Chapter two: Just a maid.

The room stank of fresh polish, blood, and cruelty.

Liora kept scrubbing, her fingers now raw and shaking uncontrollably, the water mixing with her blood on the floor. She didn’t lift her head when the heavy scent of dominance entered the room—Alpha Damon.

She didn’t need to see him to know he was there.

His scent—oak and smoke—always carried with it the weight of pain. Wherever he went, silence followed. And fear.

The door creaked open wider. His footsteps were slow, deliberate. Predatory.

Then a pause.

Then a smirk.

“That face again,” he said coldly, voice dipped in amusement. “You always ruin my mood.”

Liora froze, her body stiff. She didn’t dare meet his gaze.

But it didn’t matter. She didn’t have to.

The kick came without warning.

Straight to her right hip.

The injured hip.

A sharp, sickening crack echoed through her body as her side twisted unnaturally. Pain unlike anything she’d felt before screamed through her nerves, and her vision blacked out for a second as she collapsed fully on the soaked floor, gasping silently, tears leaking out despite herself.

She bit into her cracked lip hard enough to taste blood.

He walked past her like she was a piece of dirt. Like she didn’t exist.

“Get out,” he said lazily. “You're an eyesore.”

And just like that, he was gone.

The door shut. Silence returned. But inside Liora, it wasn’t silent.

It was breaking.

She dragged herself out of the Alpha’s room, leaving behind a trail of blood that no one would bother to clean. The hallway was empty, but she could hear laughter echoing from the dining area—pack members sharing meat, wine, warmth.

Her stomach twisted violently. She hadn’t eaten in three days. Hadn’t slept. Hadn’t had a kind word in years.

And now her hip… it felt like it was tearing apart with every step.

She finally reached the cramped storage closet that had become her room. No bed. Just a thin, stained blanket in the corner and a cracked window that let in cold night air. She collapsed onto the floor with a shaky breath, too tired to cry.

She wanted to disappear.

Her eighteenth birthday was just a week away.

But it meant nothing.

She wasn’t even sure she’d live to see it.

Eighteen was supposed to be special. It was the age when most wolves got their first shift. When they’d finally feel the bond of their wolf soul, the other half of them finally waking.

But Liora… she had no hope left. Her body was too weak. Her heart too broken.

No one even knew her birthday.

Not that they’d ever cared to remember.

To them, she was just a name they spit on. A maid. A mistake.

Even she had forgotten what it felt like to be hugged. To be asked, "Are you okay?"

But somewhere in the dark, beneath her skin, something stirred.

Not a voice.

Not yet.

But a flicker.

Like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to her.

Her wolf… wasn’t gone.

She was waiting.