"Leah!"
Isabella's voice rang sharply through the hall, her face flushed a deep, burning red. "That was for His Highness!"
Leah turned her head slightly, her gaze drifting toward Damon, who was looking at her with a blank stare.
Leah's provocative smile faltered, but she quickly looked away from him to Isabella. "Bella, why are you making a fuss? Just serve him the one you made for me. Problem solved!"
Isabella's grip tightened around the tray. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
"What?" Came her voice in disbelief, "It can't be that you didn't make any for me, right?"
Sensing the shift in atmosphere, Alpha Wolfborn quickly stepped in, forcing a laugh. "It's just a dessert, no need to make a scene." He signalled an omega standing in the corner, "Help Isabella serve another one."
There was a brief flicker of resistance in Isabella's eyes, but she swallowed it quickly. With a stiff nod, she turned and walked away fuming.
The tension was so thick, you could cut it with a knife.
From the moment Damon had arrived, everything revolved around him, and he didn't even bother.
"Leah," Alpha Wolfborn cleared his throat, trying to regain control of the situation, "Why are you bullying your little cousin? Now that you are married in the great House of Varkos, you need to serve as an example?"
Leah lifted her gaze slowly, though he was talking to her, his eyes were fixed on Damon, trying to please him.
"You are Princess Varkos now," Luna Wolfborn chided, too. "Why are you still behaving like a child?"
Leah lowered her eyes for a brief moment, reflecting on their words.
These two dirtbags were full of shit. From the moment they brought her from the orphanage, they fed her nonsense about how she existed only for the marriage to Damon.
Now that she remembered, they put her through so much.
She looked up and smiled. "...I'm sorry. Coming back here, I felt like I was back to a month ago, when you used to starve and cane me so I could get a better body and posture."
Damon's gaze flickered toward her before his blank stare landed on the shell-shocked couple.
Leah giggled shyly, as if she had just recalled something fond instead of something that should have never been said out loud. Her fingers didn't stop moving, cutting into the steak with slow, unhurried precision, like the suffocating silence around her had nothing to do with her at all.
"I had to sneak in food out of Isabella's leftovers when Auntie wasn't looking all the time," she said softly, lowering her gaze to her plate as though she felt embarrassed by her own words, though the faint curve of her lips never quite disappeared.
A pause settled over the table, thick and pressing, but Leah only tilted her head slightly and added, almost as if she suddenly remembered something important, "But, Damon, don't misunderstand them."
Her voice turned gentle, almost defending, as she lifted another bite to her lips. "Uncle and Auntie care about me a lot. They were so worried I would be bullied because I couldn't shift, so they looked for a cure everywhere."
The knife in Alpha Wolfborn's hand slipped slightly, scraping harshly against the plate, but no one spoke, no one dared interrupt her as she continued in that same soft, reminiscing tone that sounded dangerously close to gratitude.
"One time, the pack doctor prescribed me hormones to force a shift," she said, stirring the food on her plate absentmindedly before taking another bite, her lashes lowering as if she was recalling the details carefully. "I half-shifted…"
She let out a small, breathy laugh, like it was an awkward but harmless memory. "So they especially bought silver chains for me so I wouldn't hurt myself."
The sound of cutlery being placed down echoed sharply through the room.
Damon's hand had stilled completely, his fingers loosening around the knife as it rested against the plate with deliberate control, but the shift in his presence was immediate, heavy and cold enough that even the servants seemed to shrink further into the corners.
Forcing a shift was one of the worst kinds of torture there was, something even full-blooded wolves feared, something that could break a body and mind beyond repair. And Leah—fragile, half-human, someone who couldn't even shift properly—she shouldn't have survived something like that.
The chair scraped loudly as Damon stood up without warning, the sudden movement slicing through the tension like a blade. His hand shot forward, gripping Leah's wrist firmly enough to still her movements.
"Stand up."
Leah blinked, her expression genuinely puzzled as she looked up at him, her fork still held loosely in her other hand as if she had been interrupted mid-bite. "But I'm not done," she said, glancing down at her plate with mild concern before stirring the food again, completely unbothered by the force in his grip. "Auntie makes such a great steak."
For a moment, Damon just looked at her, his gaze darkening inch by inch, something dangerous flickering beneath that otherwise controlled exterior. His brows lifted slightly, not in surprise but in something colder, more restrained, as if he was holding something back.
Then, just as abruptly as he had grabbed her, he let go.
He sat back down.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
And this time, when he looked up, his gaze shifted past Leah and landed directly on the Alpha and Luna Wolfborn, cold and sharp enough to make their spines stiffen instantly.
The two of them, who had half-risen in panic when he stood, froze mid-motion before awkwardly lowering themselves back into their seats, their earlier urgency replaced by something far worse—fear that settled deep and refused to leave.
Leah, meanwhile, simply continued eating.
She didn't rush, didn't falter, taking her time as if she was truly savoring the meal, even though the air around her had turned so tense it felt impossible to breathe. Every small sound—the soft clink of her fork, the quiet shift of her plate—echoed unnaturally loud in the silence.
"This is really good too," she said after a while, glancing at another dish and pointing lightly with her fork, her tone carrying a faint, easy warmth that felt completely out of place. "Isabella made this, right? It tastes amazing."
No one responded.
The Alpha family sat rigidly in their seats, their faces pale, their mouths slightly open as if they wanted to speak, to deny, to laugh it off—but Damon's presence pressed down on them like a weight, sealing their throats shut.
Even the servants didn't dare move.
Leah finished her meal at her own pace, setting her fork down with a small, satisfied breath before dabbing her lips lightly, as if she had just enjoyed a perfectly normal dinner.
She stood up first, smoothing out the fabric of her dress, her expression calm and amiable, as though nothing unusual had happened at all.
Damon rose a second later, his movements controlled, his face once again blank, but the chill in his gaze never left as it lingered on the Alpha and Luna Wolfborn for a fraction too long before he turned away.
No one tried to stop them.
No one tried to explain.
The excuses hovered in the air, unspoken and useless, as the couple followed them to the door with stiff, mechanical steps, their earlier authority completely gone.
By the time they reached the doorstep, the night air felt sharp against the skin, but it did nothing to ease the suffocating tension that clung to them.
Leah's steps slowed.
Her gaze drifted toward the car waiting outside, and she stopped mid-step.
There was no way she was sitting back in that death trap. again.
"I want to spend some time with my family…" she said softly, turning slightly toward Damon, her expression gentle, almost hesitant, as if she was making a small, reasonable request.
Damon looked at her.
His face revealed nothing.
Not agreement, not refusal, not even curiosity—just a blank, unreadable stillness that made it impossible to tell what he was thinking.
Leah smiled, her tone light, reassuring. "Don't worry, Uncle and Auntie will take care of me much better than before."
A pause stretched between them, thin but heavy, before Damon gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.
Then he turned and left.
She turned back to them with a wide smile.