The Volkov mansion loomed over them as the car rolled through the iron gates. Tall, cold, and immaculate, it felt like stepping into another world — one where the raw nights in the forest had never happened.
Lucien stepped out first. His posture was already straight, shoulders squared, every trace of weakness from the fever and the fight buried deep. He gave a few quiet instructions to the waiting staff, voice clipped and commanding. Then he turned and walked inside without looking back at Elara.
She followed slowly, the shallow cut on her side pulling with each step. The mansion's marble floors and crystal chandeliers felt too bright, too perfect after days of mud, rain, and survival. The staff moved around her like shadows — efficient, silent, never meeting her eyes for too long.
Lucien didn't visit her room that night.
He didn't come the next night either.
The only words he spoke to her were necessities.
"Medical team will check your wound at nine."
"The chef will prepare whatever you request."
"Stay within the grounds until further notice."
Each sentence was delivered in that flat, controlled tone, like he was speaking to a business associate, not the woman he had held against his bare chest, not the woman whose name he had heard her moan in her sleep.
Elara spent the first few days replaying everything.
The way his mouth had felt between her thighs in the cave.
The low, ragged sound of his voice when he called her "my little whore."
The heat of his body wrapped around hers while they shared warmth to survive.
The way he had stopped himself even when she was ready and willing.
Every memory made her skin flush and her chest ache at the same time.
Why had he been so gentle one moment and so cruel the next?
Why did he pull her close in the forest only to push her away the second they returned to his world?
She wandered the mansion like a ghost. The grand rooms felt empty. The staff treated her with polite distance, as if she were a fragile ornament that might break if touched. No one asked how she was. No one mentioned the forest.
On the third night, she stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, wearing the silk robe the maids had left for her. Her fingers traced the faint scar on her side. It was healing cleanly, but the memory of Lucien's careful hands bandaging it still lingered.
She whispered to her reflection, voice barely audible, "What happened to us out there?"
Lucien didn't come for dinner that night when he came back from his business trip.
He ate dinner in his study. He left for meetings before she woke the next morning. When their paths crossed in the hallway which barely happened, he offered only a curt nod and continued walking, eyes fixed straight ahead like she was invisible.
The contrast hurt more than she wanted to admit.
In the forest he had jumped off a cliff with her.
He had held her through the fever.
He had tasted her like she was the only thing that mattered.
Here, in his mansion, she was nothing but the convenient wife again.
Elara lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling. Her body still remembered the heat of his skin, the way his fingers had felt inside her, the filthy words he had growled against her ear.
She pressed her thighs together, trying to ignore the ache.
Confusion and hurt twisted together in her chest until it was hard to breathe.
Lucien had rebuilt his cold walls the moment they returned.
And she was left on the outside, wondering if the man who had saved her, touched her, and almost taken her had ever really existed at all.
______
Elara hadn't seen Lucien for five days.
He was "on business, again " the staff said politely whenever she asked. No further explanation. No return date. Just the same calm, distant answers that made her feel invisible.
The Volkov mansion felt enormous and empty. She wandered its long hallways and grand rooms like a ghost, her footsteps echoing on marble floors. The staff moved around her with quiet efficiency — bowing slightly, offering meals, asking if she needed anything — but never really looking at her. She was the new wife, the sudden addition, the one who had appeared out of nowhere and survived the forest with their master.
She felt like an ornament that had been placed on a shelf and forgotten.
Every evening she dressed up.
She chose the most elegant dresses from the wardrobe that had been prepared for her — silk that clung to her curves, deep colors that made her skin glow, necklines that hinted at more than they showed. She spent time on her hair and makeup, telling herself it was just to pass the time. But deep down she knew the truth: she was hoping he would come back and see her. Hoping that one look from those gray eyes would prove the forest had meant something.
The staff noticed.
The head housekeeper gave her gentle, pitying glances when she passed. A young maid once whispered to another in the corridor, "She dresses like she's waiting for someone who obviously isn't coming."
Elara pretended not to hear.
On the sixth night she chose a deep emerald gown that hugged her waist and fell in soft waves to the floor. The fabric was cool against her skin, the neckline low enough to show the faint mark Lucien had left on her collarbone in the cave.
She had heard he had returned from his trip earlier that night.
She sat at the long dining table alone, candlelight flickering over crystal and silver. The chef had prepared her favorite dishes, but they tasted like ash.
She waited.
He never came.
Instead, a quiet knock sounded at the door. One of the butlers entered, bowing respectfully.
"Mr. Volkov sends his apologies. He will be delayed another night. He suggests you retire early."
Elara's fingers tightened around the stem of her wine glass. She forced a small nod. "Thank you."
When the door closed, she sat there for a long time, staring at the untouched food. The silence pressed in on her. She replayed every moment from the forest again — his body heat against hers, his mouth between her thighs, the rough way he had called her "little wife" while making her come undone.
Then she remembered the way he had looked at her on the helipad after they landed — like she was already fading from his mind.
Tears pricked at her eyes. She wiped them away angrily.
"Why do I even care?" she whispered to the empty room. "He told me I was nothing but a tool. I should believe him."
But her body remembered. Her heart remembered.
She stood up, the emerald gown suddenly feeling too tight, too hopeful. She walked to the tall windows overlooking the dark grounds and pressed her forehead against the cool glass.
The mansion was beautiful. Luxurious. Safe.
And she had never felt more alone.
Somewhere out there, Lucien was conducting his business — cold, controlled, untouchable. Rebuilding the walls he had briefly let crack in the forest.
Elara closed her eyes.
She didn't know how much longer she could keep dressing up for a man who refused to see her.
But she also didn't know how to stop.