Chapter 174

Chapter 174: Chapter 174

Lysander’s pov

The iron door slammed shut with a heavy, reverberating thud that echoed straight into my bones.

A second later, the digital lock engaged, a sharp, mechanical beep-beep-click that sounded like a coffin lid snapping into place.

I hit the floor on my knees, my hands slapping hard into the cold, polished hardwood. The impact rattled up my forearms, but I barely felt it.

I scrambled back onto my feet, throwing my weight against the heavy reinforced door, my fists hammering violently against the solid slab.

"Let me out!" I screamed, my voice tearing in my throat, raw and hysterical. "Drake! Open the damn door! Let me out!"

Silence.

Not a single footstep. Not a whisper. Just the quiet, heavy hum of the high-security field sealing the perimeter of the room.

I pounded on the door until my knuckles were bloody and raw, my chest heaving in short, panicked gasps as tears cut hot, stinging tracks through the salt dried on my cheeks. My hybrid magic flared up, snapping wildly beneath my skin like live wire, but the moment the golden static surged toward my palms, the room’s suppressant wards hummed to life.

A heavy, suffocating pressure pushed down on my chest, smothering my wolf, forcing my energy back down into my blood until my hands dropped uselessly to my sides.

I turned around, my back sliding down the door until I hit the floor, staring at the space where I was meant to live out my sentence.

The west wing had always been kept locked, a secluded, heavily fortified section of the estate designed to hold high-tier captives during political border disputes.

The room was massive, but stripped entirely bare. There were no glass vases, no heavy wooden easels, no jars of oil paint, and no sharp metal tools.

The high windows overlooking the mountain valley were framed in thick, unbreakable safety glass, covered by heavy iron bars mounted on the outside.

A low, plush sofa sat against the far wall, flanked by a small wooden table, a simple lamp anchored to the floor, and a king-sized bed stripped of any heavy drapes or loose cords.

It was a gilded cage, sterile and impenetrable.

I pulled my knees tight against my chest, wrapping my trembling arms around my legs, hiding my face in the wet fabric of my sweater.

A prisoner.

The word echoed through the silence of the room, cold and absolute.

An hour ago, I had walked up the winding mountain driveway, preparing myself to strip my soul bare, ready to face his rage or his heartbreak. I had convinced myself that telling the truth was the only honorable thing I had left to give him.

Instead, I had walked straight into a nightmare.

I closed my eyes, but the images burned behind my eyelids like hot coals, Drake sitting on that bed with his bare shoulders illuminated by candlelight; Julian’s pale, manicured hand resting against Drake’s spine; the cruel, triumphant smile on Julian’s face as he introduced himself as Drake’s first love.

And then Drake’s voice, flat and dead, stripping away everything we had built: "You are no longer my mate, Lysander. From this second on, you are strictly my prisoner."

A bitter, broken laugh escaped my throat—a dry, pitiful sound that died quickly in the empty room.

He hadn’t even listened to me. He hadn’t asked why I went to Darius. He hadn’t cared that my magic was spiking or that my body was changing.

In his eyes, I was just a treacherous, deceitful man who ran back to the darkness the second his back was turned. He had taken his revenge in the cruelest, most intimate way possible, and then locked me in a vault to rot.

I knew he was cruel but I thought that was to other people, I thought it would never happen to me but I was wrong. I had brought out the worst side of him.

I rested my chin on my knees, my breath shuddering as the silence settled over the room like a heavy shroud.

Slowly, deliberately, my hand drifted down from my knees, sliding beneath the damp wool of my charcoal sweater. My fingers pressed flat against my lower abdomen, resting over the smooth, warm curve of my core.

Beneath my palm, my skin felt hot, that same steady, quiet heat that had been growing inside me for weeks.

What am I going to do?

The thought hit my chest with a fresh wave of suffocating terror.

I was trapped in a high-security wing with four pureblood guards posted outside my door. I had no phone, no override keys, no access to my mother, and no way to reach a clinic. I was completely isolated, cut off from the world, holding a secret that grew larger with every passing day.

How else would I survive or get someone to help? Was I destined to be a prisoner? A bird in a cage after managing to escape one my whole life?

If Drake kept me locked in this room, it was only a matter of weeks before my sweater could no longer hide the shift in my body. It was only a matter of time before his sharp, sovereign senses or a royal physician brought to my bedside discovered the life taking root in my core.

And when that happened, the nightmare would truly begin.

If he believed the child was his, he would treat me like an incubator, keeping me chained to this bed to protect his heir while shutting me out of his heart forever.

And if he believed it belonged to Darius...

I was doomed to die.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my fingers digging tight into the fabric of my sweater, a fresh sob tearing from my lungs into the quiet room.

I lay down on the cold floorboards, pulling my knees up to my stomach, clutching myself tightly as the storm outside hammered against the iron bars of my window, leaving me alone in the dark with my bitter thoughts and the terrifying truth growing inside me.