Chapter 16
Elsa
The collar was lighter than she’d expected.
Elsa’s fingers brushed the silver circlet around her throat as they descended the fortress’s central staircase, the metal cool against her pulse.
Thin as a promise. Delicate as a threat.
It caught the blue light from the wall crystals and threw it back in fractured gleams that probably looked beautiful from a distance.
Up close, it felt like a brand.
Sylas walked beside her—not ahead, not behind, but beside, his bulk taking up most of the carved stone corridor.
His paw rested at the small of her back, claws pressing lightly through the formal gown they’d dressed her in.
Gray silk this time, the color of storm clouds, fitted tight through the bodice before flowing into layers that whispered against her ankles with every step.
She looked like something out of a fever dream. A human woman wrapped in alien finery, collared and claimed, walking toward a court full of creatures who wanted her studied or dead or worse.
Breathe. You’ve survived worse than a party.
Had she, though? The crash felt distant now—a memory of fire and fear that belonged to someone else. This slow dissolution of selfhood, this careful erosion of everything she’d been before Sylas decided she was his...that felt more dangerous than any impact.
“You’re quiet.” His voice rumbled low, pitched for her ears alone.
“I’m thinking.”
“About?”
About the taste of your tongue on my skin. About how I should hate you for what you did last night. About why I don’t.
“Navigation,” she lied. “Old habit. I’m mapping the route.”
His muzzle twitched. Not quite a smile. “Still planning escape routes that don’t exist?”
“Always.”
The corridor opened into a broader gallery, its vaulted ceiling lost in shadow.
More wolfmen here—guards stationed at intervals, their ears swiveling toward Sylas before pinning back in submission.
None of them looked at her directly. None of them had to.
She could feel their attention like heat against her skin, tracking the human in their Alpha King’s wake.
The collar suddenly felt heavier.
“The ceremony will last two hours,” Sylas said, guiding her around a corner into a passage she hadn’t seen before. “Formal declarations, tribute from the eastern villages, acknowledgment of the grid’s stabilization. You’ll stand beside my throne until I indicate otherwise.”
“Stand. Not sit.”
“Pets don’t sit on thrones.” His tone carried no apology. “You’ll be given a cushion at my feet. It’s more comfortable than it sounds.”
At his feet. Like an animal. Like property.
She’d known this was coming. He’d warned her. But knowing and experiencing were different beasts entirely, and the reality of it scraped raw against something she’d thought she’d already surrendered.
“And if I need to move? Stretch my legs?”
“You wait for permission.” His claws pressed fractionally harder against her spine. “Tonight is about demonstrating control. Mine over you. The court needs to see you’re handled. That I haven’t lost perspective by keeping you.”
“Have you?”
The question slipped out before she could stop it. Dangerous. Provocative. The kind of thing that had gotten her in trouble before.
Sylas’s stride didn’t falter, but something shifted in his posture. A tightening she’d learned to recognize.
“Probably.” The admission came out rough. “But that’s not their concern.”
They turned another corner, and Elsa’s attention snagged on two figures ahead.
A wolfman—black fur, cyan eyes, familiar lines of predatory grace. Ryxin. Sylas’s brother, the commander who’d shot down the Stardancer, who’d claimed the brunette from the escape pod as his own pet.
And beside him, small and human and startlingly composed, stood a woman Elsa recognized.
Ari.
The name surfaced from fragmented memories—whispered conversations in the medical bay, Yarx’s casual mentions of “the prince’s human.” She’d been on the escape vessel too. One of the five survivors who’d crashed into this nightmare together.
Now she walked at Ryxin’s side in a gown of deep burgundy, her reddish-brown hair swept up and pinned with silver clasps. No collar visible, but a delicate chain circled her wrist—the same dark metal as Elsa’s bracer, set with a smaller version of the glowing blue gem.
She looked...healthy. Well-fed. Calm in a way that seemed impossible given their circumstances.
Ryxin’s ears swiveled toward them. “Brother.” A nod of acknowledgment. “Your pet cleans up well.”
“As does yours.” Sylas’s response carried the formal cadence of males who’d had this exchange before. “The ceremony?”
“Already assembling. Vask arrived early. Xar brought his full complement of knights.” Ryxin’s cyan gaze flickered to Elsa, then back to his brother. Something passed between them—a communication too subtle for her to parse. “I’ll take point. You have fifteen minutes.”
Sylas dipped his head. Then, to Elsa’s surprise, he released her.
