A cage is still a cage, even with better walls.
004.
Seyra walked into her cramped-up room in the house, and the last thing her father said echoed in her head.
"Go and pack your things."
She laughed, her eyes filling with tears. "Pack my things?" she asked.
There was nothing to pack.
Seyra looked around the room. It was small, the walls bare except for a mirror with a crack running down one corner.
There was a narrow bed, a wooden stool, and a chest she kept her few clothes in. Nothing on the walls belonged to her by choice. Nothing in this room had ever been a gift.
Not since she turned fifteen and started volunteering at the pup shelter to earn her own coin, because she had learned early that if she wanted something, she would have to buy it herself.
Her parents never bought her anything. Not a dress, not a trinket, not even a birthday gift when the rest of the pack celebrated their daughters turning sixteen with feasts and new clothes.
She had worked for every single thing she owned in this room, and even then, it still wasn’t much.
She looked down at the blue satin gown she was still wearing, the one she had saved all summer for.
She had wanted to look beautiful for Cassiel. She ended up being labeled a fool instead.
And maybe... they were right.
She had actually seen the signs, but she chose to ignore them.
Who was she that the Beta’s son would leave Astrid and fall in love with her? How delusional she had been.
Seyra slid to the floor and cried.
She let herself cry harder than she had all day, harder than she had let herself cry in front of anyone.
There was no one here to see her fall apart, no one to mock her for it. So she let it out. Every slap, every insult, every moment she’d swallowed her pain just to keep breathing, they all came down in tears.
When there was nothing left to cry out, she wiped her face and stood.
She picked up her journal from the chest and held it against her chest. This was the only thing worth taking from this house. Here, she had written her thoughts, her plans, and her dreams.
She slid out of the blue gown, threw it aside, and wore black pants and a sweatshirt instead.
She was going to leave her past behind—the girl who had begged for love and got nothing in return.
She stepped out of the room without a second glance at it.
The guards were already waiting by the door with her parents and Astrid standing beside them. Astrid looked her up and down, her lips curling.
"Look at her. Not even a bag. I bet the Alpha will throw a dagger at your heart the moment he sees how pathetic you look."
Seyra said nothing. She walked past her sister and climbed into the black SUV waiting outside.
Astrid huffed, crossing her arms as she watched the guards shut the door behind Seyra. "Ugh! She gets taken away in an SUV? That’s not fair. I want a car too, Father."
"Of course," Bruce said, not even hesitating. "I’ll buy you one."
Seyra smiled sadly from inside the vehicle, watching the exchange through the window.
He didn’t have money to repay the debt he owed the Alpha. But he had money for a car for Astrid.
Something in her chest went cold and still.
He had the money.
He had always had the money.
They just wanted to get rid of her.
Seyra smirked, the realization settling over her like ice water. Fine. The feeling was mutual.
The SUV pulled away from the only home she had ever known, and she didn’t look back once.
They arrived at the palace by dawn.
Seyra pressed her face to the window as the SUV slowed at the gates, and her breath caught in her throat.
She had imagined many things about the Alpha’s palace.
She had imagined something dark and crumbling, a place that matched the whispered stories of the monster who lived inside it. What she saw instead nearly stole the air from her lungs.
The palace stretched high into the sky, its stone walls dark as midnight, towers rising like they meant to touch the clouds themselves.
Ancient trees lined the path leading to the entrance, their branches twisted in ways that looked almost deliberate, like they had grown to guard the place rather than simply exist beside it.
She had never seen anything like it. Nothing in Harlow Hades came close.
The gates groaned open, and the SUV rolled through slowly, gravel crunching beneath the tires.
The air changed the moment they passed the threshold.
It grew colder and sharper, pressing against her skin in a way that made the small hairs on her arms rise. It wasn’t the kind of cold that came from wind or weather. It felt alive, heavy, like something ancient was breathing just beneath the surface of the world around her.
Seyra swallowed hard.
If this was what the air outside the palace felt like, she didn’t want to imagine what waited for her inside it.
This had to be him.
The Alpha.
His presence pressed into everything, into the stone, into the trees, into the very air she was forced to breathe now.
The car came to a slow stop in front of the entrance, and the guards stepped out first, pulling the door open for her.
Seyra stared up at the palace towering above her, her journal held tightly against her chest.
There was no turning back now.
"Follow me," one of the guards at the entrance grunted, his face twisted in disgust at the sight of her.
Seyra almost rolled her eyes. The guards who came to pick her up were nicer. They may not have spoken to her all through the drive, but at least they didn’t look at her like a tin stuck under their shoe.
She followed the guard inside, and the moment she stepped through the doors, the presence around her grew stronger.
For a weak omega like her, it felt like it wanted to bring her to her knees. She held herself still, forcing her spine straight even as her legs threatened to give out beneath her.
She was led down a long hallway toward what she assumed was the throne room.
Beta Magnus was already there, seated like he owned the place. He gestured for the guards to sit her down, and they did, pushing her gently into a chair across from him.
He didn’t waste time on pleasantries. He went straight to business.
"Rules here are simple," he began, his bored gaze meeting hers. "No speaking unless spoken to. No wandering beyond the south wing halls. No questions about the Alpha, his past, or his face."
Seyra nodded.
"You will be cleaned up and brought before the Alpha. After he sees you," Magnus said, his voice flat, "he will decide your fate."
Seyra’s throat bobbed.
"Death. Maid duty. Or his pleasure," he said it like he was reading off a grocery list. "Whichever he chooses, you will accept it."
Seyra opened her mouth, something rising in her chest that wanted to argue, to object, to demand a say in her own life for once.
Magnus raised a hand before she could speak.
"Since you have no objections," he said, "I’ll let you go."
He snapped his fingers, and the doors behind her opened.
Three maids walked in, dressed in gold and black uniforms that made them look like they belonged to the palace itself. Magnus waved a hand toward Seyra.
"Prepare her for the Alpha."
The maids led her out of the throne room and down another hallway, into a room filled with mirrors and steam. They stripped her, washed her, and worked through her hair while they talked among themselves like she wasn’t there.
"Remember the girl from three months ago?" one of them whispered to another. "She never came back."
"And the one before her became a maid. Poor thing still flinches whenever a door slams."
Seyra listened, her stomach twisting tighter with every word.
"He’s terrifying," the first maid added, lowering her voice further. "I heard he once tore a man apart for looking at him wrong."
Seyra couldn’t help the fear crawling up her spine.
The third maid, who had been quiet through most of it, finally spoke. She didn’t look at Seyra when she said it.
"Rejected, weak, ugly wolves like her usually get the worst of it."
Seyra knew exactly where this was headed. She said nothing.
The maids finished dressing her in a long white evening gown, the fabric cool and unfamiliar against her skin. They let her silver hair fall in loose waves down her back.
When they were done, one of them rang a small bell, and moments later, a guard appeared to collect her.
Seyra hated the way the two kinder maids looked at her on her way out. Like she was being walked to a slaughterhouse.
And she couldn’t shake the fear that she might not make it out alive.
Did she make a bad decision by choosing the Alpha?