CHAPTER TWO
1698 Words
Chapter Two: The Monster in the Mirror
Lira Velasquez - POV
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I didn’t sleep.
Even with the heavy door locked and the bed dressed in soft velvet sheets, even with the fire crackling gently in the stone hearth like a lullaby—I couldn’t sleep.
Not because the room was unfamiliar.
But because I wasn’t.
I lay stiff under the thick covers, eyes glued to the canopy above me. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Kael. His face. That scar. Those cold silver eyes watching me like I was a puzzle he hadn’t yet decided how to break.
> "We will share nothing until the bond is accepted."
Those words echoed over and over again.
What did that even mean?
Was I supposed to be grateful that he wasn’t dragging me into his bed? Or was he simply toying with me, drawing out the fear like a predator savoring the chase?
The silence in the manor wasn’t comforting—it was deafening. Oppressive.
I sat up, the sheets falling off my shoulders. A faint wind brushed against the high windows, whistling like a whisper from something just beyond the walls. I could almost believe the house was alive.
And then there was the mirror.
It stood in the farthest corner of the room, a tall, ancient thing with an ornate silver frame. I hadn’t given it much thought when I arrived—until I walked past it on my way to the bed.
What I saw had frozen me.
The reflection staring back wasn’t just me—it was a version of me I didn’t recognize. My skin looked pale and sickly under the dim lighting, my eyes hollow and wide with fear. My hair hung limp around my shoulders. My lips were pressed tightly together like I was swallowing a scream.
And my eyes—Moon Goddess, my eyes looked… wrong.
Like they belonged to someone else.
Someone dead.
I stared at the mirror again now, heart pounding. I felt like if I kept watching long enough, that ghost version of me would blink—or worse, move when I didn’t.
---
The next morning came slowly.
Gray light filtered through the velvet curtains. I only knew it was morning because someone knocked on the door—softly at first, then again, more firmly.
I jolted upright.
“Miss Velasquez?” A woman’s voice. Soft. “Alpha Kael requested that you join him for breakfast.”
Requested. But it didn’t sound like a choice.
I swung my legs out of bed and walked toward the door, half-expecting Kael himself to be standing there.
But it wasn’t him.
It was a girl, maybe my age or slightly younger. She had warm brown skin, freckles across her nose, and thick auburn curls tied in a bun. Her eyes were kind—too kind for this place.
“I’m Mira,” she said with a faint smile. “I’ll be your personal attendant while you're here. You can call me for anything you need.”
She looked me up and down, her expression unreadable. “I’ll wait while you get ready.”
---
The breakfast room was located in the east wing, past a winding corridor filled with floor-to-ceiling windows and stone archways. The hallway was beautiful—regal, in a dark fairytale kind of way—but it felt cold. Every step echoed like it didn’t belong to me.
Kael was already seated when we arrived.
He didn’t rise when I entered. Didn’t greet me. Just motioned silently to the chair across from him.
I sat.
A servant—silent as a shadow—brought steaming plates of food: toast, eggs, fruit, strips of bacon, a carafe of coffee. It all smelled wonderful, but my stomach turned. I didn’t want to eat in front of him. I didn’t want to do anything in front of him.
But I forced myself to take a bite.
I didn’t want to look weak.
Kael didn’t speak until I was halfway through my plate.
“You didn’t try to run.”
I stiffened.
I looked up slowly. “Should I have?”
He shrugged. “Most do.”
I placed my fork down. “Do you punish them when they do?”
His lips twitched—whether from amusement or irritation, I couldn’t tell. “Only if they’re foolish enough to get caught.”
I couldn’t decide if it was a warning… or a challenge.
---
Breakfast was short. Tense. The silence between us stretched longer than the sentences we exchanged. I studied him across the table, trying to read anything from the slight twitch in his jaw, the way his hands curled around the cup.
He was unreadable. Like a statue carved in shadow.
I broke the silence.
“Why me?”
His brow rose faintly. “You were part of the deal.”
“That’s not a real answer.”
“It’s the only one that matters.”
My throat tightened. “There are plenty of unmated she-wolves in your pack. Stronger. Prettier. Ones that actually want you. Why not pick one of them?”
