Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
MAYA
I stare numbly at the shallow cuts marring my chest, the blood seeping from the Corellian sigil that now marks me permanently as Logan’s property. The bathroom mirror reflects a stranger—hollow-eyed, pale, with purple hair hanging limp around a face I barely recognize.
I listen for sounds in the room beyond. Cillian had tried for nearly twenty minutes to coax me out, his voice growing increasingly desperate as I remained silent behind the locked door.
“Maya, please. Let me help you clean those cuts properly. They could get infected.”
I don’t respond.
Eventually, his footsteps retreated, and the apartment door closed with a soft click. I’m finally, blissfully alone.
The shallow cuts sting as I dab at them with a damp cloth, washing away blood that has dried in rivulets down my skin. The sigil is precise—each line carefully measured, the depth consistent. Cillian’s handiwork shows his effort to minimize the damage while still satisfying Logan’s command.
I should hate him for this. I should hate them all.
Instead, I just feel empty.
My fingers trace the carved lines, feeling each ridge of torn flesh. The pain is almost welcome, a physical manifestation of everything they’ve done to me since I arrived at the palace. A permanent reminder is now etched into my skin.
What am I still fighting for? Every attempt at revenge has only made things worse. I drugged them, violated Logan, tried to expose him—and now I wear his mark carved into my chest. I’m further from freedom than ever.
I stare at my reflection, searching for some spark of the woman I used to be. The defiant Omega who refused to be broken. The survivor who planned to make them all pay.
All I see is exhaustion.
Maybe that’s what Logan wanted all along. Not just to own me, but to wear me down until resistance feels pointless. Until I’m too tired to fight.
The more I stare at the wound, the more distant the pain feels. The more distant everything feels. My body is here, but my mind drifts somewhere far away, detached from this broken shell.
I wonder what would happen if I just stopped fighting. If I gave in, played the perfect Omega, let them have what they want. Would it be easier? Would the pain finally stop?
No. I know it wouldn’t. Submission would be another kind of death—a slower, more insidious one. The death of everything that makes me who I am.
But what’s the alternative? Every time I fight back, they find new ways to hurt me. New ways to remind me that I’m powerless.
The blood has almost stopped flowing now.
The cuts are superficial, they’ll heal without scarring if treated properly.
But the memory of Cillian’s face as he held that knife, the way Logan watched with cold satisfaction, Poe’s angry abandonment and Ares’s silent complicity. Those wounds go deeper than any blade.
I press the cloth harder against the cuts, welcoming the sharp sting that momentarily brings me back to my body. Pain is clarity. Pain is real. Everything else—the bonds, the obligations, the twisted web of desire and hatred—feels increasingly like a nightmare I can’t wake from.
I’m so tired of fighting. So tired of losing.
What would happen if I just walked out that door? Ran as far as I could? The bond would pull me back eventually, the physical pain of separation becoming unbearable. Or they would find me. They always would.
There is no escape from this golden cage. Not while they live.
Not while I live.
The thought settles in my mind with terrifying clarity. If there’s no way out, perhaps there’s a way to end it all. A way to ensure they can never hurt me again.
But even as the thought forms, I know I won’t act on it. Not because I fear death, but because some stubborn part of me refuses to give them that final victory. They’ve taken everything else—my freedom, my dignity, my body. I won’t let them take my life too.
So I’ll endure. I’ll survive. Not because I have hope, but because continuing to exist despite everything they’ve done is its own form of defiance.
I lower the cloth from my chest, watching as tiny beads of blood form again along the cuts. Each droplet represents another piece of me they’ve taken. Another freedom lost.
I’m just so tired.
I jolt at the sound of knocking on the bathroom door, the sharp rap-rap-rap echoing through the small space. My first instinct is to remain silent, hoping whoever it is will give up and leave me alone.
“Maya.” Logan’s voice carries through the door, surprisingly calm. “Open up.”
I press the damp cloth harder against my chest, wincing at the sting. “Go away.”
