Claimed By The Four Alpha Demons

7. The Forbidden Wing

Callie’s POV

The West Wing didn’t look like the rest of Grimstone Hall.

Where the Great Hall was heavy oak and dark velvet, the corridor leading into the forbidden wing was constructed from pale, raw stone that felt cold enough to seep straight into my bones. Double doors of frosted iron swung inward without a sound, revealing what looked less like a living space and more like an ancient observatory.

A massive, glass-domed ceiling arched high overhead, revealing the gray sky and swirling mountain mist above. The circular room was filled with floor-to-ceiling star maps, brass astrolabes, and a sprawling, hand-carved wooden map of the valley embedded directly into the floor.

It was breathtaking. And dead silent.

“I was told this needed cleaning,” I said aloud, my voice swallowed instantly by the vastness of the room.

“It doesn’t,” a voice replied quietly.

I jumped, spinning around to face the center of the room.

Nate was sitting on the edge of a low leather bench built around the central map table. He wore a dark wool sweater, his dark hair falling messily over his brow. His green eyes were fixed on me—not with Ace’s brazen hunger or Greyson’s icy command, but with a quiet, concentrated focus that made my breath hitch.

“Greyson said the West Wing needed attention,” I said, instinctively tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear. I gripped my feather duster like a shield. “I’m just doing my job.”

“Greyson wanted you in my room so I could look at you,” Nate said simply, leaning back on his hands. He didn’t sound arrogant. He sounded like he was stating that the sun was up. “He thinks you’re a problem to solve.”

“I’m not a problem,” I defended, taking a cautious step backward toward the frosted doors. “And I’m certainly not something for you to dissect.”

Nate stood up. His movements weren’t smooth and predatory like Ace’s; they were deliberate, slow, and measured. He walked toward me, stopping just far enough away that he wasn’t invading my space, yet close enough that I could feel the strange, steady heat radiating off him.

“I don’t want to dissect you, Callie,” he said softly, his gaze dropping to my hands, which were trembling slightly around the duster. “I want you to stop hurting.”

I blinked, taken aback. “I’m not hurting.”

“Your head has been throbbing since you walked into this house,” Nate noted gently, tilting his head. “You hold your shoulders tight. You flinch every time the air flickers around you. You’re fighting yourself.”

“It’s just stress,” I insisted, though my heart gave a frantic flutter. How could he know that? “I’ve had a lot on my mind. The renovation, the house, Liam—”

“Liam doesn’t make you feel like this,” Nate interrupted. His voice wasn’t harsh, but there was an underlying weight to it, a possessive firmness that made the air in the room feel suddenly thick. “Liam makes you quiet. We make you loud.”

“You make me nervous,” I shot back, lifting my chin.

Nate smiled slightly, a quick, fleeting gesture that softened his sharp features. “Maybe. But look at the glass.”

I frowned and looked up toward the vaulted dome overhead.

The heavy condensation that had been clinging to the glass, thick and gray from the fog outside, was melting away where we stood. Small, intricate patterns of clear glass were radiating outward from us, as if the sheer temperature of the room was rising.

“You do that,” Nate said, taking one small step closer. “Whenever you get defensive, the air around you charges up. It’s warm. It’s constant.”

“It’s static,” I muttered, stepping back until my heels hit the edge of the large wooden floor map. “The house has bad wiring.”

“There’s no wiring in this room, Callie,” Nate said softly. He reached out, his long fingers hovering just an inch away from my bare wrist. “May I?”

My breath hitched in my throat. Everything inside me screamed to retreat, to run back down the mountain to the mundane, predictable world of paint samples and legal paperwork. But my feet remained glued to the floorboards.

“What are you going to do?” I whispered.

“Help you quiet the noise,” he said.

Before I could object, his skin brushed mine.

It wasn’t a spark like with Ace. It was an anchor. The moment Nate’s fingers wrapped gently around my wrist, a wave of profound, heavy calm washed over me. The persistent, low-grade buzzing that had been vibrating behind my eyes for days vanished instantly, as if someone had placed a heavy blanket over a ringing bell.

