Ren woke with a jolt, like someone who had just woken up from a nightmare. He did have a nightmare, where all the voices he heard and all the faces he saw belonged to that fox-eyed bastard of an Alpha.
The morning sun was streaming through the south-facing windows, hitting the sage-green walls exactly the way it used to in the Pierce estate. For a split second, he forgot where he was. He thought all of that was truly a nightmare and that he was home. It almost felt like he could hear his brothers laughing in the courtyard below.
But then he felt the weight of the iron collar around his neck, and he was thrust back to reality.
He sat up quickly, his heart racing. This wasn't his home; it was the prison that Cilian had specially prepared for him.
He thought he was alone in the room because of the silence, but then he noticed the steam rising from the small table near the window.
Cilian was sitting there. He was dressed in a crisp grey suit, looking as if he'd been awake for hours. He held a delicate porcelain teacup in one hand, his fox-like eyes fixed on a tablet in the other.
When he heard Ren move, he looked up. A bright, wide smile spread across his face—a smile that looked perfectly kind and completely fake.
"Good morning, Ren," Cilian said, his voice cheerful. "I hope you slept well. The sun is perfect today, which is quite a good sign."
Ren gripped the silk sheets till his knuckles turned white. He looked at Cilian's throat, imagining his fingers closing around it, feeling the snap of his bone, and his head dropping lifelessly.
"I wish I could punch that look off your face," Ren rasped, subconsciously letting his thought out.
Cilian chuckled, taking a slow sip of his tea, and then he let it down. "Maybe tomorrow. But today, we have a lot of work to do. Eat your breakfast, and then after that, we're going for a walk in the gardens."
Ren stared at the tea in Cilian's hand, his pulse thumping with bitter spite. Every word that came out of this Alpha's mouth felt like a joke—a cruel, long-winded punchline that Ren refused to laugh at.
And every word that came out of Ren's mouth was no different from a comedic line to him as well. They were just a couple of clowns, it seemed.
Tomorrow, he thought, his fingers curling into the silk sheets. He wondered if Cilian would still be smiling like a fox when Ren finally found a blade long enough to pin his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Would he finally take him seriously? Would he see Ren as a threat then? Or would he just bleed out with that same mocking amusement in his eyes?
Forget it. Thinking of it just makes me sick, Ren thought. He would rather focus on regaining his strength first.
But if there was one thing he was relieved about, it was the fact that Cilian kept his word and did not touch him.
Breakfast was a swift, suffocating ordeal. Cilian didn't stop talking, a constant stream of chatter about what he wished he could do with Ren, the places he'd like them to visit together, and even went on about the 'improvements' he'd made to the Pierce district.
It went from an obsessive chatter to a provoking one really fast, and Ren could see the eyes Cilian used to look at him. How he waited for Ren to react to his words, but Ren didn't.
In the first place, Ren didn't ask to be told any of that; he didn't even look up. He just focused on the weight of the iron collar around his neck and the hard rhythm of his own heart.
After that came the garden walk, and honestly, it was no better. The Vane Estate was a fortress of limestone, but the gardens were a lush, deceptive paradise. Why it was no better despite the pretty sight was because Cilian wouldn't stop talking. Was he always this chatty in the past, too?
Ren just couldn't stand it, but he didn't respond either. He felt his response would only excite this psychopath, and he would chatter even more than he was already doing.
"You're too quiet today, Ren," Cilian remarked, finally pausing his endless chatter as they reached a fountain. He reached out to adjust the iron collar, his fingers brushing Ren's skin. "Are you feeling under the weather?"
Ren looked at Cilian like he was looking through him, his gaze void of any emotion as he opened his mouth to say, "I have nothing to say to a dead man."
Cilian chuckled, a sound that made the birds in the trees scatter. "Still so prickly. Well, I have meetings to attend, so I'll have to leave you to yourself for a while. Try not to wander too far. I'd hate for you to get lost in your own thoughts."
He left Ren with a final, lingering look—a gaze that felt less like a goodbye and more like a predator marking his territory.
Ren didn't stay in the garden. The moment Cilian was out of sight, he turned on his heels, not in an attempt to escape, but headed for the training wing. He needed to feel something other than silk and soft grass. He needed to know if his hands still remembered how to kill despite the ache in his shoulder.
He needed to be able to kill Cilian no matter what.
Ren pushed open the heavy double doors. The training gym was massive, a glass-walled cathedral of violence that overlooked the northern gardens.
There were racks of gleaming chrome weights lined one wall, and in the center, a raised wooden platform stood empty, surrounded by a rack of practice weapons.
Ren stepped onto the mats without hesitation. He was still wearing the dark green silk robe Cilian had picked out for him. It felt heavy, the fabric dragging against his skin as if trying to remind him that he was an Omega, a thing.
He walked toward the weapon rack, his heart hammered against his ribs—not with fear, but with a desperate, starving hope. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around the hilt of a weighted wooden practice sword.
The wood was smooth and cold, but it was familiar.
He tried to lift it with one hand, the way he used to during his dawn drills at the Pierce estate. His fingers curled, his thumb locking over his knuckles.
Standard grip. Eyes level. Feet shoulder-width apart. He pulled the blade upward and then swung it down.
A white-hot spike of pain immediately shot through his right shoulder, tearing through the muscle and settling deep in the bone. Ren gasped, his knees buckling. The wooden sword clattered onto the mat with a sound that felt mockingly loud in the empty hall.
Ren clutched his shoulder, his breath coming in ragged, shallow bursts. He looked down at his arm. It was trembling. He looked at his hands—the skin was too pale, the wrists too thin.
His shoulder hadn't been that bad, but with the way he always got beaten after getting caught by the slave hhouse ttherewas no way he'd be okay. They didn't provide him with any medical treatment, even when it felt like his arm was going to fall off. They said, "What does an Omega need their hands for anyway?"
They mocked him, telling him the only use he'd have for his hand once he was bought was giving handjobs anyway, so there was no need to waste medical resources on him.
Those were disgraceful and humiliating days.
"Pathetic," Ren whispered, and his voice echoed in the empty room.
"I wouldn't say pathetic," a voice claimed. "Desperate, maybe. But not pathetic."