Chapter 7 Night Of Restriant

The silence in the room was suffocating, broken only by the faint crackle of firelight and the rhythmic ticking of some unseen clock. I waited for hours, listening for footsteps, for the creak of the door, anything that would tell me he was near again. But there was nothing. Only me and this golden cage that smelled like him.

After pacing until I could almost hear the echoes of my heartbeat, I forced myself to breathe and take stock. I had to think like a survivor, not a victim. I’d survived worse. I could survive this.

My eyes wandered over the room again, picking up details I hadn’t noticed before. Everything was too perfect, too curated. The carved furniture gleamed like it had been polished within an inch of its life. The curtains, deep burgundy velvet, fell in heavy folds to the floor. The chandelier above glittered like captured stars, scattering light across gold-trimmed walls.

And everywhere, that scent, his scent, hung thick in the air: cedar, smoke, wild musk, and the faint metallic undertone of dominance. It was inescapable, creeping into my lungs, my pulse, my thoughts. I hated how my body responded, how some buried instinct stirred and whispered, mate.

I shook my head violently. No. I would not give that word meaning.

I needed a plan. An exit. Anything.

My gaze fell on the far side of the room where double doors led into a walk-in closet. I crossed the marble floor and pushed them open.

The closet wasn’t just a space. It was a store.

Rows upon rows of tailored suits lined one wall, each organized by color and fabric. On the opposite side hung dresses. Dozens of them, silk, satin, velvet, all expensive, all new, and all in my size. Beneath them were boxes of heels, delicate jewelry glinting under the soft recessed lighting.

My chest tightened. He’d prepared this.

Every detail was planned.

He hadn’t brought me here on a whim.

The realization made my stomach turn, but I forced myself to keep looking. A vanity table stood near the back, covered with bottles of perfume, combs, and jewelry, most still sealed. I traced a trembling finger over a diamond hairpin, then yanked my hand back as if it had burned me.

He was trying to tame me.

To make me comfortable. To make me his.

But he didn’t understand. No matter how pretty the cage, it was still a cage.

I moved deeper into the closet, my gaze catching on something on the middle shelf, a watch.

It was a man’s watch, sleek and expensive, gold and steel, still ticking. A small, almost cruel smirk tugged at my lips.

“Well,” I whispered, plucking it from the shelf. “I’ll need this when I leave.”

If I were going to escape, I might as well take something worth selling. This alone could buy me another few months of rent, food—and time.

I slipped it into my pocket, careful not to make a sound, though I doubted anyone was listening.

I turned away from the tempting closet and stepped back into the main room.

The fire had burned low, the light soft and gold against the dark. I stood there for a long moment, staring at the bed. The sheets looked impossibly soft, like they’d swallow me whole. But they smelled like him, like the woods after rain, like danger, like everything that made my skin crawl and my blood burn.

That scent, it wasn’t just intoxicating. It was bonded. The mate pull made it worse, amplifying everything, turning repulsion into unbearable heat. Every instinct screamed at me to go to him, to breathe him in, to surrender.

I pressed a hand to my chest and forced the breath from my lungs. “No,” I whispered. “Not him.”

Instead, I dragged a pillow off the bed and threw it onto the couch by the window. The couch was plush, big enough to curl into. I grabbed another blanket from the foot of the bed, wrapped it around myself, and sank into the cushions.

The scent followed me anyway.

It clung to the pillow, to the air, to my skin. I buried my face in the fabric and inhaled despite myself. The faint woodsmoke undertone made my stomach twist in ways I didn’t understand.

Damn him.

The moonlight slanted through the tall windows, washing everything in silver. I stared out at the misty forest beyond the balcony and tried to steady my thoughts.

My father’s face rose in my mind, his gentle eyes, his worn hands stained with chemicals and ink.

“Never let them know what you are, Lyra,” he used to say. “They’ll come for you if they find out.”

And they had come.

He died for it.

The memories burned, sharp and cruel. His research had been everything—his obsession with curing the “defects” in hybrid physiology. Most hybrids couldn’t shift, their bloodlines were unstable. But I was different I could shift and my father wanted to help other children like me who were hybrids.

I remembered the first time I shifted. When I shifted, I wasn’t wolf or vampire. I was something else. Something with black veins and claws like obsidian. A creature that howled with hunger and violence.

And the night I first transformed, I’d lost control.

Faces flashed in my mind, the screams, the smell of blood, the horror on my father’s face before he injected me with the antidote that forced me back into human form.

I’d hurt people that night. Maybe killed them. I didn’t know.

I didn’t want to know.

Since then, I’d sworn never to let that monster out again.

I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the small vial I always carried, a faintly glowing blue liquid swirling inside. My father’s last gift. The last dose of his serum.

The only thing keeping me safe.

As long as I took it, my scent could be masked for a few days.

I turned the vial over in my hand, the liquid catching the firelight. I couldn’t use it yet. I had to time it right, use it before I escaped, before I ran.

“Tomorrow,” I murmured to myself. “Before sunrise.”

I slipped it back into my pocket and hugged the pillow tighter.

The moonlight crawled across the floor as the night deepened. My eyelids grew heavy, but I didn’t dare sleep. Sleep meant dreams, and dreams meant reliving that night—the blood, the screams, the image of my father's limp lifeless body.No. I couldn’t.

But exhaustion had its own claws.

At some point, my breathing slowed. The weight of the blanket and the warmth from the fire lulled me, despite the anxiety twisting in my gut.

Before sleep took me, one last thought passed through my mind.

If Darius truly was my mate… if the Moon Goddess was cruel enough to bind me to the man who destroyed my life—

Then maybe she wanted me to destroy him.

And maybe… I would.