Chapter 26: NOT THIS TIME
Vivian Grey’s POV
I stopped just in front of him, close enough to feel his heat.
"I’m not your prisoner, Zaliver," I said quietly, but my voice was steady.
He didn’t respond. Not right away. And in that heavy silence, something inside me twisted, torn between the mate bond pulling us together and everything he’d just done tearing us apart.
"Okay, look," I started, arms crossed tight over my chest to keep myself from trembling. "I’m not gonna lie. Watching you kill that girl freaked me out, but honestly, I kinda saw it coming."
He tilted his head, studying me, but I rushed on before he could interrupt. "No offense or anything, but you’ve been alive for centuries as the Lupus Deus. Kinda hard to believe you haven’t killed someone before. And let’s not act like wolves don’t tear rogues apart the second they get the chance. I just didn’t expect it to happen so fast, so close. And honestly? That felt completely unjustified."
His face, unreadable at first, began to shift, surprise, then something like relief, and finally fury.
He stood abruptly, towering over me, and I instinctively stepped back. I had to crane my neck to meet his gaze. His dark blue eyes burned, and black veins pulsed under the skin beneath them, shifting and crawling like shadows alive. My breath caught in my throat. And just when I thought it couldn’t get more terrifying, he opened his mouth and flashed those sharp, gleaming canines.
"Unjustified?" His voice cracked like thunder. "You think what she did wasn’t reason enough?"
His chest heaved, his body coiled tight like he was barely holding back a storm. I spoke softer now, nervous. I really needed to learn when to shut my damn mouth.
"She tripped over me," I said, glancing at his chest because I couldn’t hold his eyes anymore. "I don’t think that warranted death."
"You’re right."
I looked up fast, blinking. Wait, what?
"Really?" I asked, almost hopeful. Was that guilt I heard in his voice? Maybe he regretted it. Maybe that girl had a name. Maybe I could remember her, honor her—
"I should’ve tortured her first," he finished, voice tight with bitterness. "Then I’d be calmer."
And just like that, my faint hope shriveled. My shoulders sagged.
"Of course," I muttered to myself. Should’ve known. I turned and made my way back toward the bed, stepping clumsily over the chains that clinked and tugged at my wrists.
"Can you get this crap off me?" I snapped, yanking my arms up with a clatter of metal. "If I didn’t feel like a prisoner before, I sure as hell do now."
He didn’t move. Just stood there with his arms folded across his chest. I glanced away before my eyes could linger too long. The black veins had faded. He looked like himself again, infuriatingly gorgeous.
I sat on the edge of the bed, refusing to give him the satisfaction of begging.
He watched me, silent, his stare digging into me. I stared back, flat and unimpressed.
"I thought you’d be unstable," he said finally. "Terrified. I thought you’d hate me."
His voice was tight, like he was holding back something more. Something raw. And for a second, the armor slipped just enough that I caught the thing underneath it, not cruelty, not calculation, but something closer to dread. Like he’d genuinely braced himself for me to fall apart. Like he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d do if I had.
I sat with that for a moment longer than I let on. Six hundred years old, and he’d stood there bracing for my reaction like a man waiting to hear a verdict. That wasn’t the behavior of someone who didn’t care what I thought. I didn’t know what to do with that. So I tucked it away for later, the way I always did with things too complicated to deal with right now. Then I just shrugged and looked back down at the chains, tugging lightly. "Warning: it’ll catch up to me eventually," I mumbled. It was true. I was the type to go with the flow until the tide pulled me under. I didn’t always face things right away, but they always circled back to bite me.
"So you’re not going to do anything crazy?" he asked. "Try to escape?"
I snorted. "Nope. No dramatic escape attempt from me." I gestured vaguely at the walls around us. "Besides, it’s more like swimming than running here. And I am not a strong swimmer. I’ve seen what lives in open water."
He almost smiled. Almost.
"Right," I said, tilting my head, "now that we’re starting to understand each other, maybe you can go ahead and unchain me?" I lifted my wrists with a confident smile.
"No."
My head snapped up. "What?! Why the hell not?"
He arched a brow, calm and maddeningly smug. "I appreciate your honesty, but I don’t take chances. You will crack eventually, and when you do, I’d rather not be the one cleaning up the blood. You’re staying in here. If you need anything, ask."
I growled before I could stop myself. A wet, guttural sound ripped from my throat, low and threatening. For once, he actually looked taken aback, but only for a second. Then he straightened and stared me down, his eyes darkening again.
I knew I wasn’t a real threat to him. But I didn’t care. The fury burned too hot. I hadn’t shifted in three days. My skin felt too tight, stretched over something that needed to get out. My wolf clawed at the surface, snarling alongside me.
"You can’t do this to me!" I hissed. "I need to shift. If you don’t want me going full-on violent-crazy and tearing your face off while you sleep, then remove these chains."
He bared his teeth in response, a deep growl vibrating from his chest. It rolled through the room, shaking the walls and rattling the chains on my wrists. My wolf whimpered and pressed low inside me, ears flattened in warning.
But I gritted my teeth and held my ground.
The chains clinked as I straightened my spine, shoulders back, chin up. I wouldn’t submit. Not this time.
Not when I was the one in chains.
The growl still vibrated between us, low and unresolved. Neither of us moved. And in the silence that followed, I realized this was what it was going to be like, two people who belonged together, standing on opposite sides of a line neither of us had drawn.
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