Chapter 5 - Selene
It’s late, but I can’t sleep, so I’m three chapters into a book that I’m not really reading when someone knocks.
It always amuses me when they knock, as though the door isn’t locked and I don’t even have the key to let them in. As if this isn’t a prison. I stand, because that’s what you do when someone knocks, but I don’t bother going to the door; I just wait.
The door opens, and it’s him.
Of course it’s him, who else would it be? Especially at this hour. But this feels new; this isn’t about chess.
The fact that he looks wrecked is my first thought.
He doesn’t look bad…he still looks good, which I immediately resent.
He’s been at sea, I can tell. He smells of the ocean, his face is flushed, his hair is windswept, and his jacket is damp.
He’s been somewhere, been doing something, and he came straight here in the early hours of the morning instead of going to bed.
I hesitate slightly, because the fact that he’s here in the middle of the night feels like a loaded detail.
A man with somewhere else he can be, presumably, a warm bed, and surely needing rest after whatever he’s been up to.
Is this all part of a strategy? Though something weary in his eyes tells me no, it’s not. And that feels a lot more dangerous.
“It’s the middle of the night,” I say, aware I’m wearing less than normal, just a thin dress. But then, I wasn’t exactly expecting company.
He notices; I know he does. “I saw your light. I don’t think you can sleep, either.”
I shrug. “I’m a witch with insomnia and a vivid sense of grievance. It’s a powerful combination.”
He doesn’t reply, just steps inside and shuts the door behind him. The cabin immediately feels warmer and smaller, as usual. He doesn’t sit, just walks to stand near the fire, the cold sea air still rolling off him. He turns to look at me and seems to pause, his tiredness written all over him.
I need to ask him now, while he’s like this.
“Where were you?” I ask, keeping it light.
“Working,” he replies, shrugging out of his jacket and hanging it on the hook near the fire to dry.
“Doing what?” I try. “It’s a bit late for an alpha to be working.”
“Selene.” It’s the first time he’s used my name, I think, and it makes my stomach clench. “You don’t care what I’ve been doing tonight. Ask me what you really want to ask me.”
I’m not sure if he’s being serious or if this is just another one of his games, but I’ve been waiting for my chance, so I need to take it.
“What are you actually planning to do with my power?” I ask. “You want my bond magic for something.”
He looks at me, and the fire crackles as I brace for the deflection. A clever non-answer, followed by a maddeningly attractive smile, and yet more confusion and waiting. If I wait much longer, I may implode. But the smile doesn’t come, and I realize he might actually be ready to talk.
“You know I want you to bond with me,” he says, smoothly. “We both know how bond magic works, how it’s activated. That power will make my wolf strong enough to take on three packs at once. Take what is rightfully mine.”
For a moment, I can’t speak. Of course, I know how bond magic works and what an alpha would expect, but for him to just say it suddenly feels more dangerous.
My dress suddenly feels too flimsy, the cabin too small, the fire too hot.
I have to remind myself that if he knows about bond magic, he also knows that forcing me would invalidate it. He can’t force me to raise his army.
I think about the island that I’ve never even visited.
There will be covens there, full of kind women like the ones who raised me, and families who will wake up one morning to an army on their shore if I give in to this handsome man.
I think about the little children in the school here, knowing there will be children there, too, just on the wrong side of it.
My magic is meant to steady bonds. Hold things together.
But he wants to use that power to tear things apart.
Bond magic is always treated like a weapon when it’s supposed to be the opposite.
A bond witch used to be considered a gift—someone who could unite packs and witches.
My whole life, my coven treated me like I was something precious, but also dangerous, and now I understand why.
In the wrong hands, I am dangerous. And I’m looking at a man who is the very definition of the wrong hands.
“And you want me to choose this,” I say slowly.
“I want you to choose me,” he says, and flashes me one of his most dangerous half-smiles.
“At what cost?” I ask, because there’s always a personal cost.
Something in his expression shifts, just slightly. “No personal cost. You stay here surrounded by good people, and I come to your bed, and you enjoy it. I’m not trying to hurt you, Selene.”
The air shifts around us, and I know he senses it, too. He’s spoken everything we’ve been dancing around into existence, and the whole room has shifted around us; either that, or the fire has just engulfed me, and I just didn’t notice.
“No,” I say, “but you are using me. I guess I can see how you’d think that was the kinder option.”
He doesn’t flinch at that, and I didn’t expect him to. I may not know him well, but it’s been over two weeks, and I haven’t seen him flinch once.
“And then what?” I say, my voice sounding steadier than I feel.
“You go straight from my bed, with all your newfound power, and do what? Kill your brothers? Take the island by force? Kill other people? Do you know who lives there? It’s not just your brothers; there are innocent people, children, and families.
People who haven’t done anything to you. ”
“I’m very aware of who lives there,” he says, his voice clipped.
“And all those people didn’t take anything from you,” I tell him. “They were born and lived the same as you. Do you hate them all because of what your father did?”
He chuckles, but there’s no humor in it. “I see you had quite the chat with my brother when he dropped those books off.”
“He said it’s no secret,” I reply, wondering if I’ve got his brother in trouble, but when he shrugs, I relax a fraction.
“No, it’s not,” he replies. “Neither is my plan, not really. Everyone here understands my need for vengeance.”
“I will not be the one who helps you get it,” I say quietly.
For a moment, we just stare at each other, and I wait for the temper, the threats, the monster to surface. But it doesn’t come.
“I know hating me is easier,” he says, quieter now.
“Do it, if it helps. But don’t stand there telling me what I should want, or what those people deserve.
They got that island, a rich island, while my mother was banished, pregnant and penniless, told she’d be killed if she ever even said my father’s name.
She loved him; she thought he loved her.