“Stay with Ari.” The command was quiet, pitched for her ears alone.
“She’ll explain the protocols I don’t have time to cover.
Don’t wander. Don’t speak to any males who approach.
And—” His paw caught her chin, tilting her face up to meet his gaze.
“Don’t remove the collar. Not for any reason. Not even if someone orders you to.”
“Why would someone—”
“Just don’t.” His claws traced her jaw, featherlight. Then he was gone, following Ryxin down the corridor toward whatever awaited in the ceremonial chamber.
Elsa stood frozen for a moment, processing. He’d left her. Voluntarily separated from his precious property in a fortress full of creatures who wanted her dissected or destroyed.
Trust? The word tasted foreign. Wrong.
More likely strategy. Demonstrating that she was controlled enough to function without constant supervision. Another layer of performance for the court’s benefit.
“You’re thinking too hard.”
Ari’s voice was warm, tinged with an accent Elsa couldn’t quite place. Southern United States, maybe. Or somewhere that shared those soft vowels.
“Am I?”
“You’ve got that look.” The other woman moved closer, her burgundy gown rustling. “The one that says you’re calculating angles and probabilities and the exact number of steps to the nearest exit.”
“Old habit.”
“Navigator, right? That’s what Ryxin said.
” Ari fell into step beside her as they followed the same direction the males had taken, though at a slower pace.
Two guards flanked them—Lux Sabers, judging by their sleeker builds and the way they watched everything except the humans directly.
“I was a bartender. Not much call for probability calculations in that line of work.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Ari’s laugh was unexpected—genuine, unguarded. “Fair point. Drunk men are their own kind of chaos equation.”
They walked in silence for a moment. The corridor narrowed, then opened into a small antechamber carved with the same swirling patterns Elsa had seen throughout the fortress. Blue light pulsed softly from crystals embedded in the walls, casting everything in shades of twilight.
“How are you doing this?” The question escaped before Elsa could frame it more diplomatically. “You look...settled. Like this is normal.”
Ari’s expression shifted. Not quite closing off, but sharpening. Assessing Elsa the same way Elsa had been assessing her.
“You want the honest answer or the polite one?”
“Honest.”
“Because I stopped fighting the things I can’t change.
” Ari’s voice dropped, pitched low despite the guards’ distance.
“Ryxin is going to keep me. That’s not negotiable.
I can spend every day raging against it, or I can figure out how to build a life within those constraints. ” A pause. “I chose to build.”
The pragmatism of it hit Elsa like cold water. Not acceptance—not really. More like...tactical surrender. Bending so she didn’t break.
You bend so you don’t break, and you hate yourself for bending, but you do it anyway.
Sylas’s words from last night, when he’d had her pinned beneath him, his tongue mapping territories she hadn’t offered. He’d seen this in her. Recognized it. Used it.
“The collar,” Ari said, her gaze dropping to Elsa’s throat. “That’s new. Sylas is making a statement.”
“So I’m told.”
“More than he probably explained.” Ari guided them toward a carved bench set into an alcove, settling onto it with the ease of someone who’d learned these spaces.
Elsa sat beside her, hyperaware of the guards’ positions, the corridor’s layout, the faint sounds of gathering crowds echoing from somewhere deeper in the fortress.
“What do you mean?”
Ari was quiet for a moment. Her golden-brown eyes held something Elsa couldn’t name—pity, maybe, or understanding too complete for comfort.
“The court doesn’t fear your body,” she said finally. “You’re human. Fragile. No claws, no fangs, no strength that matters here.” She leaned closer, voice dropping further. “They fear your scent.”
The Frosted Tears. Elsa’s hand drifted to her collar, fingers tracing the cool metal. “Sylas mentioned it was rare. Sacred to their goddess.”
“Sacred is an understatement.” Ari’s expression hardened. “Those flowers—the ones you smell like—they only bloom when their moon is closest. A sign of Lux’s direct attention. Fertility. Blessing.” She leaned closer and shot a quick glance at the guards. “Divine favor.”
“I’m not divine.”
“Doesn’t matter what you are. It matters what they believe you are.
” Ari’s hand found Elsa’s wrist, grip surprisingly strong.
“There are males in that court who think Lux sent you. Not to Sylas specifically—to the Yzefrxyl. To all of them. And some of those males think the Alpha King is hoarding a blessing that should be shared.”
The implications crashed through Elsa like a wave. The council meeting. Xar’s challenge. Vask’s suggestion that she be handed to the priests.