The city hadn't slept.
Maya sat curled on the penthouse balcony with a blanket around her shoulders, watching the skyline pulse with restless neon. She hadn't slept either. Every time she shut her eyes, the images came back—the sketches in that ancient book, Damon's voice admitting he was cursed, his gaze when he told her none of them could hold me.
Her pulse still quickened remembering those words. The way he'd said them, low and unguarded, had sounded dangerously close to a confession.
But Damon hadn't spoken a word to her since. He'd vanished into meetings, phone calls, whispered conversations behind closed doors. And the space he left felt heavier than his presence.
Ana would have told her to be careful. To guard her heart. Maya almost laughed at the thought. Too late. Somewhere between the training lessons, the fights, the storms and silver eyes—her heart had already betrayed her.
It was close to midnight when she heard the voices.
Maya was passing the corridor that led to Damon's office, intending to grab tea from the kitchen, when the low murmur stopped her cold. Damon's voice—calm, clipped, dangerous. And another one, older, rasping with authority.
She shouldn't listen. She knew she shouldn't.
But she pressed closer anyway, heart thudding.
"…she's human," the older voice said. "Fragile. Temporary. You can't expect the council to take this bond seriously."
Maya froze, bile rising in her throat. They were talking about her.
Damon's reply was smooth, controlled. "The council already accepted her. That was the deal."
A pause. Then the man's chuckle, cruel. "We both know why they did. Because you convinced them she'd be the tether. That she'd keep the beast in you contained."
Maya's blood went ice-cold.
She pressed closer, breath shallow.
Damon didn't deny it. His voice stayed level. "The prophecy is clear. I need a wife bound by law. She serves her purpose. That's all that matters."
The words hit like a blade. She serves her purpose.
Maya's hands shook.
Another voice joined, female this time, silky and mocking. Selene. "And what happens when she breaks? Humans don't last long in our world. She'll snap under the weight. You'll be free to take a wolf mate then. Someone who can actually give you an heir."
Maya's stomach twisted. An heir.
Damon's silence stretched long enough to strangle her. Then: "If she breaks, she breaks. The contract was never meant to last."
Her world cracked.
She stumbled back from the door, hand clamped over her mouth. Her pulse roared in her ears, drowning out the rest of their words. Never meant to last.
She wanted to scream. To burst in and demand he repeat it to her face. But her legs carried her the other way, down the hall, away from the voices that had just gutted her.
She barely remembered reaching her room. Her hands shook as she locked the door, pressed her back to it, fighting to breathe.
He'd lied. Every touch, every look, every unguarded word—it had all been part of the act. She wasn't his choice. She was his tether. His chain. A contract he could sever when it suited him.
And the worst part? She'd let herself believe otherwise.
Tears burned hot, but she refused to let them fall. She'd given enough of herself to Damon Blackthorn. He wouldn't get her tears too.
The days that followed blurred into cold silence.
Maya avoided him, retreating to her room, her books, anything that kept her from his silver gaze. Damon didn't force conversation, though she felt his presence everywhere—his shadow stretching long across the penthouse, his voice drifting in calls she no longer strained to understand.
Once, she caught him watching her across the living room. His expression unreadable, his body still. For a split second, she thought he might come closer, might explain, might give her something to hold on to.
But he turned away.
That night, Maya packed a bag.
She didn't leave immediately. She couldn't. Ana was still recovering, bills still looming, and Damon's world still wrapped around hers like barbed wire. But she packed all the same, because if she didn't, she'd never survive what was coming.
She practiced her smile in the mirror, rehearsed indifference in her voice. If Damon noticed, he didn't comment.
It was almost worse, this emptiness between them. Not rage, not passion—just a void, waiting to collapse.
One evening, she found herself on the balcony again, staring at the city lights through tears she hadn't meant to shed. The door slid open behind her, and she knew without turning who it was.
Damon stood there, silent, his presence crowding the air.
"You're cold," he said at last, voice low. "Come inside."
Maya laughed bitterly, brushing at her face. "Don't pretend you care."
His jaw flexed. "I wouldn't have married you if I didn't."
She spun on him, eyes blazing. "Don't lie to me. I heard you. I heard every word you told the council. That I'm just a tether. That this—us—was never meant to last."
His face went still, shock flickering in his eyes before the mask slammed back into place. "You were listening."
"Yes, I was listening," she snapped, tears hot again. "And now I know the truth. You never wanted me. You just wanted someone to chain your monster down."
Damon's hand curled into a fist. For the first time since she'd met him, he looked at a loss for words.
But Maya didn't wait for him to find them. She shoved past, her voice breaking. "Don't bother explaining. You've made yourself perfectly clear."
She left him standing there on the balcony, the stormless night thick with silence.
That night, Maya made her decision.
She would leave.
Whatever bond tied her to Damon Blackthorn, she would cut it herself.
Even if it broke her heart in the process.