I gasped, my head dropping back slightly as the relief flooded my system. My knees buckled, and Nate immediately stepped in, catching me by the waist and pulling me flush against his chest.

His grip was firm, unyielding, and utterly protective.

“See?” Nate murmured against my hair, his chest expanding against mine as he took a deep breath. “You’ve been carrying a storm in your head. You just needed someone strong enough to ground it.”

I leaned into him for a fraction of a second, completely intoxicated by the sudden silence inside my own mind. He smelled of rain, old parchment, and a dark, clean heat that made my skin prickle with goosebumps.

Then, reality slammed back into me.

Liam.

I pushed against Nate’s chest, scrambling backward. His arms let me go smoothly, though his green eyes burned with a quiet, undeniable possessiveness as he watched me create distance between us.

“Don’t,” I breathed, pressing a trembling hand to my chest where my heart was hammering a frantic rhythm. “Don’t do that.”

“You liked it,” Nate said calmly. He didn’t chase me. He just stood there, grounded and solid. “Because for the first time in weeks, your mind was quiet.”

“I’m engaged,” I choked out, the word feeling heavier now, like a weight I was forcing myself to carry. “I love Liam. He’s taking me out to dinner tonight. He cares about me.”

Nate looked at me for a long, silent moment. The quiet intensity in his gaze was harder to handle than any insult.

“If he cared about you, Callie,” Nate said softly, his voice cutting through my defenses with terrifying accuracy, “you wouldn’t be searching for peace in a house full of monsters.”

I stood there, speechless, the feather duster forgotten on the floor beside me.

“You’re done for the day,” Nate added gently, turning his back to walk back toward the map table. “Go down the mountain. See your fiancé. But when the noise comes back—and it will—remember that you don’t have to carry it alone.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

I turned and fled through the frosted doors, my boots clicking frantically against the cold stone floor, the silence of the West Wing following me all the way down the hall.

By the time I gathered my things and headed toward the service entrance, my mind was a chaotic blur.

“You’re done for the day?”

Britta’s voice cut through my daze as I passed the main kitchen bay.

“West Wing is finished,” I said, not slowing down. “Dust is…managed.”

Britta looked up from her ledger, her sharp eyes scanning my flushed face. “You look pale, child. Did Master Nate bother you?”

“No,” I lied quickly, though the memory of his hand on my waist burned like a physical mark against my skin. “Just tired. The room is… big.”

“Go on then,” Britta gestured toward the door. “The fog is settling thick. Best get down the mountain before the roads vanish.”

The moment I stepped out the service entrance and crossed the threshold of the heavy iron gates, the shift was instant.

The silence Nate had gifted me shattered.

The heavy, throbbing headache came rushing back behind my eyes with twice the force, vibrating through my skull like a trapped hornets’ nest.

I sat in my sedan, gripping the steering wheel as a shivering cold set in. My skin felt too tight, raw and overstimulated.

I pulled out my phone. Still no calls from Liam. No text checking if I was okay after a day working in a strange mansion.

Nate’s words echoed in my mind, ringing with cruel clarity: If he cared about you, you wouldn’t be searching for peace in a house full of monsters.

“He does care,” I whispered furiously into the empty car, my knuckles turning white against the wheel. “He’s just busy. He’s working for us.”

A wave of desperate need washed over me. I didn’t want Nate’s heavy quiet or Ace’s dangerous electricity. I wanted my life back. I wanted the safe, simple promise Liam had made on the phone last night.

I put the car in drive, turning right at the bottom of the mountain road instead of left toward home.

“Oak Ridge,” I said aloud, forcing the words through the haze in my head. “The Grand Hotel.”

I was going to find my fiancé. I was going to let him hold me, and I was going to prove to myself—and to the dangerous men on the mountain—that I belonged to a normal world.