Chapter 6
1578 Words
LENA’S POV
The SUV moved through like a shadow, gliding past glittering skyscrapers and into districts where the lights grew fewer and the buildings grew older, their silhouettes sharper against the bruised night sky. We were leaving the city behind, heading toward the mountains that loomed like sleeping giants in the distance.
I didn’t speak. I focused on the passing scenery, memorizing turns, counting streetlights, anything to keep the panic at bay. Cassian Thorn was a silent, oppressive presence beside me. He hadn’t touched me again, but I felt the weight of his gaze.
My mind was a storm. Omega. Sale house. Brother. The words swirled with the image of Sienna’s smirk from the top of the stairs, Leo’s cold eyes, and the doctor’s blank face as he told me I was empty.
A fresh wave of grief threatened to drown me, but I swallowed it down, hard. Grief was a pit that would swallow me whole if I let it. Right now, I needed rage. I clung to the image of Leo’s face when I finally made him pay. It was the only thing that kept me from screaming.
After what felt like an eternity, the SUV slowed. We passed through imposing, wrought-iron gates that swung open silently, revealing a long, tree-lined driveway. At the end of it stood a house.
It wasn’t a house. It was a fortress.
Modern and severe, all sharp angles, dark stone, and glass. It looked less like a home and more like a predator crouched in the woods, waiting. Lights blazed from within, doing little to soften its imposing silhouette.
“Welcome to Solaris Keep,” Cassian said, his voice slicing through the tense silence. “Try not to embarrass yourself.”
The vehicle came to a stop. Before I could move, Cassian was out, circling to my door and yanking it open. He didn’t offer a hand. He just waited, his expression unreadable.
I climbed out, my legs stiff and shaky. The air here was different crisper, colder, and thick with the scent of pine and something else, something wild and electric that prickled against my skin.
The front door of the Keep opened before we reached it.
Another man stood framed in the light.
My breath caught.
He was Cassian’s mirror and his opposite. The same towering height, the same powerful build, the same sharp, impossibly handsome features. But where Cassian’s beauty was all sleek, predatory charm, this man’s was raw and untamed. His hair was the same dark shade, but longer, falling slightly over a forehead marked by a faint, severe frown. His eyes weren’t gold; they were a burning, fierce amber. And they were fixed on me with an intensity that felt like a brand.
The resemblance was unmistakable. The brother.
Cassian stopped a few feet from him, a tense, silent communication passing between them. The air crackled, not with brotherly affection, but with a rivalry so potent I could taste it—metallic, like blood on the wind.
“Ares,” Cassian said, a hint of mockery in his tone. “I brought your new toy.”
Ares Thorn’s amber eyes never left my face. He looked me over with a dispassionate, assessing gaze, as if evaluating livestock. The heat I’d felt from Cassian’s touch was absent here; this was pure, glacial cold.
“She’s smaller than I expected,” Ares said, his voice a deep, gravelly rumble that vibrated in my bones. “And she looks half-dead already.”
Indignation burned through my fear. “I’m right here,” I said, my voice surprisingly steady. “And I’m not a toy.”
Ares’s gaze finally snapped to mine, and for a second, the amber seemed to flare. A jolt, strange and unwelcome, shot straight through my core. I took an involuntary step back.
A slow, cruel smile touched his lips. “She speaks. Good. It’ll make breaking her more interesting.”
Breaking. The word echoed in the vast entrance hall. It was all marble floors, dark wood, and stark modern art—a space meant to intimidate.
“Take her to the Omega wing,” Ares commanded, turning away as if already bored. “Let her get acquainted with her new… accommodations.”
“With pleasure,” Cassian purred, his hand closing around my upper arm again.
“Wait,” I said, digging my heels in. Both brothers paused. “Why am I here? What do you want with me?”
Ares turned back, his expression utterly closed. “You’re here because we paid for you. What we want is none of your concern. Your only concern is obedience.”
“I’m not an Omega,” I insisted, the lie tasting bitter. I still didn’t fully understand what it meant, but the way they said it made it clear it was the bottom of the barrel.
Cassian laughed, a short, humorless sound. “Your scent says otherwise, little one. Weak. Faint. Pleading.” He leaned closer, his breath warm against my ear. “But don’t worry. We have ways of drawing out what’s hidden. Whether you want it or not.”
Terror, cold and slick, coiled in my stomach. Before I could respond, Cassian was pulling me away, down a side corridor that was less ornate but no less imposing.
We passed closed doors, our footsteps echoing. Finally, he stopped at a heavy wooden door at the end of a hall, unlocked it with a key from his pocket, and shoved me inside.
The room was not a cell. That was almost worse.
It was beautifully, impersonally furnished. A large bed with silken sheets, a plush rug, a wardrobe, even a small attached bathroom. It looked like a luxury hotel suite. But the window, I noticed immediately, was barred with elegant but unmistakable wrought iron. And the door Cassian now stood in had a heavy, modern lock.
“Get cleaned up,” he said, his eyes raking over my disheveled clothes and tear-streaked face with distaste. “Someone will bring you something to wear. You’ll be presented to the Pack tonight.”
“Presented?” I echoed, dread pooling in my gut.
“As our newest acquisition.” His smirk returned. “Try to make us look good. Or don’t. I enjoy a good spectacle.”
With that, he left, locking the door behind him with a definitive click.
The silence that followed was deafening.
I stood in the middle of the beautiful cage, shaking. I walked to the window, gripping the cold bars. The view was of a dark, sprawling forest under a moonless sky. Escape was a fantasy. I was weak, confused, and trapped in the heart of a world I didn’t understand.
I slid down the wall to the floor, drawing my knees to my chest. The numbness was returning, threatening to pull me under. I thought of my baby. Of the life that was supposed to be growing inside me. A fresh, sharp pain lanced through me.
No.
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes until I saw stars. I could not break here. Not in this place. Leo and Sienna were out there, living their lives, believing they had won. They had taken my past and my future in one cruel swoop.
But I was still here.
These Thorns, with their golden eyes and their talk of breaking me… they were powerful. Terrifyingly so. They lived in shadows and had money that made Leo look middle-class. They were a different kind of monster.
A dangerous, reckless thought began to form in the ashes of my grief.
If I couldn’t escape them yet… perhaps I could use them.
They wanted to break an Omega? Fine. Let them try. But while they were focused on taming me, maybe I could learn their secrets. Steal their power. Turn their weapons into my own.
The rage crystallized, hardening into a cold, sharp resolve.
I would play their game. I would survive this “Omega wing,” whatever it was. I would endure their presentations and their punishments.
And I would find a way to make the Thorn brothers regret the day they bought Lena Hart.
A soft knock at the door startled me. A young woman with downcast eyes slipped in, carrying a bundle of folded fabric. She placed it on the bed a simple, long dress of dark blue silk and scurried out without a word.
I looked at the dress, then back at the barred window.
Alright, I thought, rising to my feet. My reflection in the dark glass was pale and haunted, but my hazel eyes held a new, faint glint. A spark in the depths.
Let’s begin.
I went to wash the auction house from my skin, ready to face the wolves in their den.
- Writer