They never went without, never went hungry; they don’t even know we exist. I don’t need your understanding, witch.
I’m just telling you why I’m doing this; the plan itself is not up for discussion. ”
It’s so clear that under all this planning and strategizing, this is a hurt man. I’m not sure he even sees how plainly his pain is written all over his face. And despite it all, I’ll be damned if the rawness of it all doesn’t make me soften in ways he doesn’t deserve.
I don’t want to soften towards him; it’s too dangerous, and I can’t risk it. But as he stands there, saltwater still in his hair, laying out the ugliest parts of himself and not dressing up his plans one bit, there’s an awful truth to his pain that I can’t help but respect.
“And your pack?” I ask. “The guard with two young daughters, Bram? All those people who run your school, your bakery, you’d put them on boats and send them over there to fight? To die?”
“I won’t risk more than I have to,” he replies firmly.
“But you would risk them?” I confirm.
“For this, yes.” No hesitation. “And every one of them understands. Ask them yourself.”
I don’t doubt it. But then, that’s really not the point.
“You could have lied to me, I guess,” I tell him. “Not that I would have believed you, of course.”
“I’m not in the habit of lying to people,” he says.
“Just kidnapping them and forcing them to help you hurt people?” I reply with a roll of my eyes thrown in for good measure.
“I just want what’s mine, and you’re going to help me get it,” he shrugs. “I won’t insult you by pretending otherwise.”
And that refusal to flatter or handle me is more disarming than his usual charm. Maybe that’s the point, maybe that’s the plan, but somehow I don’t think it is. And stupidly, it makes me like him a little bit more, despite myself and the whole situation.
It doesn’t change anything, though.
“I still won’t help you,” I tell him.
“So you say.” He shrugs.
What started off as a fairly promising conversation, if I wanted answers, appears to be drifting in circles, so I try to bring it back into focus. “Are we not at an impasse, then? I’m not going to change my mind, and this is one thing you can’t just take.”
He steps closer, just enough that the space between us is almost touching distance, and my pulse begins to race a little too fast for my liking.
“I don’t have to take it,” he says, low. “I just have to make you want to give it, just enough. You might not be sure, you might question it, but your body will know.”
“Yeah?” I say, fighting to keep the tremble out of my voice. “Good luck with that.”
“I don’t need luck, Selene,” he says, closer now.
So close I can smell the salt in his hair and something richer underneath that my body registers as purely masculine.
My skin feels too tight, and I want to back up, but I also don’t want to show weakness.
Instinctively, I know that would be a big mistake right now.
“You can barely look up from the board when we play chess because you don’t trust yourself to look at me too long. You think I haven’t noticed?”
Heat creeps up my face. “You’re very sure of yourself.”
“I’m usually right,” he murmurs.
“Not about this,” I say, and I know I should step back now, and I think we both know it.
His eyes drop to my mouth, just once, and my whole body lights up like an absolute traitor.
For one unbearable second, I think he’s actually going to close the space and kiss me, and the feeling of pure desire that washes over me absolutely terrifies me.
I’ve never been kissed before, and I’m not going to start with the man who has kidnapped me and declared that he’s going to seduce me for my power. I’m not an idiot.
I step back.
“No,” I say, and it’s as much for me as it is for him. “You don’t get to do that. Take me, keep me prisoner, ask me to help you hurt people, and then look at me like that and expect me to give in because…” I stop because I realize I’m about to say something really stupid.
“Because I’m what,” he says, amusement dancing in his eyes.
“…because you’re tired,” I say, and we both know that isn’t what I was about to say.
He says nothing, just stares, and for just a moment, there’s something in his face that’s less alpha, less strategist, and far younger and less guarded. Then it’s gone, smoothed over, and he steps back as well, and I can finally breathe.
My heart is still racing, so I fold my arms tightly across my chest, feeling furious at myself, at him, at all of this.
“You can have whatever you want here,” he says, clearing his throat. “Anything. Books, friends, work at the clinic, go to the bakery with the guards. A good life. But you can’t leave. That part is not up for discussion.”
“You make me sound like a comfortable, well-read pet,” I tell him.
“You can be free in every way except one,” he grins.
“That’s just a longer leash,” I bite back.
He shrugs again. “Maybe, but it’s a leash with a nice place to live, food, good people, and warmth. I’ve handed worse lives to people who have thanked me for it.”
“That’s got to be the saddest sales pitch I’ve ever heard,” I say grimly.
“I’m not pitching anything,” he says. “I’m telling you what’s going to happen.”
He doesn’t wait for a reply this time, just turns for the door.
He’s almost there when something I’ve been circling all night finally lands, and I feel a small laugh begin to bubble.
He needs me to choose him, and he can keep me here until I’m old and gray, and all I have to do is keep refusing him.
For just a moment, I almost believed I was the weak one, but then I remembered what my coven used to tell me about the weak-willed men who would look to exploit me; I always had the power to choose, and I must keep it.
I know he won’t let me go, but one day he’ll get sloppy, and I’ll have my chance. He can keep me here forever, but I won’t cave. It’s bleak, but right now, it feels like a victory. Just a really slow one.
“You know what’s funny?” I say when he has his hand on the door.
“You can call me your mate and bind us with that ceremony, and you can keep me in this cabin until I’m old and gray.
But the magic only works if I give it willingly and I never will.
You’ve mated yourself to a witch who will never give you what you want. ”
He pauses but doesn’t look back.
“Maybe,” he says. “Or maybe you’ll get tired of pretending you don’t want me before the winter’s out.”
Then he’s gone, and the door locks, the wards flare, and in some way that feels more definitive than ever. I am tired now, and I get ready for bed, but as I climb in, it’s not the threat of war I’m thinking about.
It’s the moment I thought he was going to kiss me, and how, for one stupid second, I wanted it to happen.