Chapter 3: The Stubborn Mate
Vivian Grey’s POV
I barely made it to the edge of the bed before my knees gave out, exhaustion finally catching up with every part of me at once.
Me. The mate of a god. What kind of joke was the universe playing.
There had to be a mistake somewhere. I wasn’t anyone special, just an ordinary wolf from an ordinary pack. I’d shifted at fifteen, kept my head down, skipped the parties and the casual heat flings everyone else seemed to manage so easily. I used to tell myself I was holding out for my true mate. Lately I’d started wondering if that was just a kinder way of saying nobody had ever really wanted me.
And then he’d looked at me with eyes that held something I couldn’t read, a promise or a warning, I genuinely couldn’t tell which. The rest of him was the kind of detail I wished I hadn’t noticed. I buried my face in my hands and forced myself to breathe. Falling apart wouldn’t help my family, and if I ever managed to escape, he’d probably come looking. Men like that didn’t let things go. He might even use my parents to pull me back.
I shut my eyes.
Why do you want to run? my wolf asked.
Because he’s dangerous, I told her. He kidnaps people. He kills people. He takes whatever he decides he wants.
She pushed gently against the wall I’d built between us, so I let her through.
How do you know any of that’s true? she asked. Maybe he deserves a chance.
Did you not just hear him? I shot back. He won’t let us leave, but he won’t claim us either. He doesn’t get to use us to figure out what he wants and then throw us away once he’s decided. I don’t want a mate who does that.
It hurt to say it about someone who was supposed to be mine, but I wasn’t going to lie to either of us just to feel better for a minute.
What kind of life would that even be. Trapped at his side, hidden away, a mate in name only and nothing else.
No. I didn’t deserve that. Nobody did.
I wanted real love, not whatever this was. Messy, maybe. Imperfect. But real, and chosen, not something his pack had stolen out of another pack’s territory in the middle of the night. This wasn’t a meet cute. It was a kidnapping with better lighting.
And what about Lily? The other girls who’d been taken with me? Were they even still alive?
Panic pushed me off the bed and toward the door, or it tried to. The second I stepped forward, something yanked me back like I’d hit the end of a leash I couldn’t see.
"What the hell?" I muttered.
I tried again. Same wall, same invisible stop, no matter how hard I pushed against it.
He’d told me to stay. So I stayed, whether I wanted to or not.
And there was still that language he’d spoken earlier, the one that wasn’t English and somehow wasn’t a problem either. He’d acted like I shouldn’t have understood him. I had anyway. I didn’t know what that meant about me, or about him, or about whatever he’d done to make that happen.
Eventually I gave up on the door and looked around the rest of the room instead. Huge. Cold. Expensive in a way that didn’t try very hard to look comfortable. The window had thick silver drapes, and when I pulled them back I nearly swore out loud.
Steel blinds, bolted into the frame.
A cage dressed up in good fabric.
I went through the rest of it. A black couch. Cabinets. A desk. A few paintings that didn’t mean anything to me. No photographs anywhere. No books. Nothing that told me a single true thing about who actually lived here.
Maybe this wasn’t even his room to begin with. Maybe it had belonged to someone else first.
The thought sat heavier than I expected. If this had been hers, the woman Gwen told me about, the one the Goddess supposedly took from him, that explained the empty walls easily enough. No photos. No books. Maybe he’d cleared it all out himself once it got too hard to look at.
I lay back on the bed without meaning to, staring at the ceiling, and lifted my feet to look at them. Bare. No shoes. I had no idea where they’d gone.
How long had I even been here. Hours. Days. I had no way to know, and nobody seemed in any hurry to tell me.
Vivian Grey’s POV
I’ve always loved my wolf. She wasn’t some separate thing living inside me, she was my constant, my closest friend, the steadiest thing I had when everything else tilted sideways.
Still, I hadn’t expected anyone to come for me this soon. I’d already started preparing myself for days, maybe weeks, alone in that room.
So when the door opened and Zaliver walked in, I was too stunned to move. A second man followed behind him, green eyed and sharp, with the kind of presence that made the room feel smaller the moment he entered it.
