Page 55 of My Unhinged Alphas
That freezes me.
Then Havoc laughs. “No.”
For a few more seconds, I keep standing there with my hand pressed to my mouth, listening. Their voices get lower. More distant, moving from the door.
They’re leaving. Or at least they’re leaving me alone for now.
I swallow hard and force myself to move. My legs feel weak, unsteady under me, but I make myself cross the room. Every beat of my heart feels too loud, too hard, like it might give me away all by itself.
I close my hand around the knob, more out of instinct than hope. I expect it to be locked, but it isn’t. The handle turns easily in my grip.
For a second I just stare at it, too surprised to breathe. They left it open. In the middle of their argument, in all that anger and distraction, they left the door open.
My pulse slams harder.
I crack the door and peer out first, every nerve in my body straining.
The hallway beyond is dim and long, lit by low wall sconces that cast more shadow than light. The floor is dark wood, old enough to groan in places, and the walls are painted a deep charcoal that makes the whole corridor feel narrower than it probably is. Framed pictures hang at uneven intervals, but I can’t make out much beyond dark shapes and gold edges in the half-light. A thin runner stretches down the middle of the floor, muffling sound, and the air smells faintly of smoke, old polish, and something colder underneath, like stone and dust.
I step out slowly, easing the door shut behind me without letting it click. My heart is beating so hard it makes me dizzy. I force myself to listen.
Nothing.
Then, faintly, from farther down the hall, the last edge of their voices.
To the left, the hallway stretches toward a wider pool of light, and I catch the tail end of movement there, just enough to know they went that way. Both of them.
I stare after them for one long second, my mind racing.
Follow them and risk walking straight into whatever they’re doing. Or go the other way.
Right. I turn in the opposite direction.
The right side of the hall looks darker, quieter. Fewer lights. A bend farther down that hides whatever comes next. My chest tightens, but I start moving anyway, one careful step after another, keeping close to the wall, trying not to breathe too loudly.
Every instinct I have is screaming at me to run, but I don’t. Not yet.
Running without knowing where I am could be worse.
So I go right, heart hammering, senses stretched thin, disappearing into the dim hallway before either of them can come back and realize the door was never locked at all.
The corridor seems to stretch forever, dim and silent, every closed door looking exactly like the last. The walls are dark, the air stale, and the place feels wrong in a way I can’t explain. Not just unfamiliar. Wrong. Like the whole house was built to confuse you, to turn you around until you stop knowing where safety is.
My heartbeat won’t slow down. It pounds against my ribs so hard it makes me feel sick.
At the very end of the hall, I find another door. Dark wood. Brass handle. Closed. I grab the knob and push inside.
At first, I don’t understand what I’m seeing.
The room is lit low, with candles burning in corners and one lamp throwing a pool of amber over the floor. It looks almost likea private chapel, if a chapel could be stripped down and made unsettling. There’s a bench near the wall. A small table. Heavy curtains pulled shut. The air smells like wax and sweat and something faintly metallic.
And then my eyes land on the man in the middle of the room.
Vale.
His back is to me. His shirt is open, hanging loose, and I can see the skin of his back, marked red. In his hand is a leather strap.
For one horrible second, I just stare.
