CHAPTER THIRTEEN
1603 Words
The air in the servant’s hallway thickened with dusk.
Supper had been cleared. The plates washed. The stone floors mopped. Every pot and pan scrubbed until they no longer shimmered but dulled from overuse. River’s fingers were pruned from hot water, and her arms ached from hours of scrubbing. A thread had come loose from her borrowed apron, tickling her hip with every step.
She walked slowly down the corridor, the click of her shoes muffled by worn rugs. She didn’t know if she was returning to a place she belonged or to one she merely survived in.
At the end of the hallway, the thin curtains that separated their sleeping quarters flapped slightly in the breeze leaking through a cracked window.
The laughter started before she reached the door.
It was faint at first, then louder as she got closer—high-pitched, biting. Not the good kind. Never the good kind.
“She probably still thinks he cares,” came a voice—Tasha’s, unmistakably.
“She’s not even pretty,” another said.
“Ryker probably picked her out of pity. Poor little omega with nowhere else to go.”
River paused with her hand on the doorframe. Her pulse thrummed in her ears.
It wasn’t the words that hurt—it was the way they laughed after, like she was some joke scribbled at the bottom of the page.
She stepped inside.
The laughter didn’t stop.
Tasha was perched cross-legged on her cot, brushing her hair lazily. The redhead—Mel—was polishing her boots. A third girl, Lena, sat with her back against the wall, chewing gum she must have stolen from the supply cabinet.
Tasha looked up.
“Oh,” she said with mock surprise, “look who decided to join the commoners.”
River didn’t speak. She crossed the room slowly, head down, fingers clenched tightly around her folded apron.
“Don’t worry,” Mel added. “We kept your bed cold for you. Wouldn’t want Ryker’s pet to get too warm.”
“I’m not—” River started, voice hoarse.
“You’re not what?” Tasha snapped, standing up suddenly. “His girl? His toy? His little puppet?”
River said nothing.
Tasha took a few slow steps closer, stopping inches away.
“You think because he picked you, it makes you special?”
River swallowed.
“I didn’t ask him to.”
“Oh, poor thing,” Tasha cooed, leaning forward mockingly. “You didn’t ask? But you didn’t say no, either. Did you?”
A silence stretched between them.
The other girls were watching, waiting, like wolves circling an injured deer.
River opened her mouth, but no words came.
Tasha scoffed. “You’re pathetic.”
And then, just as River blinked away the sting behind her eyes, a shadow moved outside the doorway.
A deep voice filled the hallway, smooth as silk, cold as steel.
“Tasha.”
Every head snapped toward the door.
Alpha Ryker stood just inside the threshold.
His presence stole the oxygen from the room.
The girls shrank back instinctively. Even Tasha’s jaw tightened.
Ryker stepped forward, each step controlled. Measured. His boots echoed ominously on the stone floor.
His bright blue eyes locked on River.
“You,” he said quietly. “Come with me.”
River’s heart stopped.
She didn’t move. Couldn’t.
“Now.”
She obeyed.
As she passed him, she could feel the burn of the other girls’ stares slicing across her skin like blades. Tasha’s smirk was gone, replaced with something tight and uncertain. Ryker didn’t spare them another glance. His focus was absolute—on River, and River alone.
They walked in silence down the hallway. Her legs shook with every step.
When they reached a side hallway near the west wing, Ryker paused.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked, voice low.
River blinked up at him.
“No,” she said quickly, too quickly.
Ryker’s gaze sharpened. “Don’t lie to me.”
River hesitated, then shook her head again. “They didn’t touch me.”
“They will,” he said simply.
She flinched.
“I’ll handle it.”
She should have felt grateful. She didn’t.
“Please don’t,” she whispered.
He turned to face her fully. “You’d rather I let them break you?”
“I don’t want to be a problem,” she said.
“You’re not the problem. They are.”
“I’m an omega,” she said quietly. “They won’t ever see me as anything else.”
