Owned by the Enemy

Fractured Mercy

Astrid



I close the bathroom door softly behind me, towel-drying my hair as I glance around Dom’s room. His room. Mine too, apparently. Except it doesn’t feel like it.

I sit at the edge of the mattress, staring at the silent door. The sun has long set, but I haven’t moved. The only sound is the quiet ticking of the clock above Dom’s dresser, each second pounding into my skull like a cruel reminder of just how empty this room is. I rub at my eyes, exhausted from the day’s chaos, my chest hollow with a loneliness I can’t quite name.

I unpack my small overnight bag in silence. The room feels too big. Too cold. Too… empty.

The bed is made perfectly, sheets crisp and tucked tight like no one’s ever slept here. I run my fingers over the blanket, wondering if he’ll come back tonight. Wondering if he even wants to.

Don’t be stupid, Astrid. Of course he doesn’t.

I move to the window and pull the curtain aside, staring out into the twilight. Shadows stretch across the grounds, long and thin, swallowing the manicured lawns in dusky blue. My eyes catch on a small building nestled against the tree line. It’s old, with faded murals of wolves and crescent moons decorating its wooden siding.

A school?

My chest tightens painfully. Back home, teaching was… everything. It was the only time I ever felt like I made a difference. Like I could shape little lives into something beautiful.

I press my palm against the glass, ignoring the sting in my eyes.

Tomorrow, I promise myself. Tomorrow I’ll go look.

At least then, maybe, I’ll feel a little less… alone.

Even though I tell myself I don’t care. That I don’t want him here. That it’s better like this. But the lie tastes bitter on my tongue. Eventually, exhaustion wins over pride. I change into the soft cotton sleep shirt I packed from home and slip beneath the heavy blankets pulling them up to my chin. The sheets are crisp and smell like pine and faintly of him. I bury my nose into the pillow, breathing him in despite myself.

I wait.

Minutes pass. Then hours. Every creek of the timber floors has my heart jumping. Every whisper of wind outside makes me think he’s coming in. That he’ll slide into bed next to me. That he’ll say something cruel or something kind or maybe nothing at all. That he’ll smell of s*x and that she-wolf that he left with, and that I need to prepare myself for the worst-case scenario.

But he doesn’t come.

Eventually, frustration claws at me. I throw back the blankets and pad across the room, down the dark hall, the cold floor biting at my bare feet. I follow the faint glow of light seeping under a closed door and his scent all the way to his office.

Quietly, I crack it open.

And there he is.

Asleep. Sprawled across a fold-out couch with a thin blanket covering only half his body. His arm is thrown over his eyes. His chest rises and falls steadily, his lips parted slightly, his hair mussed like he’d raked his fingers through it too many times before sleep finally claimed him.

My chest tightens painfully. He didn’t even want to be near me.

I wonder, just for a moment, what it would feel like to crawl into that narrow couch with him. To press my body against his and feel his warmth seep into the frozen parts of me. To listen to his heartbeat slow and steady beneath my ear. But then his words from earlier echo in my mind.

“She won’t be marked. Not yet. Maybe not ever.”

Of course, he wouldn’t come back to the room. Of course, he wouldn’t touch me. Why would he? I’m nothing to him but an obligation. A tether he didn’t ask for.

I know I should leave. But instead, I linger in the doorway, taking in the harsh angles of his jaw softened by sleep. The vulnerability of it. Then, before he wakes and catches me, I shut the door gently behind myself and tiptoe back to his bedroom, climbing underneath the covers of a bed that unfortunately smells way too good.

A tear slips down my cheek before I can catch it. I wipe it away angrily.

“Pathetic,” I whisper to myself. “You’re pathetic.

For the first time since arriving here, I let myself cry. Quiet sobs into his pillow, swallowing down every foolish hope that maybe… just maybe… he didn’t hate me as much as he pretended to. That maybe he’d give me a chance...

Sleep doesn’t come easy.

When it finally does, it’s fitful and full of dreams where he’s beside me, holding me close with rough hands and whispered promises. Dreams that shatter like glass when the morning light filters in and I wake to the stark, hollow silence of his absence.