I shot to my feet, heart slamming.
"You," I said, locking eyes with the stranger.
Zaliver looked at me like I was the one creating a problem, arms folded behind his back, jaw tight, giving nothing away.
The green eyed man stepped forward, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. "My name is Albericus."
I didn’t say anything back. I just watched him the way you’d watch something deciding whether or not to bite.
His jaw tightened. "Watch yourself, little girl."
"Enough," Zaliver said, and the word cut through the room like it had weight to it.
We both went quiet. He gave me one last look before turning toward the door.
"Follow."
My legs moved before my brain agreed to it.
The hallway stretched on, dim and silent except for our footsteps. I had no sense of how big this place was, or where in it we were. Albericus walked behind me, Zaliver ahead, the way someone walks when they’ve never once had to wonder whether people would follow.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
Nothing.
"Where are you taking me?" I tried again, louder.
Still nothing.
Fine. The silent treatment. I could work with that.
The halls kept turning, left, right, up, down, every stretch identical to the last. Blank walls. Polished floors. No scent of any other wolf anywhere. Just the two of them and the sound of my own steps trying to keep up.
Were they taking me somewhere to talk, or somewhere to end this. My stomach turned over at the thought.
I glanced back once and caught Albericus watching me before I turned away and fixed my eyes on Zaliver’s back instead.
What did he even want from me, if not this. If he wouldn’t claim me and wouldn’t release me, what was left.
My heart wouldn’t slow down. I needed some kind of plan. My wolf growled low, unhappy, but I pushed past her. Survival came first.
We stopped at a heavy gray door. Zaliver glanced down at me, and when it creaked open, he stepped aside, clearly expecting me to walk in first.
The room beyond it was bright and sterile, white walls, bare concrete floor. One object sat against the far wall.
A chair.
Not just a chair. Straps on the arms. Buckles at the feet.
"Oh, hell no," I said, already backing away. "No. No, no, no."
I turned to run and walked straight into a wall of muscle and warmth that I refused to believe belonged to him, refused to believe he’d actually bring me to a room like this.
"Sit in the chair," he said. Flat. Final.
My body obeyed before I could stop it. I fought the whole way there, screaming, clawing at nothing, and it didn’t matter at all. My feet dragged me forward until I dropped into the seat, shaking.
Tears came before I could stop those either. "How could you?" I sobbed. "I haven’t done anything!"
Zaliver stepped in front of me, and for one stupid second I hated how good he looked doing it, even now. My mate. My captor. Both, apparently, with no contradiction bothering him at all.
"Quiet," he said, and there was nothing soft in it this time. It wasn’t a comfort. It was an order, and his voice made it clear he didn’t plan on repeating it.
I bit down on the next sob. My arms had gone numb, my whole body too heavy to lift, even to wipe my own face.
Albericus stood by the door, grim and silent. Zaliver hadn’t strapped me into anything. He hadn’t needed to. Whatever was holding me down didn’t need buckles.
"I’m not going to hurt you," he said, his voice clipped, almost bored. "This isn’t torture, Vivian. It’s the fastest way to get the truth out of you, and I intend to use it."
Hearing my name in his mouth did something ugly and warm to my chest at the same time, and I hated both reactions equally.
"I need to know what you know. Who you’re connected to. I won’t keep you near me if I can’t trust you, and right now I don’t."
My lips wouldn’t stop trembling.
"This will drain you," he said. "That’s all you need to know." No apology. No softening. Just a fact, delivered the way you’d warn someone a door was about to close on their fingers.
"So that’s it?" My voice cracked, but I forced the words out anyway. "You don’t trust me enough to keep me near you, but you trust yourself enough to never let me go. What does that make me? Not a mate. Not even a prisoner you’ll admit to. Just something you keep."
He didn’t answer right away. When he finally did, his voice was flat, almost amused at my expense. "Call it whatever helps you sleep. It changes nothing either way."
I sat there, shaking, pinned by a weight I couldn’t see or fight, and the only thing left in my head was a single, small, useless hope.
I hope I’m still me when this is over.
He didn’t look like a man who cared one way or the other.
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