Chapter 3

Serena

I woke up and hated myself before my eyes even opened.

Then I saw the silk.

Sheets soft, warm, clinging to skin that shouldn't be bare. The ceiling stretched endlessly above me, pale, arched, impossible. A crystal chandelier hung like a frozen storm, light scattering across walls I didn't know.

It took a second for it to hit me.

This wasn't my room.

I blinked, the ache in my lower back reminding me I wasn't dreaming.

The sheets were tangled around me, warm and soft and clinging to bare skin. My bare skin.

My breath caught.

I turned slowly, heart hammering.

Kael lay a few feet away, on the far side of the bed, one arm bent behind his head, his chest rising and falling in deep, even breaths. He was still asleep, the pale morning light from the glass balcony casting shadows across his sculpted torso and collarbone.

He looked calm.

Peaceful.

Not at all like the man who'd pressed me into this mattress hours ago with fire in his eyes and pain in his touch.

Not like the Alpha.

Just... a man.

A man who wasn't supposed to touch me.

Who definitely wasn't supposed to want me.

And yet—there we were.

Naked.

Twisted in the same bed.

My throat tightened. I sat up slowly, clutching the sheets to my chest, heart in freefall. My dress was somewhere near the floor, my undergarments scattered, forgotten in the heat of everything we shouldn't have done.

Panic bloomed in my chest.

I needed to leave. Now.

I slid off the bed as quietly as possible, every movement feeling ten times louder in the silence. I found my dress, wrinkled beyond saving, and pulled it on hurriedly. My hands shook as I grabbed my shoes and padded barefoot across the cold marble floor.

Kael didn't stir.

He didn't open his eyes.

He didn't call out.

And that hurt more than it should have.

The halls were still quiet when I slipped out. Most of the guests had left hours ago, and only a few guards were stationed at the main entrance. I avoided them, moving fast but trying not to look like I was running.

My quarters were on the far side of the estate, tucked behind the laundry corridor where the staff slept.

Just before I turned the final hallway, I saw her.

My mother.

She was standing outside our shared room, adjusting the tie on her apron, her hair tied up in a messy bun. She looked tired but ready, the same way she always did when starting another long day of scrubbing, cooking, serving.

She spotted me immediately.

"Where have you been?" she asked, brows drawing in.

I stopped short.

My tongue stumbled. "I... I slept in Ella's room. I was helping her clean up after the feast, and I was too tired to walk back."

Mom frowned slightly. "Ella? That talkative one from the guest wing?"

I nodded quickly. "Yes. Her."

She gave me a once-over. "You're not even in uniform yet. Go inside and freshen up. Meet me in the kitchen. We have to start clearing out the banquet room before noon."

"Yes, ma."

I darted past her into the room before she could ask anything else.

The door shut behind me with a click, and I pressed my back against it, eyes wide, chest rising and falling too fast.

I'd done it.

I'd lied.

To her.

My mother — the only person who had stood by me when the world turned its back. The one who raised me alone, who cleaned this mansion for years so I could eat and go to school and not end up lost.

And I lied to her face.

All to cover up what I did with the Alpha.

The room was dim and quiet. My half of the space was still neat — the bed untouched, the corner shelf stacked with folded uniforms. I sat on the edge of the bed and clutched my knees to my chest.

The weight of it all crashed over me.

What had I done?

What had I allowed?

The night replayed in my mind in flashes.

Kael's breath against my skin.

His mouth on mine.

The way his hands trembled when he touched me.

How we didn't speak.

How we couldn't speak.

Because everything between us was wrong.

I buried my face in my knees.

My throat ached, my chest tight.

I wasn't stupid. I knew what that night was.

It wasn't love.

It wasn't softness.

It was desperation.

Loneliness.

Alcohol.

Weakness.

And I'd let it happen. I gave him everything I had the one part of myself that no one else had ever touched because for one selfish second, I wanted to feel seen.

But now?

Now I felt invisible all over again.

I didn't know what I expected to wake up to.

A whispered apology?

A soft touch?

Maybe some part of me thought he'd still be looking at me like he did last night. Like I was more than just a maid. More than just human.

I just let myself fall in bed, wrapping myself with my sheets trying to get those memories out of mind.

Maybe I should just avoid him, I don't want to find out what his reaction will be or what he will say when he sees me and realizes what he had done with me.

I am so ashamed of myself right now. How will I look him in the face again? Or should I just pretend like nothing happened?

No, of course something happened, something bitter or sweet i don't know how to feel but I like the way he made me feel seen and heard and I liked the way he worshipped me like a goddess he'd never seen before.

I can't lie, I have never felt so alive and wanted like he made me feel and maybe it wasn't bad after all

But he didn't even wake up before I even left

And maybe that was the answer.

Because to him, it probably meant nothing.

Just a mistake.

And now I had to live with it.

I pressed my face into my hands, trying to stop the fire in my chest. Trying to tell myself it had been just a night.

But it wasn't.

It was everything. Everything I shouldn't have wanted, everything I shouldn't have felt.

I closed my eyes. And in that darkness, I remembered.

Not last night. Not this morning.

The first time I saw him.

The first moment Kael stepped into my life, like a storm I couldn't outrun.

And suddenly, the memory hit me harder than shame ever could.