The knocking comes again, more insistent this time. “Either you open this door, or I break it down. Your choice.”
For a moment, I consider calling his bluff. But the memory of what just happened in the basement is still too fresh, the cuts on my chest still weeping blood. I don’t have the energy for another confrontation.
With a resigned sigh, I wrap a towel around my upper body and unlock the door.
Logan stands on the other side, his golden eyes immediately dropping to the towel clutched at my chest. Without a word, he pushes past me and picks up the untouched med kit sitting on the counter.
“Sit,” he orders, gesturing to the edge of the bathtub.
I remain standing, defiance flaring through the exhaustion. “I can take care of it myself.”
“Sit,” he repeats, his tone brooking no argument.
Too tired to fight, I perch on the edge of the tub, keeping the towel firmly in place. Logan kneels in front of me, his movements precise as he opens the med kit and pulls out antiseptic wipes and bandages.
“Let me see,” he says, his voice oddly gentle as he tugs at the towel.
I reluctantly lower it, exposing the carved sigil on my chest. The shallow cuts have stopped bleeding, but the flesh around them is angry and red. Logan’s face reveals nothing as he examines Cillian’s handiwork.
His fingers are surprisingly gentle as he cleans the wounds, the antiseptic stinging with each touch. I grit my teeth, determined not to show any reaction. The silence between us stretches, taut and uncomfortable, until Logan finally speaks.
“It shouldn’t scar,” he says, his eyes still fixed on the cuts. “The cuts are shallow enough that with proper care, they’ll heal cleanly.”
“Does that bother you?” I ask, sarcasm dripping from my voice. “I thought the whole point was to leave a permanent lesson.”
Logan’s hands pause briefly before continuing to apply the wound cream. “A few weeks of pain and the visual reminder should be enough.”
I laugh bitterly. “Pain doesn’t seem to be much of a teacher. It certainly hasn’t taught you anything.”
My eyes flick to the bruising visible on his ribs and the half-healed cut above his eye—reminders of his fight at the royal games. His body bears the evidence of violence given and received, yet he continues to inflict more.
“If we’re bleeding, our hearts are still beating,” Logan replies, his voice oddly philosophical as he secures a bandage over the cuts. “That’s all that matters.”
“Easy for you to say,” I mutter, watching his careful movements. “If only I were an Alpha like you, survival would be so simple.”
He looks up at me, something unreadable flickering in his golden eyes. “You think my life has been simple?”
“Compared to mine? Yes.”
Logan sits back on his heels, studying me with a strange intensity.
“When I was eight years old, my father took me and five of my brothers to the royal reserve on the edge of the northern Outlands. He gave each of us a wooden spear and instructions to return to him with a boar, or not to return at all.”
I continue to watch him, waiting for him to make a point.
“What the king neglected to tell us was that the groundskeeper had placed only two boars in the reserve. After an hours-long hunt, Ander and I emerged from the forest. Our other brothers did not.”
“What happened to your other brothers?”
He raises a sardonic eyebrow. “Do you really need me to answer that?”
Killed or banished, one outcome not so different from the other.
“I threw up afterward,” Logan continues, his gaze distant now. “My father dragged me to his study and beat me with his belt until I couldn’t stand. He said a future king can’t show weakness, that I needed to develop a stomach for violence if I was ever to rule.”
Something cold settles in my chest as I understand what he’s telling me. “That’s horrible, but it doesn’t excuse?—“
“I’m not making excuses,” he interrupts, his eyes refocusing on me. “I’m telling you that pain has been my teacher since before I could properly tie my own shoes. The king makes sure all his sons understand that weakness is punished, strength is rewarded, and mercy is for fools.”
He finishes securing the bandage, his fingertips lingering on my skin for a moment too long. “By the time I was twelve, I’d witnessed seventeen executions. By fifteen, I’d participated in three.”
