Felicity's eyes opened to artificial brightness.
Ceiling panels hummed overhead. Their sterile glare never shifted, warmed, or faded. The light pierced her eyelids, nesting behind her eyes like a blooming headache.
She didn't move at first, unsure if she felt fear or numbness.
Her lungs filled slowly while she tested the air the way Victor had taught her to.
Chemicals. Sanitizer. The tang of steel lingered in the air.
Everything reeked of scrubbed absence.
There was no salt. No water surrounded her. The faint, comforting scent of the ocean was missing.
That was the first wrong thing. She sat up, quietly inventorying her body.
Her mouth was dry—anxiety prickled under her skin. Pressure built behind her temples as worry clouded her thoughts. A dull heaviness across her chest made her breathing shallow, each inhale edged with a vague fear.
And something is missing.
The ocean was gone.
Not just the memory of it, but the feeling too.
The feeling.
In Tidehaven, the water had lived quietly beneath her skin, a distant tide moving through bone and breath. A constant pressure she hadn't noticed until it vanished.
Now nothing. The absence tightened her stomach.
The room around her was small and brutally practical. Concrete walls, reinforced with steel bands. A narrow cot was bolted to the floor. In the corner, a drain; in the wall, a recessed slot for food.
No windows. No clocks. Nowhere can anyone mark the passage of days.
No markings where someone might count days.
No markings where someone might count days.
When she swallowed, something inside her recoiled.
Her magic was wrong.
Not gone, but changed.
She could still feel it faintly, like warmth buried beneath thick cloth. But when she tried to move it, the pressure collapsed before it reached her throat.
Muted, like trying to sing underwater.
Like trying to sing underwater.
She whispered anyway.
The sound barely left her lips.
Pain lanced behind her eyes. Her stomach heaved; she gripped the cot for balance, frustration mixing with a desperate edge of fear.
A speaker crackled. "Do not attempt ability usage," said a female voice.
Calm, bored.
Calm, almost bored.
Felicity went very still.
"You are not damaged," the voice continued. "Do not damage yourself."
A silence followed, long enough to feel intentional. Felicity felt a sting of humiliation steal over her.
"Cleanliness inspection occurs every six hours. Food arrives twice daily. You will remain quiet. You will remain compliant."
The lights brightened slightly. Felicity forced herself to breathe evenly. This wasn't a prison.
It was a warehouse.
The difference mattered.
She learned the rules by watching.
A door somewhere down the corridor opened once while she was awake.
A woman screamed.
The sound was sharp and brief, then cut off completely.
Silence rushed back in so quickly that it rang in Felicity's ears.
When the guards opened her door for inspection, she stood exactly where they pointed.
Hands at her sides.
Eyes lowered.
They examined her skin, mouth, and hair. One snapped off his gloves, scowling when she flinched a beat late.
"Rule one," he said flatly. "Quiet."
Another pointed to the floor.
"Rule two. Clean."
They left without another word. Felicity scrubbed herself raw during the wash period, folding the blanket exactly as they had shown her.
Felicity scrubbed herself raw during the wash period. She folded the blanket exactly the way they showed her.
She sat when told.
She stood when told.
She did not speak.
But she noticed everything, her mind sharpening with tense vigilance to disguise growing dread.
Cells were spaced so voices didn't carry. Movements staggered, preventing prisoners from crossing paths. Doors always opened one at a time.
All of the captives were women.
Some are already hollow.
No mirrors, no clocks, no names, this place did not want rebellion.
It wanted erosion.
By the end of the first cycle, Felicity understood the most important rule.
Shut up.
So she did, burying her anger and hope beneath obedience.
Her mind never stopped moving.
Victor would notice.
Voss would notice.
Her husbands always noticed when something was wrong. She needed only to survive long enough for them to find her.
———-
Far away, Snow Team travelled home.
The escort mission had stabilised after the initial ambush. The traders were alive, and morale had recovered now that the worst of the route had been cleared.
Luna rode high on Victor's shoulders. She talked endlessly about the glass tunnels in Tidehaven and the fish that had swum overhead like floating constellations.
Frost walked beside them, quietly practising shield formations the way Rose had taught him.
Victor opened his space repeatedly as they travelled.
They packed blankets, soft cloth, and dried fruit Luna insisted Felicity would love.
They packed blankets, soft cloth, and dried fruit Luna insisted Felicity would love.
Dried fruit, Luna insisted, Felicity would love.
"She'll laugh at this," Luna said proudly, holding up a crooked metal charm she had found half-buried in the dirt.
Victor smiled faintly and tucked it away.
They did not know.
————
Felicity sensed the change in the guards before anything was said. Their behaviour shifted in small ways most people wouldn't notice.
They avoided looking at her. Their movements became more deliberate. Something had been decided.
She kept her eyes lowered, posture small, leaning into their expectations.
