The Basement Wolf

Chapter 27. Act Two

The room smelled of roses gone wrong—sweet rotting under the perfume, like power left too long in the sun. Curtains drowned the windows in velvet darkness. Sandra sat on the edge of the bed, spine taut, wrists resting on her knees, the calm a mask soldered over a furnace. Her breath came even, but her pulse drummed maps of escape against her skin.

The door opened without a knock.

Clyde stepped in first—immaculate as ever, suit poured in midnight, smile carved with surgical precision. Behind him hovered a boy—no, a young man, but with softness still clinging to his jaw like milk that hadn’t curdled yet. His eyes gleamed the way eyes do when they’ve never been told no, and his mouth carried the curl of someone who thought the world was a room he’d never have to leave.

Sandra didn’t move. Not when Clyde crossed the carpet like the floor had been taught to love him. Not when the boy’s gaze crawled over her like grease.

“Well,” Clyde murmured, voice a glass of dark wine tipping slow. “I do believe intermission is over.” His smile warmed, and the warmth was a lie with teeth. “Time for Act Two.”

Sandra’s jaw locked so tight she tasted iron. “You think this is theater?” she said, voice low enough to strip paint.

“Oh, darling,” Clyde said, his eyes two coins minted in mockery. “Everything worth watching is theater. And you—” His glance flicked over her like a blade’s shadow. “—are a masterpiece that hasn’t learned its own script yet.”

He turned to the boy, laying a hand on his shoulder like benediction. “Consider this your rehearsal, Eric.”

The name slashed through the air. Sandra filed it away, cold and sharp.

Clyde’s gaze returned to her, glittering. “Make it memorable,” he said, and then he was gone, the door sighing shut behind him like a secret.

For one beat, the silence thickened, crawling up the walls. Then the boy grinned—wide, wolfish in a way that had nothing to do with teeth and everything to do with hunger taught by men like Clyde.

He stepped forward. “You know,” he said, voice dripping the arrogance of bloodlines, “my mother says a crown’s only heavy if you don’t deserve it.”

Sandra didn’t rise. Didn’t flinch. Her eyes, when they met his, were calm as frost. “Your mother lies.”

That made him laugh—sharp, high, breaking the hush like cheap glass. “She says once you’re mine, no one will dare touch me. Says I’ll have a kingdom and a queen who bites.” His grin split wider. “I like the idea of you biting.”

He lunged.

Sandra moved before thought—before breath—pure instinct snapping like a trap. His hand barely grazed her shoulder before hers clamped his wrist, spun, and slammed him into the wall with a crack that rattled picture frames. His yelp strangled halfway, shock flooding his face before pain drowned it.

He slid down the paneling, gasping, clutching his arm like it might fall off. “You—” His voice cracked to a whimper. “You broke—”

Sandra stood over him, chest heaving slow, eyes black with the promise of ruin. “Touch me again,” she said, voice so soft it could carve bone, “and I’ll show you what breaking feels like from the inside.”

The door slammed open.

A woman swept in on heels that struck the floor like verdicts. Power clung to her like a second skin—hair lacquered into a helmet of wealth, mouth painted the red of fresh coronations. Her gaze sliced the room, taking in the wreckage of her son crumpled like paper. For one heartbeat, silence balanced on a knife’s edge. Then her lips curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile.

“Well,” she said, voice cool as a cellar. “Looks like our little lamb needs a firmer leash.”

The boy scrambled upright, choking on sobs and rage. “She—she tried to kill me—”

“Oh, hush,” his mother crooned, brushing a manicured hand over his hair, her touch sugar-coated steel. “No one kills princes in my house.” Her eyes flicked to Sandra, gleaming like wet tar. “Tie her.”

Men poured in like shadows solidifying—two, three, maybe four, their faces smooth with the comfort of cruelty. Rope gleamed in their fists like vipers coiled for prayer.

Sandra’s body tensed, every muscle screaming for war—but hands gripped her arms, her shoulders, her throat. She thrashed, feral, landing a kick that made one grunt and stagger, but numbers gnawed strength fast. Rope bit into her wrists, her ankles, yanking flesh purple. They hauled her upright, bound like some wild saint nailed to doctrine.

The woman stepped closer, perfume flooding the air, cloying and cold. She cupped her son’s jaw, tilting his face until their eyes locked. “Don’t cry, my darling,” she murmured, voice honey laced with venom. “You’ll have her soon enough. And when you do…” Her smile bled into something carnivorous. “You’ll wear the crown and the kingdom will kneel on a silver tray.”

The boy sniffled, pride twitching back to life under her words. His gaze crawled to Sandra—tied, breath rasping, eyes lit with hell. And for one trembling second, he almost smiled again.

Sandra leaned forward as far as the ropes allowed, her voice a blade dragged slow over stone. “Listen close, little prince.” Her lips peeled back, a snarl curving into something that might have been a smile in another world. “Someday, I’ll tear the crown off your skull and feed you what’s left of your manhood.”

The boy flinched. His mother laughed—low, delighted, the sound of silk ripping.

“Spirited,” she said, turning on her heel, her heels ticking death notes on the floor. “Good. Spirited makes heirs worth crowning.”

The door closed behind her, and the room drowned in silence thick as oil—punctured only by the sound of the boy’s breathing, ragged and afraid beneath the weight of a promise he didn’t understand.