Scarlett’s POV
My eyes widened in pure terror. My heart, which had only just begun to slow its frantic pace, kicked back into a desperate gallop. I stood there shivering and naked, slick with Leo’s scent and the heat of his release, while another brother stood just inches away on the other side of that thin wooden door.
Leo stiffened instantly, his hand freezing on the brass knob. His muscles corded with sudden tension, and for a fleeting second, I saw a flash of sothing akin to panic in his eyes before it was replaced by a gaze of cold, murderous steel. He looked ready to kill Leon if he dared to step through that door.
But before the handle could click open, a sharp, familiar voice cut through the silence of the hallway.
"Leon? What the hell are you doing at Scarlett’s door?"
It was Lana. My heart skipped a beat.
"Lana, mind your fucking business and get back to the main house," Leon’s voice bood, thick with a suppressed, guttural growl. He sounded beyond pissed off.
"No," Lana snapped, her voice rising in defiance. "I know what you three are like. She’s exhausted and she’s had enough for one night. If you don’t leave this hallway this instant, I will scream and alert the entire pack. I’ll make sure Father knows exactly which of his sons is prowling the servants’ quarters like a dog in heat."
A heavy, suffocating silence followed. I held my breath, clutching the edges of my ruined dress against my chest, praying fervently to the Moon Goddess. Finally, there was a low, frustrated growl and the sound of heavy boots retreating down the corridor.
Lana lingered for a mont, her voice softening. "Scarlett? Are you okay in there?"
I couldn’t speak. I looked at Leo, my eyes pleading for help. He stared back at , his expression shifting from that of a tensed predator to sothing utterly chilling and detached.
"I’m fine, Lana," I finally managed to croak out, my throat feeling raw, as if I’d been screaming for hours. "Just... just going to sleep."
I was paralyzed with fear—terrified that she would sohow perceive Leo’s overwhelming presence in my room.
"Okay," she whispered, her footsteps finally fading into the distance.
The room felt ice-cold the mont we were truly alone again. Leo didn’t move toward . He didn’t offer a cloak to cover my sha or a single kind word to steady my nerves. He looked at —at my torn clothes, my wild hair, and the marks he had just branded onto my skin—with a look of total, clinical blankness. There was no warmth left, no trace of the man who had just worshiped my body with such ferocity.
He looked at like I was a mistake. Like I was a whore.
"Don’t forget what I said," he stated, his voice as flat and sharp as a blade. "This stays between us."
He didn’t look back. He opened the door just a crack, scanned the hall with a soldier’s precision, and vanished into the shadows, leaving shivering and broken on the floor.
I sank to my knees as the reality of my situation crashed down upon . I was a virgin whose first kiss had been stolen by one brother, and whose body had been claid by the other two. I stayed on the floor for a long ti, my skin prickling from the drafty air and the fading heat of Leo’s touch. The sll of him—dark chocolate, musk, and that heavy, territorial alpha scent—was everywhere. It was in my hair, on my thighs, and lingering deep inside my throat.
With shaking hands, I forced myself to stand. I moved like an aged woman, my muscles aching and my core throbbing with a dull, insistent heat. I reached for the washbasin, pouring the remaining cold water over a rag.
I scrubbed.
I scrubbed my neck where his mouth had been, my breasts where he had marked , and between my legs where his fingers had stretched my virginal walls. I wanted to wash him away. I wanted to wash Liam away. I wanted to wash Leon away. I wanted to erase the feeling of being a prize they fought over in the dark. But as much as I cleaned my skin, I couldn’t scrub away the mory of how my own body had betrayed —how I had arched into the "monster" and begged for more.
Once I was shivering from the freezing water, I pulled on a thin, tattered nightgown and crawled into my small cot.
The bed felt too big, the room too quiet. My body was still throbbing, a constant reminder of my sha. Every ti I closed my eyes, I saw his sea-blue ones staring at through the cracked mirror.
I stared at the ceiling, thinking of two days from now: my twentieth birthday.
In the werewolf world, it was one of the most important days of a girl’s life. It was the day I would have my last chance to shift and find my wolf. But for , it felt like a death sentence. Most girls prayed for a strong wolf and a high-ranking mate; I just prayed for invisibility.
If I was lucky, my wolf would be small and quiet. But the thought of the mate bond terrified . Who would the Moon Goddess pair with a girl like ? No one would want to be mated to a servant whose parents were branded as traitors. Even the lowest-ranking ogas would probably reject to save their own reputations.
The thought of being rejected—of feeling that soul-crushing pain on top of everything else—made a fresh sob catch in my throat. I was already a disgraced outcast. To be a rejected mate would be the final blow.
I curled into a ball, clutching the pillow to my chest. I didn’t know how I was going to face them tomorrow. Leon’s command to be in his room every night hung over like a shadow. Liam’s jealous rage was a ticking ti bomb. And Leo... Leo was perhaps the most dangerous of all, because he had just turned my darkest fantasies into a reality I couldn’t escape.
I finally drifted into a fitful sleep, dreaming of three sets of predatory eyes watching from the dark.
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