"They won't keep me here, And They won't give me the attention I want either, so leaving here is the best option." Elena whispered the words to herself, her eyes gleaming with a desperate, dangerous resolve. Weeks had stretched into an eternity in her gilded cage. Weeks since her note, since Drake's failed diversion. The manor was a fortress now, guards everywhere, a suffocating reminder of her captivity. But they were focused outwards, on Fenrir, on the borders. Not inwards, not on the forgotten places.
She moved silently in the predawn hours, the manor asleep. Slipping out of her room during a shift change, a tiny window of opportunity she'd observed for days, she found the hidden panel in the wall of a disused linen closet. It opened into a narrow, dusty tunnel. The air was stale, thick with the scent of damp earth and decay.
"Ewww Disgusting, I can't believe I am doing this Urggh," she muttered, her elegant clothes snagging on rough stone, getting soiled by the grime. Fear was a bitter taste in her mouth, but it was tempered by a desperate hope. Freedom. And the chance to finally be the valued one.
The tunnel was long, dark, and cramped.
"Since they don't want me here, I will go to the people that are willing to take me in, and if they find out I rejected the alpha, they will bow down to me Instead"she mumbled
She stumbled, scraped her knees, her hands becoming raw against the rough-hewn walls. But she pushed on, the image of Darius's disgusted face, of Ariana's serene, pregnant form, driving her forward. They thought they had won? Not yet.
Finally, a faint light. The tunnel opened into the cold night air outside the Blackthorn perimeter. She emerged, gasping, into the relative freedom of the woods.
She moved cautiously, heart pounding, straining her ears. Where were they? She couldn't go back. Softly, her voice trembling despite her efforts to sound confident, she called out into the darkness.
"Drake? Dominic Fenrir? Are you there?"
Silence. Then, a rustle in the underbrush. Shadows detached themselves from the deeper darkness. Rogues. More than she expected. Their eyes, reflecting the faint moonlight, were hard. Their scent was rough, wild, utterly alien to the controlled air of Blackthorn Manor.
Drake emerged, stepping into a patch of moonlight. His usual eager grin was gone, replaced by a wary, assessing look that sent a shiver down her spine.
"Oh my goddess," one of the rogues sneered, circling her slowly, like a predator with cornered prey. His voice was laced with contempt. "Look what the woods dragged in. The Alpha's rejected pretty thing."
Elena held her head high, forcing confidence into her trembling voice. "I am Elena Cummings. Ariana's twin. The woman Darius Blackthorn was meant to marry But I rejected him, The woman you wanted to help escape. I know things. About the manor. About Darius." She took a shaky breath. "I can be useful to Dominic."
Drake stepped forward, crossing his arms. "You were supposed to send a message," he said, his voice flat. "Not show up yourself. Dominic wasn't expecting you." He looked her up and down, a cold, calculating assessment. Useful? Maybe. As a bargaining chip. Or something else entirely. Not in the way she hoped.
The rogues parted, and Dominic Fenrir emerged from the trees, a formidable, intimidating figure even in the dim light. His single eye fixed on Elena. He didn't speak at first, just sniffed the air, a slow, evaluating inhale that felt like he was dissecting her very essence.
"The twin," Dominic rumbled, his voice like gravel scraping on stone. He stepped closer, circling her as the other rogue had, but his presence was infinitely more dangerous. "Interesting. You think you have something to offer me?" He chuckled, a harsh, unpleasant sound that held no amusement, only cruelty. "You think you're a prize, Tell me what do you want?"
Elena's forced confidence wavered, cracks appearing in her facade. "I... I am Ariana's twin!" she stammered, her voice higher than she intended. "We are the same blood! The same lineage, and I will be useful to you!"