“They’re not you.”
I blinked. “You don’t even know me.”
His eyes gleamed. “I don’t need to.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. His words felt like a key turning in a lock I didn’t know existed. Something unspoken lingered in the air—something he wasn’t telling me.
I pushed my plate away. I’d lost my appetite.
---
Later that day, Mira gave me a tour of the manor.
If I thought the house was large before, I had no idea just how massive the Blackfang estate truly was. It wasn’t a home—it was a stronghold. Centuries old, with high vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows, and long corridors lined with ancient tapestries and weapons mounted on stone walls.
There was a library filled with leather-bound tomes. A greenhouse that looked abandoned, overgrown with frost-touched vines. An indoor training arena, where wolves sparred under the watchful eye of Blackfang warriors.
“The greenhouse belonged to his mother,” Mira said as we paused outside the glass doors. “She died when Alpha Kael was sixteen. She loved orchids.”
I stared at the wilted white blooms inside the glass structure, the air too cold now to sustain them.
“She was his heart,” Mira added softly.
And just like that, the image of Kael shifted in my mind—slightly. No longer just the cold, scarred Alpha. But a boy once broken by loss.
Still, I told myself not to fall for it.
Not to fall for him.
He may have been that boy once… but now he was the man who owned me.
---
That night, I couldn’t sleep again.
I tossed and turned, my skin itchy with tension I couldn’t shake. When I finally drifted off, I slipped into a dream that didn’t feel like a dream at all.
I was in the forest. The trees were tall, blackened silhouettes. The wind howled like wolves crying for blood.
I was running—barefoot, bleeding, gasping.
Branches tore at my nightgown, thorns ripped my ankles. But I couldn’t stop.
Something was chasing me.
No—not something.
Someone.
A bond tugged at me like a leash. Invisible, but burning. I could feel it, twisting under my skin, pulling me toward something I couldn’t see.
And then… I stumbled into a clearing.
He was there.
Kael.
Naked, but not human.
He stood tall, his chest bare, his arms streaked with blood. His eyes glowed silver under the moonlight. But his mouth—
His mouth was wrong.
It opened wide, revealing rows of fangs too long, too sharp—inhuman.
He lunged.
---
I woke up gasping.
My sheets were drenched in sweat. My heart thundered in my chest.
The burn in my neck—the place where a mating mark would go—ached.
But there was no mark.
Just phantom pain.
I needed air.
I wrapped a shawl around my shoulders and slipped into the hallway. The manor was silent, but not peaceful. It watched me, every creak of the floorboards echoing through the walls like a secret.
I made my way to the library.
Mira said I was free to read there any time I wanted.
Maybe I could lose myself in a story that didn’t involve monsters. Maybe I could forget, just for a little while, that I was a prisoner in velvet.
But when I opened the library doors, I froze.
Kael was already there.
Seated by the fire.
Reading.
He didn’t look up right away, but when he did, he didn’t seem surprised.
“Can’t sleep?”
“No,” I whispered, stepping into the room.
“Nightmares?”
I hesitated. “How did you—?”
He closed the book. “You’re bonded to me, Lira. Even if it’s not complete yet… I can feel it. Your fear.”
I stood there, stunned.
“You felt it?”
“No,” he said. “But I knew it. Like a shadow. Like something crawling under my skin.”
He rose from the chair, the firelight casting sharp lines across his face. He walked toward me slowly, deliberately.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said quietly.
“You already did,” I whispered, voice cracking.
He stopped inches in front of me.
“You think I chose this?”
“I think you benefit from it.”
His mouth curved—not in a smile, but something bitter. Broken.
“And if I told you I hated this just as much as you do?”
“I’d say you hide it well.”
We stood in silence.
The tension between us wasn’t just heavy—it was electric.
Finally, he said, “I was cursed long before you ever entered this house, Lira.”
He stepped closer.
“You just happened to be the only one foolish enough to walk into it.”
And then he left.
Leaving me alone in the firelight.
Alone with the ghosts.
Alone with the monster in the mirror.
---
- Writer
