Chapter Six – The Dinner Table
1175 Words
Aurora Haye’s POV
I wasn’t hungry. My stomach was too knotted to want food, but Damien didn’t ask. He ordered. Like he owned my appetite the way he owned the penthouse air.
“Change into this.” His voice had been flat, giving me a dress laid out on the bed—black silk, sleeveless, something I would never pick for myself. “Dinner is in an hour.”
Dinner. With who? I didn’t ask. The way he looked at me said questions had limits.
So I wore the dress. My hair stayed damp from the shower, my nerves raw. When his butler… yes, he had an actual butler, led me into the dining room, I thought maybe it would be just him and me.
It wasn’t.
The table was long, gleaming dark wood, lit by a chandelier that spilled golden light like fire over polished glass. Damien sat at the head, broad-shouldered, leaning back in his chair as though gravity owed him something. And on either side of him… strangers.
A woman in crimson silk with lips that matched, her eyes like knives that found me instantly. Two men in tailored suits, one old enough to be my father, the other young with a cruel smile. At the far end, a man with scars tracing the side of his face, silent, his stare colder than Damien’s.
The air was heavy. Not with perfume, but with money and something sharper: power, like ozone before lightning.
Damien’s gaze cut through the room when I entered. He didn’t smile. He just… looked. Like he was daring me to falter in front of his audience.
“Miss Haye.” His tone slid across the table, calm and commanding. “You’re late.”
I wasn’t. Not really. But I felt the heat in my cheeks as I lowered myself into the empty chair beside him. Every set of eyes followed me.
No one spoke at first. The silence had weight. Then the woman in red tilted her head, her voice smooth and dangerous.
“So this is the girl?”
The girl. Not my name. Not my presence. Just… the girl.
Damien’s fork scraped his plate once. “She has a name.”
“Then enlighten us.” The woman smiled, sharp as glass.
His eyes flicked to me. “Aurora Haye.”
The young man with the cruel smile leaned forward. “Pretty. Not what I expected. I thought you’d have gone for someone…” He stopped, smirking. “Stronger.”
Laughter murmured around the table, except from Damien. His jaw ticked once, almost invisible.
I wanted to shrink. I wanted to get up and walk out, but I couldn’t. His presence pinned me to the chair more than any physical hand could.
The butler poured wine. Red, rich, and too bitter when it hit my tongue. My fingers trembled slightly around the glass, and the scarred man noticed. His stare pressed into me like a question.
“Do you even know what table you’re sitting at?” he asked. His voice was gravelly, low, and accusing.
My throat tightened. No. Of course I didn’t. I hadn’t asked because I hadn’t been given the choice.
But Damien answered for me, calm, almost amused. “She knows enough.”
The woman in red gave a soft laugh. “Does she, Damien? Or are you just enjoying watching her squirm?”
Heat crawled up my neck. My chest ached with the need to breathe evenly. My fork felt like a weapon, small and pathetic against the sharpness of their gazes.
Damien’s voice cut through again, low but final: “She’s under my protection.”
The table stilled. Even the air seemed to pause. Protection. Like I was property. Like my worth was tied to the shield of his name.
My mother’s warning burned in my skull: Trust no one. Especially not Damien Voss.
The older man chuckled into his glass. “Protection is expensive, Voss. Especially for someone so… delicate.” His eyes slid over me in a way that made my skin crawl.
Something in Damien shifted. He didn’t move, didn’t raise his voice, but when he spoke, the room changed.
“Finish that thought, and you won’t leave this table.”
Silence slammed down again. My pulse skittered.
The man laughed lightly, brushing it off, but I caught the way his hand trembled when he lifted his fork.
I sat frozen, every nerve screaming. I didn’t know who these people were, but I knew enough: they weren’t friends. They weren’t family. They were wolves circling the same piece of meat.
And tonight, I was in the middle of it.
The woman in red leaned closer, ignoring the tension. “Tell me, Aurora. Do you know what Damien does?”
My heart tripped. I thought of the chest. The letter. The warning. My voice scraped out, fragile but stubborn. “He… makes deals.”
Her smile widened, wicked. “Oh, sweetheart. He does more than that.”
Damien’s hand brushed mine under the table. Not soft. Not gentle. Just a warning: don’t speak again.
I yanked my hand back, glaring at him. His lips barely twitched. He liked that I fought him, even here.
Dinner blurred after that… silver cutlery, half-words, glances that sliced deeper than the food. I couldn’t taste anything. My mind spun with questions I couldn’t ask and answers I wasn’t ready to hear.
When the plates were cleared, Damien finally stood. The table quieted instantly, like the king had risen. He didn’t look at anyone but me.
“Walk with me.”
It wasn’t a request.
I stood on shaky legs, following him out into the dark hallway. The moment the dining room door clicked shut, my voice cracked out, raw: “What the hell was that?”
He stopped, turning slowly. His eyes caught the dim light, cold steel. “That, Aurora, was a warning.”
“From them? Or from you?”
He stepped closer. Too close. His cologne, sharp and expensive, filled my lungs. His hand lifted—not to touch me, but to brush a loose strand of hair back, deliberate, claiming space.
“Both.” His whisper lingered at my ear. “Now you’ve seen the table, you can’t pretend you’re not in this world.”
I shook my head, my voice breaking. “I didn’t ask for this.”
“No one asks.” His gaze dropped to my lips for a second, brief but dangerous. “But once you’re inside… there’s no walking away.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to shove him. Instead, I just stood there, trembling, caught between fury and something else I refused to name.
His eyes softened, just for a heartbeat. “Eat, sleep, survive. That’s all you need to do. For now.”
Then he walked away, leaving me stranded in the hallway, my pulse thundering and my stomach still empty.
And I realized—dinner wasn’t about food. It was about showing me exactly how much danger I was in.
- Writer
