The first thing Ariella felt was the suffocating warmth of charcoal velvet duvet.
She opened her eyes, and the world didn’t come back in shades of rusted iron and gray mist. Instead, it was flooded with the sharp, clinical glow of a city at night. She was lying on a massive bed—king-sized, minimal, and smelling faintly of the same scent that haunted her dreams.
She sat up abruptly, a sharp ache throbbing at the base of her neck where Mina had struck her. Her golden-silver eyes scanned the room, and her breath hitched. This wasn’t the storage room at Black Ridge, and it certainly wasn’t the underground mine at Ironfang border.
The room was a masterpiece of modern, brutalist luxury. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls looked out over an extensive neon metropolis, the lights of the city flickering like fallen stars. The furniture was all sharp edges and expensive textures—dark oak, brushed steel, and slate-gray leather. It was a penthouse. A glass fortress in the heart of the urban city.
“You’re awake.”
The voice came from the shadows near the glass.
Grimshaw stood there, silhouetted against the neon skyline. He had traded his tactical gear for a crisp, black button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled back to reveal his powerful, scarred forearms. He was holding a glass of amber liquid, his eyes fixed on her with a predatory, unblinking intensity.
Ariella didn’t hesitate. She threw the velvet covers aside and was across the room in three strides. She didn’t care that she was only wearing a thin silk slip. She didn’t care that her knees were still weak.
She stopped inches from him, the heat radiating off her skin in a shimmer of metallic mist.
“I know,” she hissed, her voice vibrating with a rough, defiant fire. “I know who you are. The Ash-Walker. The Rogue. Stop the games, Grimshaw. Stop the lies.” This story is hosted at novelping dot com.
Grimshaw didn’t flinch. He didn’t even blink. He tilted his head slightly, the light from the city catching the sharp, handsome line of his jaw and the scar on his neck.
“Proof?” he asked.
The word was a low, melodic challenge—a mockery that made the silver spark in Ariella’s chest roar.
“Proof?” she screamed, her hand flying out to hit him squarely in the chest. “You’re a liar! I smelled your scent! I felt the Void! You stood in that tunnel and you told me we share a soul! Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I don’t know my own mate’s touch even through a mask?”
She hit him again, her fists pounding against his chest, but it was like hitting a wall of corded muscle and stone. Grimshaw didn’t move to stop her. He just stood there, letting her vent her rage, his eyes black with a dark, obsessive yearning. He looked at her like a man starving, watching her every movement with a hunger that was almost physical.
“Proof, Ariella,” he repeated, his voice dropping into a low, terrifyingly intimate rasp. “A scent? A feeling? The Council would call that a hallucination brought on by a late-onset heat. I’m an Alpha of a registered pack. The Ash-Walker is a ghost. You’re chasing shadows because you can’t handle the reality of the man who actually owns you.”
“You don’t own me!” she spat, her face inches from his.
Grimshaw’s hand shot out, his fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her head back. His Void energy surged, a cold, suffocating vacuum that met her Primal heat, grounding her instantly.
“I own the bed you sleep in,” he whispered, his lips grazing her ear. “I own the clothes on your back. And currently, I’m the only thing standing between you and a Council lobotomy. So, for the moment, little bird… you are very much mine.”
He released her, and Ariella stumbled back, her chest heaving. She looked around the room again, the reality of the change finally sinking in. “Where are we? Why aren’t we at the Spire?”
“The Spire is compromised,” Grimshaw said, walking to the sideboard to set down his glass. “The Huntsmen breach opened the Rift. The Fracture is crawling with rogues looking for the Ash-Walker’s head and Council scouts looking for yours. We’re in the city. Ironfang Tech Headquarters.”
He turned back to her, his expression turning clinical. “You have a life to finish, Ariella. I can’t keep making you miss classes. You’re going back to Mooncrest tomorrow. You’ll finish your degree. I have a company to run, and I can’t do it while I’m hunting rogue siphoners in a cave.” The source of this chapter is g.com.
Ariella looked at her wrist. A new weight was there.
It was a sleek, black smartwatch, but the band wasn’t plastic. It was made of the same conductive copper-iron alloy she’d seen on Silas’s stick. As her fingers touched it, the screen glowed to life, displaying a biometric feed that made her blood run cold.
Heart Rate: 112 bpm. Core Temp: 99.4°F. Status: Aroused/Bonded.
“You’re tracking my arousal?” she whispered, her voice trembling with fury.
“I’m tracking your safety,” Grimshaw corrected, though the dark, possessive smirk on his face said otherwise. “If your heart rate spikes, Silas will be there in thirty seconds. If your temperature rises… I’ll know exactly how much you’re thinking about me.”
“I hate you.”
“I know,” he murmured, walking toward the door. “But your pulse says you’re ready for breakfast. Elle is in the kitchen. Don’t be late for your Macroeconomics lecture.”
The door clicked shut, leaving her alone in the cold room. Her hands clenched into fists, nails digging into her palms. The audacity of him, to monitor her every biological function, to twist her natural responses into something predatory.
She felt like a specimen under a microscope, every flicker of emotion dissected and analyzed. The thought of breakfast, of facing Elle and pretending everything was normal, made her stomach churn.
But the mention of her Macroeconomics lecture, a class she genuinely enjoyed, offered a sliver of normalcy she desperately clung to.