Chapter 1 – The Price of a Daughter
1096 Words
Chapter 1 – The Price of a Daughter
They didn’t even look her in the eye when they signed the papers.
Seren Elara sat in the corner of the room, knees drawn to her chest, watching as her parents — smiling tightly in their finest clothes — accepted the silver pen offered by Gavin Thorne’s assistant. The room smelled like roses and old wood polish, like wealth trying too hard to hide rot.
Her mother wore pearls that didn’t belong to her. Her father’s shoes were too shiny for a man who couldn’t afford their electricity bill last month. They didn't thank her. They didn’t even ask her if she was ready.
Because none of this was for her.
This was a transaction. A trade. A surrender sealed with ink.
The contract was only one page. Simple. Cruel.
> “In exchange for full financial security, the Elara family grants legal guardianship and exclusive partnership rights over Seren Elara to Mr. Gavin Thorne. This agreement is binding and cannot be revoked.”
Gavin stood at the center of it all. Black suit, black heart, wolfish grin. A man with cold eyes and colder hands, the kind that wrapped around your wrists too tightly even when he said he loved you. Especially when he said it.
Seren’s fingers curled into her sleeves, hiding the bruises on her arms — a collection of purple-yellow blossoms that bloomed each time she disobeyed. Each time she said no.
The first time it happened, she told her mother. Her mother had looked at her like she was a problem. Like she’d just made everything harder.
“Do you know how lucky you are?” she’d said.
“You’ll never have to worry about money again.”
Seren stopped telling anyone after that.
---
The pen clicked.
The signature looped.
And that was that.
Her freedom was worth exactly six digits and a handshake.
She was escorted out of the room not like a daughter, but like property. Gavin’s hand landed on her lower back with an icy weight, and he leaned down, whispering against her ear.
“You’re mine now, sweetheart. You understand?”
She didn’t answer. He liked it better when she didn’t.
---
The days after the contract blurred into one another — a fog of locked doors, torn dresses, forced dinners, and eyes that never looked at her but devoured her all the same.
Gavin was a man who liked control. He chose what she ate, what she wore, who she spoke to. He installed cameras in her room and told her it was for her “safety.” The bruises became more frequent, more deliberate. He no longer pretended to be gentle.
The city watched but never saw.
Seren thought about running every day. Every time he raised his voice. Every time she touched the fading scar on her hip — the one that hadn’t been an accident. Every time she looked at the locked windows and wondered how far down the ground was.
But where could she go?
She had no money. No friends anymore. Her phone had been destroyed the night she tried to call her ex-boyfriend.
“You're not his anymore,” Gavin had growled.
“You belong to me.”
---
The turning point came in silence. Not a scream. Not a fight.
Just a single drop of blood on the bathroom tile. Her blood. Another cracked rib. Another broken apology.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror — her face pale and empty, her lips split, her eye already swelling — and realized she didn’t want to see that girl anymore. That girl had already died somewhere between the bruises and the lies.
So she killed her.
And decided to run.
---
It was just after midnight. The city streets were quiet, dressed in fog. She’d stolen one of Gavin’s coats and a pocketknife from the drawer he thought she didn’t know about.
She didn’t take a phone. Didn’t leave a note.
Some goodbyes didn’t deserve words.
---
Seren ran.
Through alleyways and silent blocks. Past the edges of the city where streetlights thinned and shadows grew longer. Her lungs burned. Her ribs screamed. But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
She didn’t know how long she ran. An hour? Two? The buildings blurred into trees. The sidewalks faded into dirt paths. Eventually, the city gave up chasing her, and the forest welcomed her with open arms.
It was deeper than she remembered. Wilder. Ancient.
The trees were tall and gnarled, like twisted fingers reaching for the sky. Mist crept along the ground like it was alive, curling around her boots, whispering through the leaves in a language older than sound.
Somewhere behind her, she swore she heard footsteps.
But when she turned, nothing was there.
Just darkness. And the sense that something had just left… or was just arriving.
---
The moon hung low above her. Too bright. Too full. It shimmered like silver soaked in blood.
Her breath caught. Her legs ached. But something was calling her deeper.
And then… she saw it.
A wall. Or rather, something like it — invisible but pulsing with light when she stepped closer. The air shimmered like heat over asphalt. Her skin prickled. The ground trembled softly beneath her feet. It wasn’t a physical wall, not exactly — but a barrier. A veil. A border she wasn’t meant to see.
She blinked. It was still there.
Her heart pounded. Was she hallucinating? Was this what dying felt like?
She reached out.
The air bent around her fingers.
It felt warm… alive.
And then it swallowed her whole.
---
The world shifted.
The wind disappeared. The night grew quieter — too quiet. No city, no trees, no distant cars. Only stillness. The kind that clung to your lungs and made your heartbeat sound like a scream.
She fell to her knees, dizzy. The mist was thicker here. Heavier.
And then she heard it.
A growl.
Low. Deep. From somewhere behind the trees.
Her body froze. Her breath hitched.
Another growl answered it — closer this time.
Eyes glinted in the dark. Not human.
She stumbled backward, heart racing, hands trembling as she reached for the knife in her coat. Her fingers found it just as the figure stepped out from the mist.
Tall. Broad. Covered in black fur. Glowing gold eyes.
A beast. A man. Something in between.
Her scream died in her throat.
More shadows moved behind it. Surrounding her.
She was no longer in her world.
She was in theirs.
- Writer