The casual way he says this makes my stomach turn. Not because it’s shocking—though it is—but because I can see the damaged boy beneath the monster he’s become. The child who was taught that violence is the only language worth speaking.
“And you think that justifies what you did to me? What you just made Cillian do?”
Logan’s expression hardens. “No. But it might help you understand why I am what I am.” He stands, gathering the bloodied cloths and empty wrappers.
“This world is too dangerous for anyone who refused to learn the rules. The next time you make a move against me, I might not be able to save you from the consequences.”
The strangeness of this conversation settles over me. Both of us seem to be accepting that I might try to hurt or humiliate again. If that bothers him, Logan doesn’t voice that. If anything, he seems to expect it from me.
All his closest relationships have been characterized by betrayal and challenge. Why should this one be any different?
I pull the towel back around myself, suddenly feeling vulnerable. “And you’ve never questioned it? Never thought there might be another way?”
“Questioning gets you killed in this palace,” Logan says simply. “I’ve survived by learning to play the game better than anyone else. Including my father. Everyone who hopes to survive in the palace must become a predator. The only other thing to be is prey.”
For a moment, I almost feel sorry for him—this damaged man shaped by cruelty into something equally cruel. But then I remember the cuts on my chest, the violation of my body, the theft of my freedom.
“Understanding you won’t make me hate you any less,” I tell him, my voice steady despite the storm of emotions inside me.
The corner of his mouth quirks up in what might almost be a smile. “I wouldn’t expect it to.” He moves toward the door, then pauses. “Rest. Let those cuts heal. I have another midnight watch to lead, so you’ll have the bed to yourself.”
As the door closes behind him, I’m left with the unsettling realization that Logan isn’t the simple monster I’d imagined. He’s something far more complicated—a product of systematic brutality who’s perpetuating the very cycle that damaged him.
And that, somehow, makes all this even harder to bear.
I stare at my reflection in the mirror, gaze lingering on the bandages covering up the bloody mess of my chest.
Predators and prey.
Just like a game of chess, there are far more pawns on the board than any other piece.
And I don’t have the strength left to keep playing this game.
I pick up the pair of scissors that Logan left on the counter after cutting the bandages into strips. The metal feels cool and heavy in my palm, grounding me in a moment where everything else seems to be spiraling away.
Logan Corellian can’t change. I see that now with startling clarity.
This damaged man who molded by violence and cruelty might occasionally show flashes of humanity, but he’ll never truly break free of the mold his father forced him into.
Becoming someone softer, someone more empathetic, would cost him his life in this vicious court. It’s not just who he is.
It’s who he has to be to survive.
My fingers tighten around the scissors as I contemplate Cillian, the bond between us a constant hum of awareness at the back of my mind.
That unwanted connection has somehow drawn us closer, forcing an intimacy neither of us chose.
He tries so hard to be a player in this game, to strategize and manipulate like the Alphas around him.
But in the end, his biology traps him just as surely as mine does me.
He’s just another piece on the board, moved by forces beyond his control.
I think about Ares, the way he kept that nest I made, how he treated it like something precious.
Under different circumstances, in a different world, he could have been a good man.
Poe too, with his quiet strength and unexpected gentleness.
But Logan and the brutality of royal politics have twisted them, corrupted whatever decency they might have possessed.
We’re all caught in the same terrible machine, its gears grinding us down into shapes that serve its purpose.
But we’re all doomed, especially me.
I stare at my reflection, at the bandages covering the carved sigil on my chest. The pain has dulled to a persistent throb, a physical reminder of how little control I have over my own body. Over my own life.
With sudden fury, I smash the scissors against the hard edge of the counter.
The metal strains, then snaps, the plastic handle splitting to leave me holding one blade like a razor.
The sharp edge gleams in the bathroom light, promising a kind of control that’s been denied to me since I arrived at the palace.
I test the edge with my thumb, watching a thin line of blood well up from the small cut. Sharp enough.
The only choice a pawn has is deciding whether or not to play.