Ryker’s gaze moved over her face—her tear-swollen eyes, her clenched jaw, the way she twisted her fingers nervously.
“You’re more than that.”
“No, I’m not,” she replied, voice cracking. “Not here.”
He reached out. Not to grab her. Just to touch—fingertips grazing her wrist. She tensed anyway.
“Do you hate me?” he asked suddenly.
She froze.
“What?”
“You look at me like you do.”
River’s heart pounded painfully. She pulled her wrist back.
“I don’t know what I feel,” she whispered.
Ryker’s face remained unreadable. “But you don’t want to be near me.”
“I don’t want to be owned,” she said.
A pause.
Then, Ryker’s expression changed—just slightly. A flicker of something close to pain.
“I never meant to make you feel like property.”
River almost laughed, but it came out bitter. “You bought me.”
“You were already sold before I stepped in. I took you because if I didn’t, someone worse would have.”
She looked up at him, eyes wide. “And that makes you better?”
Silence.
“I didn’t say that,” Ryker replied.
They stood in that long, stretching pause. River could feel something unraveling inside her—something tight that had lived in her chest for weeks.
“You kissed me,” she whispered, voice barely audible. “You killed someone. And then you kissed me.”
Ryker’s jaw clenched. “I protected you.”
“You murdered a man.”
“He would have hurt you.”
“You don’t even know me,” she said, eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “You think you do, but you don’t. I’m not who I was anymore. I’m not… anything.”
Ryker stepped closer.
“You’re River Bradley,” he said. “And you’re everything I think about, even when I know I shouldn’t.”
She swallowed hard.
“I don’t want to be a reason people get hurt.”
“You won’t be,” he said simply.
“How can you promise that?”
“Because I’ll destroy anyone who touches you.”
She flinched.
Ryker saw it. His voice softened—just barely.
“I don’t want to scare you.”
“Then stop being scary,” she said, too honestly.
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I don’t think I know how.”
They stared at each other. The cold air from the hallway brushed over them, but neither moved.
Finally, River broke the silence.
“Why me?”
Ryker blinked.
She tried again. “Why not someone stronger? Someone not… this.”
“You think I want strong?” he asked quietly. “Strength is easy to find. Cold. Hardened. Ruthless.”
He stepped closer.
“I want something I can protect. Something worth protecting.”
River turned her face away. “I don’t want to be your redemption story.”
“I’m not looking for redemption.”
“Then what are you looking for?”
He hesitated. Then said, quietly, “Peace.”
And for some reason, that answer made her eyes sting more than any cruel word had.
“I don’t know if I can give you that,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he slowly reached out and tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. She didn’t pull away this time. His fingers were warm, his touch gentle.
“I know what they say about me,” he murmured. “I know what you think.”
She looked up at him. “Do you?”
Ryker nodded. “That I’m cruel. Possessive. Dangerous.”
“You are,” she said honestly.
His gaze didn’t waver. “But I’m not going to let you suffer.”
River closed her eyes, letting that sink in.
It wasn’t love.
It wasn’t even safety.
But it was something.
“I should go,” she whispered.
“Wait.”
She opened her eyes.
Ryker reached into his coat and pulled out a thin wool blanket. Folded, clean. Soft.
“For your bed,” he said.
River stared at it.
“I had it brought up,” he added, as if it was nothing. As if the smallest gesture didn’t feel like the weight of the world on her tired shoulders.
She took it slowly. Their fingers brushed.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He nodded.
She turned to leave, but paused at the corner.
“Ryker?”
He glanced up.
“I don’t hate you.”
Then she slipped away.
The halls were quieter than before, her steps lighter than they'd been all day. When she reached the servants’ quarters again, the room was dim, filled with the soft breathing of girls already sleeping.
No one noticed her as she tiptoed to her cot.
She laid the blanket gently over her thin mattress, the warmth soaking in almost instantly.
And for the first time in weeks, she slept without dreaming of chains.
- Writer
