Chapter 8: What Monsters Are Made Of
702 Words
Kai’s POV
He hadn’t closed his eyes once.
Not because he couldn’t sleep — he had learned to sleep through worse. War councils. Blood feasts. Nights soaked in whiskey and regret. But this… this was different.
This was a silence that wanted to be listened to.
She lay across the room in his bed, barely breathing. He could hear it, even over the fire — the quiet rise and fall, the way it sometimes hitched like she was still holding something back, even in sleep.
Or maybe not sleep. Maybe just pretending.
He wouldn’t blame her.
She had no reason to trust him. No reason to believe that his words—“Not unless you ask me to”—were anything more than a lie wrapped in silk. He wouldn’t have believed it either.
But gods help him, he meant it.
He hadn’t expected that.
Hadn’t expected her.
Kai shifted slightly, elbow propped on the armrest, eyes still locked on the fire. The glow played against the stone walls, but he didn’t see the room. He saw her. Kneeling. Trembling. Silent, but not broken. Never broken.
They had oiled her like property. Paraded her like meat.
But she had still stared forward with those wide, unblinking eyes — like she could disappear into herself if she just stopped reacting long enough. Like her silence was her last shield.
He hadn’t touched her.
Didn’t need to.
He’d felt it the moment her skin brushed his fingers as she took the robe. The heat. The spark. The restraint.
And now it lived in the space between them.
It wrapped around his ribs like a chain he’d put there himself.
Kai leaned his head back. Let the firelight flicker across his closed lids. But the image of her came anyway.
The way her hair had clung to her shoulders, still damp from the handlers. The way she’d flinched when the door closed — like she thought she might still be punished for existing. The way she’d looked at the bed as if it were a trap.
It should have been.
It was supposed to be.
That was what this room was for. The Alpha’s chamber. His prize. His right.
But then she stepped into it, and suddenly it didn’t feel like a room anymore.
It felt like a test.
A test he was barely passing.
He clenched his jaw, hand twitching slightly on his chest.
He could take her.
She was his.
Bought. Marked. Technically unclaimed, but that was paperwork. Tradition. Formalities for an audience he didn’t care about.
But that wasn’t the point.
The point was: she hadn’t asked.
And that meant she still had something no one else had taken from her.
Choice.
Even if she didn’t know it yet.
Even if it killed him to wait.
He turned his head toward her — slowly, quietly — eyes adjusting to the shadows. The fire had dimmed now, casting soft gold light across her profile. She was curled on her side, blanket tucked tight to her chin, lips parted slightly in sleep.
She looked smaller in the bed.
But not fragile.
He didn’t know how to explain it — not even to himself — but there was something solid beneath all that fear. A quiet steel under the bruises and silk. She didn’t cry. Not once. Not when she was dragged onto that stage. Not when the bids turned vulgar. Not even when he offered her mercy.
That silence…
It undid him.
He sat up slowly, feet hitting the rug without a sound.
He didn’t move toward her.
Didn’t dare.
Instead, he poured a glass of water from the jug near the hearth and sipped it to steady his hands. Then placed it on the table beside the bed — just close enough for her to see it if she woke.
He watched her for a moment longer.
The blanket rose with her breath. Her lashes fluttered against her cheek.
And then, quietly, he turned away again.
Back to the couch. Back to the cold.
But long after the fire turned to embers, he lay awake—
Haunted not by what he had seen…
But by what he hadn’t let himself touch.
- Writer
