I needed hope
1400 Words
Elodie — POV
My first night at Damon’s pack house wasn’t anything less than what I expected it to be. Of course, I had been expecting my first night with my mate to be a lot more different than what I got but instead I got a cold night from Damon. A night worse than what I would have gotten if I hadn't been with him and its not even like I had been living a fancy life before this. However, he had reduced me to nothing.
Damon had left before sunrise. I heard him moving quietly, the door opening and shutting with deliberate softness, as if I were something fragile or something inconvenient. By midday the walls were closing in on me. I waited an hour before I approached the door, when I opened it, two guards stood immediately outside.
They straightened the moment they saw me, not out of respect but out of something else. Caution maybe…
“I would like to go for a walk,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “Just to stretch my legs.”
Their expressions did not change.
“We have orders,” one replied.
“From the Alpha.”
The words tasted bitter.
“I am not under arrest.”
Neither of them responded, I stepped forward anyway.They did not move to touch me. They didn’t need to. Their presence was enough, I retreated slowly and closed the door. The click of it felt louder than it should have. When Damon returned that evening, I was waiting for him.
“You have stationed guards outside.”
He removed his jacket without looking at me. “Yes.”
“You didn’t tell me that I wasn’t allowed to leave.”
“I assumed you would deduce it.”
My hands clenched.
“You said you would let me go after you figured whatever things you have going on out”
“I will”
“then why do I feel like a prisoner.”
That made him look at me. He tilted his head slightly, studying me as if I were presenting an interesting argument.
“A prisoner?” he repeated.
“Yes.”
He took a few steps toward me. Slow. Controlled.
“Do you believe my chambers are a prison, Elodie?”
“They are when I cannot leave them.”
“You are not chained.”
“That’s not the point… by placing guards on the door you may as well chain the knob”
He stopped a breath away.
“You are guarded,” he corrected. “Not confined.”
“Against my will.”
His gaze sharpened.
“You mistake protection for punishment.”
“Then let me walk the courtyard.”
“No.”
The denial came instantly,cold and final. I felt something twist inside me.
“You don’t trust me…you think that I will tell everyone about us” I said quietly.
“It is not you I do not trust.”
“Then who?”
He did not answer, because the truth was worse. Nyra, she was the real reason why he was treating me like this. I turned away from him, humiliated all over again.
“Tell me something honestly,” I said, my voice softer now. “Am I here because you want me but are too proudto claim me… or because you refuse to let anyone else have me?”
The silence behind me was heavy, when he spoke, his voice was lower.
“Does it matter?”
Yes, It mattered more than anything. But I didn’t answer.
Night came slowly, dinner had been served tome by an omega who wasn’t even allowed to look me in the eye. She dropped the tray of food and quickly ran out as if I was carrying some king old disease and I was being quarantined. After eating and after the empty plates were taken away, I laid the blankets out on the floor again.
My pride burned as I did it, I had just lowered myself when I heard the bed shift. Then silence, then footsteps. I looked up. Damon was standing there, watching me as if contemplating what to do with me. Without a word, he lowered himself onto the floor beside me.
Not touching, close enough that I could feel his warmth. My heart began to race, did this mean he was changing his mind about me? About us?
“You prefer the floor now?” I asked, trying for sharpness. It came out breathless.
“For tonight,” he said.
The room felt smaller instantly, more dangerous. This wasn’t something I had anticipated nor prepared for. I didn’t even trust myself to refuse him if he asked, if he was even going to ask. I doubted that he would ask me. He was probably just going to have his way even if I tried resisting him.
“You told me you didn’t want me,” I whispered.
His hand moved, slow brushing a strand of hair from my face. The touch was gentle. Deliberate.
“I told you what I needed to…but I never said that”
My breath caught.
“You are playing with me” I whispered “like a toy in your hand”
His fingers lingered at my jaw.
“You are thinking in straight lines,” he murmured. “Politics is not straight.”
“This doesn’t feel like politics.”
His thumb brushed lightly along my cheekbone.
“It is.”
My wolf surged toward him, the bond flared painfully alive at the proximity. I tried to make it retreat knowing this would only end with me being hurt but it was like pushing against a storm.
“If I had claimed you publicly,” he continued softly, “you would be targeted….and I would loose a lot more than I want to”
“And this is better?” I asked.
“For now.”
“For now,” I repeated “and I am just supposed to wait until what?” I asked him
He leaned closer, his voice dropping to something intimate and dangerous.
“You think I humiliated you,” he said. “But what I did protected you.”
“By making me sleep on stone?”
“By showing everyone that you were no threat, that’s what they want to see”
The words slid into me like something warm. Hope tried to rise again.
“You are stronger when they believe you are powerless,” he whispered.
I wanted to believe him, I needed to believe him. But I knew the truth
“But why didn’t you let me choose? Why did you choose her instead” I asked.
“Because, it was a necessary distraction” he said, his forehead nearly touching mine now, “she is…a place holder”
His hand moved to my waist, slow, testing.
“You have to trust me, especially right now” he said.
Trust, after everything.
“I don’t know how,” I admitted.
His breath brushed my lips.
“Then let me show you.”
And that was the moment I broke, not because he forced me or because he commanded me. But because I wanted him. Because despite the humiliation, despite the anger, despite the guards outside. When he looked at me like that, like I was something strategic and precious at the same time, I wanted to believe I was both.
He pulled me closer, he cold stone beneath us disappeared beneath the heat of him. His hands were careful at first, then not.
He kissed me like he had been holding it back for days. Like restraint had only sharpened the hunger. I melted into him. Because I had already been his the moment the bond snapped into place. When he finally pulled away, my pulse was unsteady.
“You see?” he murmured against my hair. “our bodies and our wolves know this is how its meant to be”
He did not promise me a future, he did not say he would choose me.He did not say he loved me, but somehow curled against him on the floor— I felt chosen. And that frightened me more than the guards ever could. Because I was beginning to understand something terrible.
Damon didn’t need chains, he only needed to give me hope.
- Writer
