Chapter 229: Chapter 229: Pretty girl (1)
The wing in which Serathine had politely exiled her was too quiet after dinner.
No soft footsteps in the hall, no clink of porcelain from the tea service, no piano echoing faintly from the drawing room. Just the kind that curled up in the corners and made her shiver from the thought of being watched.
Ophelia sat on the edge of her bed, her posture too straight to be comfortable, hands folded in her lap like she was still at the table. She hadn’t eaten much. She never did. Meals at House D’Argente were more lonely; even though Serathine was generous with her food and drinks, and she could have anything she wanted, Ophelia couldn’t let her and Misty’s work drift. She couldn’t gain weight and destroy what she had done until now.
That was what her mother used to say, wasn’t it? "Pretty girls eat carefully. Beautiful ones plan ahead."
Ophelia still chewed each bite like it might betray her.
She stared down at her lap, where the fabric of her skirt had creased from how tightly her hands were folded. Her nails pressed against her palm. Not hard. Not yet. But the urge itched like an old bruise beneath her skin.
She used to bite them until they bled.
Lavender-scented gloves had been Misty’s solution. Therapy appointments and distractions had been Serathine’s.
Neither worked. Not really.
Her eyes flicked toward the corner of the room where the velvet drapes hung still. No breeze, no sound. Just shadows.
The wing Serathine had given her, offered was the word the butler used, but assigned was more accurate, was beautiful, sterile, and far too quiet. It wasn’t prison, but it felt like exile in luxury.
The academy had been louder. Girls whispering about Misty’s demise like their families wouldn’t do the same, like they were above her. Professors who smiled so fake that it made her shiver. Before, she loved the attention, the fake politeness of the professors and the less wealthy girls that tried to claw at her attention. Even Lucas had once said something about the noise being preferable to thinking. She hadn’t understood that at the time.
Lucas... Everything started with him. With Serathine taking him from her and Misty’s care and shoving him into Trevor Fitzgeralt’s arms.
She sneered; he was sold to another buyer like before. His fate was the same no matter how much he tried.
She opened her phone, the one that Serathine gave her a few months ago, probably tracked, but for Ophelia it didn’t matter. She had answered to Odin, and if before she thought she would be sold too, now... now she believed that Odin was just a father that wanted his daughter back.
Misty, her mother, was with him, and she would be too, soon enough.
She wasn’t stupid; she had left the phone Odin sent her back where she found it. It didn’t seem like it could work anyway; it didn’t have any SIM, and her guess was that she had to answer on the phone and leave it where she found it.
It wouldn’t be the first time she did something like this; Misty gave her similar instructions before, mostly when there were different alphas in their presentation house.
She smiled at the memory; that was barely a year ago... A year ago she was in control, with Lucas obediently following each one of his commands like a good puppy.
The presentation house had been elegant in the way all temporary things were, high ceilings, too-white walls, cold lighting that made everyone look expensive and unreal. The windows were tinted but deliberately shallow, just enough for those outside to see in without being noticed. A design choice, Misty said. A stage. A shopfront.
Lucas used to sit there in the armchair by the west-facing window, back straight, knees together like he’d been trained. Ophelia would pass by with a tray of tea or grapes or a new file for Misty and glance sideways at him. He looked pretty then. Hollow. Like something made to be picked up and paid for.
Even when he started talking back, asking questions, and resisting the schedule, Ophelia always thought of him like that, temporary, a stepping stone for her raise.
He never understood the way things worked.
Not like she did.
Not like Misty had taught her.
She had watched the contract drafts with Odin’s seal on them being filed beside Velloran’s. Misty had said they needed options. "First buyer, fallback buyer, and leverage," she’d murmured one night while sorting through Lucas’s hormone reports.
Ophelia had learned the rhythm of it all. When to speak. When to go quiet. When to hand a cup of tea with her wrist angled just so, smile thin but compliant. When to say, "Lucas isn’t ready to come downstairs, sir, but I’ll let him know you asked."
She remembered the way some alphas looked at her too. Not as bait, but as proof that Misty’s methods worked. And they had worked.
Until Lucas ruined it.
Until he started thinking for himself.
Until Serathine showed up and decided that he was more than inventory. That he was worth rescuing.
Ophelia’s smile faded.
She curled her fingers tight around her knee, pressing her thumb into the bruise where she’d knocked her shin against the desk yesterday. The pain was dull, but it reminded her she was here.
A soft knock broke through the silence.
Three taps. Even and deliberate.
She turned toward the door before the coldness in her spine had time to settle.
Daniel. Of course.
She didn’t need to ask why he was here. The last time he knocked like that was the night Serathine told her Misty’s execution had gone through. She’d said it as if it were weather, "The sentencing was carried out at 14:23."
Ophelia had nodded. Had even thanked her.
She rose from the bed, smoothing her skirt without thinking, already slipping the mask back into place.
The door creaked open without waiting for her reply.
Daniel stood just inside the threshold, crisp as ever. "Her Grace would like to see you in the study."
Her stomach knotted, but she smiled. "Of course."