During inspections, she had learned something useful.
The women here were expected to be weak.
Minor magic.
No threat.
So she leaned into that expectation.
She moved slowly.
She nodded when spoken to.
She let her power sink deep beneath her skin, hidden where no one would look.
By the time they unlocked her cell, she was already dressed. The linen shift hung loosely against her legs. She smoothed it across her thighs, ears twitching before she forced them still.still.
Her tail curled tight against her leg.
"Come," the guard said.
That was all.
She stepped across the threshold. The suppression ward hit instantly. The sensation was like stepping into freezing water.
Her breath left her lungs as the magic pressed against her skin and forced her power deeper into silence.
The walk through the facility was methodical.
Upper levels were clinical.
Clean concrete.
Electric lights.
Disinfectant.
Lower down, the building changed.
Concrete gave way to older stone.
The electric hum faded.
Torchlight replaced the sterile panels. The air thickened with oil smoke and something more ancient.
Ash.
Felicity felt it immediately. Places that held pain developed a texture. The stone itself seemed to remember. The holding cells above had been temporary.
These cells were built for permanence. The guards halted in a corridor etched with claw marks and scorch scars.
One tapped a coded rhythm on the door.
It opened silently.
They didn't push her inside.
They simply stepped back.
Felicity stood there for a moment before crossing the threshold.
He was the first thing she noticed.
Not his height. Not even the long coil of a serpentine tail resting across the stone floor. It was the way the room seemed to bend toward him.
A snake beastman stood at the window with his back partially turned, one clawed hand braced against the sill like he was holding himself still.
Obsidian scales traced the length of his arms and throat, catching the torchlight in dull flashes of gold when he moved. The powerful tail behind him shifted slowly, muscle sliding beneath armour-thick scales.
Her breath shortened, a mix of instinctive fear and dangerous fascination clutching her heart.
His scent reached her next.
Burning metal.
Hot stone after lightning.
And beneath it, something unmistakably reptilian, warm scales and dry heat.
Her knees almost buckled under the rush of both anxious excitement and uncertainty.
He spoke without turning.
"Sit."
She obeShe obeyed because she understood predators. The floor was cold under her knees.
Her hands folded in her lap. When he finally turned, the room seemed to tilt, gravity quietly rearranging itself around him.
His eyes were yellow.
Vertical pupils.
Focused entirely on her.
She flinched before she could stop herself.
He noticed.
His jaw tightened slightly.
"I do not want your fear," he said slowly.
Felicity swallowed, meeting his gaze.
"It's not a choice, sir."
He studied her for a long moment.
Then he crossed the room and poured water into a metal cup. "Drink."
She accepted it carefully. The water was cool, real, and clean. The relief made her head spin with an ache that was almost gratitude.
When she lowered the cup, he was crouched across from her.
Close enough that she could feel heat radiating from his body.
He inhaled slowly.
Testing her scent.
Like a snake tasting the air.
Something unreadable moved behind his eyes.
"I'm sorry you were brought here," he said after a moment. "It's not how I would have preferred."
Felicity nodded quietly.
The silence stretched, tension knotting in her chest as uncertainty grew.
"You have never bitten," he said eventually.
Not a question.
She shook her head.
"You could."
"I prefer not to."
His mouth curved faintly.
"You're the strangest of thDamien watched her, pupils narrowing to slits. "Most of the others try to bite." He crossed to a small table where a tray had been left. left.
Real food.
Warm broth.
Dense bread.
Roasted meat.
The scent twisted painfully in her stomach, stirring hunger and sharp vulnerability.
He carried it over and placed the dishes within her reach.
He didn't touch her.
He didn't rush her.
He simply watched.
Felicity forced herself to eat slowly, careful not to betray her anxious gratitude and fear.
Small bites.
Careful breathing.
When she finished, he removed the empty bowl.
Then leaned back slightly, "You know what comes next."
Felicity nodded.
He circled her once.
Slow.
Observing everything.
Her posture.
Her scent.
The tension in her shoulders.
She braced herself, heart pounding with anticipation and cold dread.
Expecting restraints.
Instead, he stepped past her.
"You'll sleep," he said.
He gestured toward the bed.
She blinked, confusion and surprise flickering across her face.
"And you?" she asked before she could stop herself.
"The couch."
He said it was the answer that had always been obvious.
Felicity climbed onto the bed slowly. The mattress dipped softly beneath her weight. The blanket came up to her chin.
Across the room, Damien lowered himself onto the couch, his massive, scaled tail sliding across the floor before coiling beside him in a slow, deliberate loop.
The silence deepened.
For the first time since her capture, Felicity slept, her fear softening into cautious relief.
Deeply.
Above them, the world kept turning.
But deep inside the warehouse, Felicity waited patiently.
Her husbands would come.
And when they did,
Everything here would change.