Dominic stopped circling. He stepped closer, his gaze intense, chilling her to the bone. He reached out, not to offer a hand, but to grab a handful of her sleek dark hair, yanking her head back painfully. "You are nothing like her," he growled, pulling tighter, forcing her to look up at him. "You lack the scent. The light. The Old Blood doesn't sing in you." He looked at her not as an equal, or even a useful source of information, but as a pathetic, desperate thing. "You are just... a shadow." He saw her desperation, her malice, and her connection to the woman he truly desired, and found her contemptible. "You want to be useful?" He shoved her violently towards his waiting rogues, releasing her hair, letting her stumble. "Fine." His voice was indifferent, cold. "She's yours. Make her useful, you can do whatever you want with her, that includes fucking her."
Elena cried out as rough hands grabbed her, pulling her off balance. She stumbled, caught by arms that were hard and unforgiving. She looked at Drake, his face unreadable now, at the leering, cruel faces of the other rogues closing in, at Dominic Fenrir's back as he turned away, his disinterest a final, crushing blow. The horrifying realization hit her with the force of a physical impact, stealing her breath. She hadn't found allies. She had found a new, far more brutal cage. Her desperate gamble had failed catastrophically. She was a captive, a plaything for brutal men who saw her only in relation to the sister she despised, a shadow in the den of wolves far wilder and crueler than anything she had imagined at Blackthorn Manor. The freedom she sought was an illusion.
Back at the manor, as dawn approached, a different kind of crisis was brewing.
"Guard change, post 7 clear!"
"Guard change, post 8 clear!"
"Guard change, east wing corridor clear!"
"Miss Elena's room... secure is it?" A guard checked the lock, did a final pass. Something felt wrong. Too quiet. He checked again. Pushed the door open slightly.
"Hello? Miss Elena?" Silence. He stepped inside. The room was empty. The bed untouched. His eyes darted around. What was this?
He saw the hidden panel in the linen closet. Saw it ajar. A cold dread washed over him.
"Alert! Alert!" he roared into his communicator, his voice ringing with panic. "Alert everyone! Miss Elena has escaped! She's gone! Alert the Alpha!"
The manor erupted into controlled chaos. Wolves moved swiftly, silently, following commands.
Lucien burst into Darius's study, his face grim, lacking his usual tired humor. "Alpha! Report from the east wing! Elena's gone! She found the old service tunnel!"
Darius looked up from the perimeter reports, his golden eyes hardening. "Gone?"
"Escaped, Alpha," Lucien confirmed, running a hand through his hair. "Guard just found the tunnel entrance. She's outside the perimeter."
Kane was right behind him, his voice flat. "We picked up traces of her scent near the western edge. And... rogue scent, Alpha. Fenrir's pack. Looks like she headed straight for them."
Lucien's face tightened. "We have a new problem, Alpha. Elena escaped and has been taken by Dominic's rogues. What do we do? Mount a recovery?"
Kane looked at Darius, his expression unreadable. "She went there willingly, Alpha. Her scent trails towards theirs."
Darius was silent for a long moment, the morning light catching the hard lines of his face. Elena. Always causing chaos. Always looking for an angle. He thought of her desperate gamble, her twisted mind seeking power and validation among dangerous wolves. He thought of her cruelty to Ariana, her attempt to poison her own twin.
"She is so full of surprise," Darius finally said, his voice cold, devoid of emotion. He looked at Lucien, at Kane. His priority wasn't Elena. His priority was Ariana. And the life within her. "Since she went there willingly... let her be."
He turned back to the maps, the matter settled. Elena had made her choice. Her fate was her own.
Just then, a different voice cried out from another part of the manor. Sharp. Painful. Ariana.
"Darius!" she cried out, clutching her swollen belly, her voice raw with agony.
Darius's head snapped up, his focus instantly shifting. The maps, the rogues, Elena's escape – it all vanished.
"Ariana!" he roared, surging from the study.
A sudden, sharp pain unlike anything she'd experienced before seized Ariana. It wasn't the subtle aches of pregnancy; it was raw, intense. A wave of contractions, powerful and premature, wracked her body. The rogue attack, Elena's escape, the escalating danger – it was all culminating, the stress, the fear, forcing her body into overdrive. "The baby.... it's coming Now".