She limped behind the steward in silence.
Every step was a dull fire along her back, the lashes from yesterday still raw beneath her plain tunic. Her breath came shallow, and she dared not let it falter. She didn't ask where they were going. She already knew.
Lord Fenris had summoned her.
The thought curled cold in her stomach.
The steward didn't speak either. He kept his eyes forward as though even he was afraid.
They passed through marble halls she'd never been allowed to see. Not the servant corridors. These were cold and regal—etched with runes that pulsed faintly as she passed. The air smelled of old smoke, clean steel, and something wilder.
The great doors ahead opened soundlessly.
The steward stepped aside.
"Enter."
She did.
The chamber beyond was large but quiet. Dark stone framed by heavy velvet drapes. No guards. No throne.
Only him.
Lord Fenris stood by a tall window, back turned, framed in fading daylight. His hair was the color of night without stars. Long and loose, it brushed the collar of his black coat. And when he turned—
His eyes were red.
Not crimson like a vampire's. Not glowing with enchantment.
But blood-dark and still.
Like a wound that had never healed.
"Come here," he said.
She obeyed, though her legs trembled with each step. When she stopped, her breath hitched, and she nearly collapsed.
"Your back."
He didn't say it like a question. Just a fact. Observed, noted.
She forced herself not to flinch.
"I've dismissed the steward who beat you," he said.
Silence.
"That is not mercy. It's policy. The weak are not to be made weaker without cause."
Still she said nothing.
"You speak very little."
"I wasn't given many reasons to speak," she whispered.
At that, a flicker of something passed through his expression—neither pity nor amusement. Just… something old and tired.
"Your number," he said. "01911. Is that all you've ever had?"
She hesitated. "Yes."
"Then you will not wear it again."
She blinked up at him.
"I name you Sayori."
The name hit her like soft thunder.
Sayori.
A name.
Not a kindness. Not a reward.
But a choice. His.
"Why?" she asked before she could stop herself.
He stepped closer, and her heart pounded in her ribs.
"When I was born," he said, "my mother bled to death in her bed. My father howled for three nights and took his own life on the fourth."
His red eyes bored into her.
"I have been a curse since the day I opened my eyes. They call me Alpha, but they mean deathless. They mean alone."
Sayori said nothing. Her pain faded beneath the weight of his words.
He raised a hand—not to touch her, but to gesture to the long black banner draped behind his desk. Upon it: a wolf, not howling, but sleeping beneath a dying moon.
"I see everything," he said, "and I know silence when it is survival."
She met his gaze then.
And something in his eyes—cold, sharp, ancient—paused.
"You may go," he said quietly.
She turned to leave. Limped, still.
But before the doors closed behind her, he said one last thing:
"Sayori."
She stopped.
"Return tomorrow. I have use for someone who knows how to listen."
And the doors closed.
She stood outside, heartbeat in her throat.
Not a pet. Not a slave.
Sayori.