Wanted by the Ruthless Alpha

CHAPTER FIVE

Lana's POV

The floor rushed up to meet me as his fingers slipped from my throat. I hit my knees hard, gasping, coughing, dragging air into lungs that felt like they’d been vacuum-sealed. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, so loud I almost didn’t hear the soft rustle of paper.

He crouched in front of me, close enough that I could smell the storm on his skin. His face was a mask again, cold and beautiful and utterly unreadable. In one hand he held a thick black folder. In the other, a single white feather.

“Never speak to me like that again,” he said, voice low, deliberate, each word carved into the air between us. “This will not repeat itself.”

I tried to answer. My throat was raw, voice shredded. All that came out was a cracked, “Yes… sir.”

He flipped the folder open. My full name was printed across the top in heavy, elegant font: Lana Marie Hubbard. Beneath it, his own signature, Ronan Alexander Lancaster was already scrawled in crimson ink that looked too glossy, too wet.

He seized my left hand before I could pull away. The knife appeared from nowhere. One quick s***h across my palm and fire bloomed under my skin.

I hissed, tried to jerk back, but his grip turned iron.

Blood welled, bright and shocking. He tilted my hand over a small golden cup he’d produced from a drawer. The sound of my blood dripping into the cup was obscene in the silence.

Then he dipped the feather into my blood and held it out like an offering.

“Sign the contract.”

“I—I don’t want this anymore,” I whispered. “I quit.”

His laugh was soft and terrifying. “You never had a choice, little human. The moment you stepped through my gates, you were mine. Sign, or I will pin your hand to the desk and guide the pen for you.”

My palm stung, blood dripping onto the polished floor in perfect crimson circles.

The room swayed. Who the heck are these people? Are they even sane?

Does this mean he signed the contract with his blood too?

My fingers trembled as I reached for the pen and contract. Everything within me screamed to run, but where? The memory of his hand on my throat still lingered.

But his eyes were glowing again, molten gold swallowing the brown, and I knew he would catch me before I reached the door.

I took the feather. My hand shook so badly the first stroke came out crooked. I forced the second, the third, with my pen hovering above the page, then, with a final stroke, it was done.

The second the ink dried, something inside my chest yanked hard. Not pain exactly, more like a hook sinking into my sternum and pulling toward him. A thread snapped taut between us, invisible but unbreakable. My breath hitched. His pupils flared, like he felt it too.

For one heartbeat the mask slipped. Something raw and shocked flickered across his face. Then the wall slammed back down.

He stood, towering over me again. “Clean yourself up. Go downstairs, and meet my daughter.” The door shut behind him with a quiet, final click.

I stayed on the floor a long time, cradling my bleeding hand, staring at the contract like it might bite me. My blood was still warm on the page.

Eventually, I dragged myself upright, legs trembling, and stumbled back to my room. Someone had left a small white first-aid kit on the duvet.

I washed the cut in the bathroom sink, watching red swirl down the drain. The cream was cold, the bandage too white against my skin. My reflection looked like a stranger, my eyes too wide, lips bitten raw, fingerprints of bruises already blooming on my throat.

I pressed a cool cloth into my neck and whispered to the girl in the mirror, “Just survive. You’ve survived worse.”

I wasn’t sure that was true anymore.

Downstairs felt different now. The marble was colder, the wolf statues watching with stone eyes that knew exactly what I’d just done. The girl with the braids appeared again, silent as a shadow.

“Miss Dorothy is having breakfast,” she murmured, and gestured to me to follow her.

We walked through corridors that seemed longer than before, past closed doors and hushed voices that stopped the moment I passed. The dining room was sunlit and enormous, all pale wood and soft pastels, like someone had tried to make it child-friendly in a house that had forgotten how to be gentle.

And there she was.

A tiny girl perched in a pink booster seat at the end of a table built for twenty. She couldn’t have been more than three, all huge blue eyes and soft curls twisted into two little puffs. Her skin was almost translucent, lips dry and cracked, fingers delicate as bird bones around a fork she wasn’t using.

She looked breakable.

Alexa stood nearby, pouring orange juice into a sippy cup. She smiled when she saw me, warm, and genuine, the first kindness I’d felt since arriving.

“Lana, perfect timing. Come meet Dorothy.”

I took a few steps closer as Alexa continued, “Lana, this is Dorothy. Mr. Ronan’s adopted daughter. She is three years old.”

Adopted daughter. The words echoed in my head as I walked closer. This monster had adopted a child? This tiny, fragile human child?

I crouched so we were eye-level, forcing my voice soft even though everything inside me was still shaking.

“Hi, sweetheart,” I said, offering the gentlest smile I could give.

“I’m Lana. I’m going to be your new nanny.” The word felt wrong after everything, but I winked anyway.

“You can call me whatever makes you happy. Maybe Nana.”

Her eyes, so blue they looked like winter sky, studied me for a long moment. Then the corner of her mouth lifted, just barely. A ghost of a smile.

“Hi,” she whispered, her small voice barely above her breath.

It made my heart melt, her voice was so adorable and cute. She was wearing a light blue top that complimented her eyes, and a pink skirt. Her little smile made me feel like I had just won a gold medal.

“Mind if I sit with you?” I asked.

She hesitated for a bit, looking at her food, then she gave a tiny nod.

I pulled out a chair beside her and sat down, watching as she slowly picked up a piece of toast and took a proper bite.

I smiled at her, and gestured for her to continue. She glanced at me, then she continued staring at her plate.

“She hasn’t smiled since she arrived here, always very quiet,” Alexa said quietly, serving me breakfast.

I quickly stood up with the plate in my hand, "I don't think I can eat here."

"You are Dorathy's nanny, and you're supposed to be anywhere she is. Please take your seat and have breakfast with her," Alexa smiled.

I sat down, and watched Dorathy as she ate.

Alexa’s voice was soft. “She hadn’t smiled since she came to us. Hasn’t spoken beyond a whisper. Whatever you just did… keep doing it.”

I swallowed hard and looked at the child who now owned a piece of my heart I hadn’t known was still available.

Upstairs, a monster wore my bloody signature around his neck like a leash.

Down here, a little girl with winter eyes had just given me a reason to keep breathing.

I reached over and brushed a curl from Dorothy’s forehead.

“I’ve got you,” I whispered, to her and to myself. “We’re going to be okay.”

Even if I had to burn this entire fairy tale down to make it true.