,” I murmured.

His thumb dragged against the inside of my wrist. Not threatening, not exactly. But claiming. Testing. The mate bond sparked faintly under my skin, betraying me.

“You hate this,” he said.

I looked at him, at the man who had saved me from rogues, who had also chained me in this house, who believed my children were another man’s. “I’m here for a reason,” I said. “That’s all that matters.”

His eyes searched mine, something flickering there, a question he didn’t ask. “Do you ever dream of leaving?”

“Every night,” I whispered before I could stop myself.

He went still. His hand fell away. Then he stood abruptly, turning his back to me.

“You may go.”

I didn’t wait. I gathered my things and slipped from the room, my heart pounding.

I wrote in my journal in the dim glow of my borrowed room.

Each night the wolf flickers stronger. He calls me, and I go, and it kills me. But Carl’s life hangs on this thread. Once Sharon is fully awake, once Carl is safe, I’ll take the twins and leave. He will never cage me again.

The scratch of pen on paper was the only sound. I poured everything onto the page—the humiliation, the nights of forced proximity, the glimpses of Nicholas’s unguarded moments. How sometimes, in the middle of a restless dream, he murmured my name like a prayer. How his eyes softened when he thought I wasn’t looking. And how all of that didn’t matter, because I could not forgive him.

I closed the journal and pressed it to my chest.

The next night, the ritual repeated. The guards fetched me. Nicholas sat in his chair, head bowed, hair damp from a shower, shirt unbuttoned at the collar. The image was disarming, too intimate.

“Again?” I asked quietly.

He only nodded, and I applied the compress, the salve, the steadying touch. As I worked, I caught flickers of something in his posture: exhaustion, regret, a loneliness he refused to name.

“You’re softer tonight,” I murmured without thinking.

His lips twitched. “Softer?”

“Your breathing.”

He didn’t reply. But after a moment he said, “You write at night.”

My fingers froze. “What?”

“I can smell the ink on your hands.”

I forced myself to keep working. “And?”

“And nothing,” he said. “You always were the secretive one.”

I bit back a reply. He didn’t know that ink was my lifeline, the only proof I still had a self beyond his orders.

When the session ended, I retreated again to my room, closing the door and leaning against it. My legs shook with suppressed fury.

Days blurred. Nicholas’s summons became more frequent. Sometimes he asked me to tend to a wound from training, sometimes only to sit with him in silence, the way one might sit with a tethered storm.

Each time I went, Sharon stirred stronger. Each time, my hate tangled with guilt and something I refused to name.

One night, as the full moon waxed bright beyond the windows, I sensed Sharon’s pulse surging. I paused with my hand on Nicholas’s shoulder and felt a rush of warmth. It was healing, soothing. His breath hitched.

“What did you do?” he demanded softly.

“Nothing,” I whispered, stepping back. But inside, hope flared. It was working.

Later, back in my room, I opened my journal again.

He’s showing me cracks. His armor slips when he’s tired. Tonight his voice almost sounded like the Nicholas I met years ago, before everything. But I can’t be fooled. Once Carl is safe, once Sharon wakes fully, we’re gone. He can keep his palace of gold and iron. I’ll take freedom.

I traced Carl’s name at the bottom of the page and underlined it twice.

Outside, the pack’s howls echoed. Inside, I plotted my escape, the ink blotting like little seeds of rebellion across the paper.

By dawn, the candle had burned down to a stub. My eyes were gritty, but Sharon’s flickers pulsed steady in my chest. For the first time in months, my wolf whispered a single word in my mind, faint and cracked like an old bell:

Soon.

I pressed my palm to my heart, inhaling sharply. Soon.

Then I closed the journal, hid it beneath the loose floorboard, and squared my shoulders. Another day of playing the Alpha’s caretaker. Another night of clawing back my own power.

For Carl. For Sofia. For Sharon.

For freedom.