Testing Boundaries
1061 Words
Elle POV
When I came fully back to my senses, it wasn’t to Blake’s warmth.
It was to cold stone beneath me.
To the weight of restraints.
To the quiet hum of a room that didn’t belong to the palace.
My senses sharpened despite the blindness—the air smelled different here. Dust. Old magic. The faint echo of wind hitting stone walls thick enough to swallow sound.
Wherever he’d brought me…
it was isolated.
I shifted, barely, and the metal connecting my wrists to the collar rattled. My ankles were cuffed again too—looser than before, but enough to remind me that movement wasn’t mine to take freely.
He hadn’t removed anything.
Not even while I slept.
My stomach tightened.
He said this was for travel.
For secrecy.
For my own safety.
But every time I woke…
I was still bound.
A doll doesn’t need freedom.
His voice echoed in my skull, sharper than the chains.
I turned my head, listening. The room was large, judging by the way my soft breaths bounced back faintly. Each inhale tasted like distance—far from civilization, far from kingdoms, far from anything I could run to.
Far from help.
The door opened.
I stiffened.
His steps were unmistakable: heavy, controlled, quiet even when burdened. I smelled him before he reached me—embers, smoke, dragonfire simmering under skin.
He paused.
He always did, as if studying me in silence before he chose who he would be—the man or the monster.
“Little wolf,” he said lowly.
My throat tightened. “My prince.”
Metal scraped softly as he crouched. A warm hand brushed my shoulder, thumb tracing the line of the collar.
“You’re awake.” His voice carried that unnerving calm—the one that made me feel like he was deciding something. “Jason confirmed we were not followed.”
I nodded.
“Good.” A slight shift. “I will remove your ankle restraints.”
Relief fluttered for half a second. Then cold dread replaced it when he didn’t remove anything else.
My wrists stayed bound. The collar remained tight.
He unlocked my ankles, the cuffs dropping with a soft clink.
“You may sit,” he said, guiding me upright with careful hands.
Not gentle.
Not harsh.
Just… firm. Controlling.
I obeyed, legs folding beneath me awkwardly.
He adjusted the chain from my wrists to collar, shortening it slightly so my hands stayed higher, closer, more contained.
My lungs tightened with quiet panic.
“Why… why am I still like this?” I whispered.
A pause.
“A precaution,” he said, too easily.
“Against what?” I dared to ask.
Another pause—longer.
“Against everything.”
That wasn’t an answer.
Or maybe it was.
An answer I didn’t like.
He touched my cheek lightly with the back of his fingers. “You are not safe yet.”
Safe from what?
Safe from whom?
From the king?
The court?
Kaelis?
Or from him?
I swallowed carefully. “May I… walk? Explore a little?”
The silence that followed wasn’t silence.
It was steel.
It was chains tightening without a sound.
“No.”
Just that.
Firm. Final. Unmovable.
My pulse quickened. “Why?”
His hand slid to my jaw, holding my face still but not hurting me. “Because until I know what threats surround us, you do not leave my sight.”
But I couldn’t see anything anyway.
“I-I won’t run,” I lied, voice trembling.
The chain between us went taut—his hand moving up to the collar again.
“I know you won’t,” he murmured. “You can’t.”
The words wrapped around me like ice.
A reminder of what he had said to Jason.
She will never be free.
My breath shook. “My prince… I thought my contract—”
His thumb pressed lightly against the pulse at my throat. I felt the warning before he spoke.
“Your contract does not matter anymore.”
Cold. Heavy.
Absolute.
I lowered my head so he wouldn’t hear the fear in my breathing.
He lifted my chin anyway.
“I brought you here because it is safe,” he said. “But safety comes with restraints. With obedience.”
I forced myself not to yank away.
Not to tremble.
Not to show that my heart was fighting my ribs.
“I understand,” I whispered.
He exhaled softly, a sound almost like relief.
“I knew you would,” he murmured. “You’ve always listened.”
His fingers slid away—slowly, reluctantly—like he didn’t want to stop touching me.
“Once the fortress is secured,” he added, “I will give you more freedom.”
A promise.
Or a lie.
I couldn’t tell anymore.
“When… when can my blindness be healed?” I asked quietly.
His breath hitched.
Barely audible.
But I heard it.
“You’re not ready to see this place,” he said. “Or me.”
My stomach dropped. “Why not?”
He leaned closer. I felt his breath against my ear, warm and unsteady.
“Because you would try to run,” he whispered.
My blood chilled.
“And I cannot let you.”
My entire body went stiff.
He stood then, removing his hand from me as if he sensed he’d said too much.
“I will check the outer walls,” he said, voice calm once more. “Jason will guard the door. Rest.”
He left.
The lock clicked.
The moment he was gone, I pulled at the restraints—desperate, frantic little tugs.
They didn’t move.
My heart hammered in my chest.
He wasn’t punishing me.
He wasn’t angry.
He wasn’t testing.
He was preparing.
Preparing to keep me here.
Preparing to isolate me.
Preparing to hide me like something precious—
or something dangerous.
A doll.
A possession.
Not a person.
Not something he intended to ever release.
The fear that crept through me was sharp and suffocating.
Not of the dragon prince who touched me.
Not of the curse.
Not of the fortress.
But fear of understanding the truth:
Blake didn’t plan to free me.
Not tomorrow.
Not in three years.
Not ever.
And if I didn’t find a way out…
I would never see the sky again.
- Writer
