SERAPHINA’S POV

I woke to an unoccupied bed, one to my side cold, its shape indented out. There was a dull ache in my lower abdomen, a physical reminder of the night, a blur of horror, bewilderment, and a disorienting, unsettling attraction I couldn't understand. I could remember him, a mix of unsettling gentleness and possession, him speaking over me with horrifying, possessive words – You’re mine. It was a transgression, and yet… a shamefaced, weakened part of me ached for it. Thinking about it, I was sick.

I sat, my aching, stiff form protesting. As I dressed, I lived through events of the preceding night, each one a new wound. I felt tainted, degraded, and totally confused. What happened to me? How could I have let him… touch me? I hated him, I feared him, and yet, in that interval, I'd experienced… something. Realizing it, I wanted to bury my head in a pit and not ever have to face it again.

I determined to move out of the room. I couldn't abide the smothering quiet, the lingering odor of him that clung to linen. As I moved out into the hallway, I heard a murmur of sound, indistinguishable and low, issuing out of the study. Damien’s voice, sharp and clipped, rang out, no mistaking it. Out of curiosity, a perverse desire for self-destruction, I moved in its direction.

“Yes, I have… fulfilled the necessity,” a voice, deeper and measured, drawled in answer. It sounded like a doctor.

“Yes,” Damien’s voice, level, acknowledged him. “The agreement is completed.”

My heart plunged. The contract. It was all about the baby, about the contract. Nothing else. Why then did he act like he actually cared? My heart stung...

“I understand,” the doctor said. “But I have to voice my concerns. Her… physical state… leaves... She looks frail, almost underweight. I'm not sure her body can carry a baby to full term.”

A shiver of revulsion crept over me. He'd… had me examined? In my sleep? I shuddered at the mere thought. I'd been under a microscope, a specimen, a mere laboratory rat.

"That's your problem, not mine," Damien interrupted, annoyance thick in his voice. "I've kept my part of the bargain. Get it sorted out. I don't care what you have to do."

"Of course, Mr. Ashford," the doctor hastened to assure him. "We will try everything in our power. She will receive close observation."

I couldn't breathe. I felt trapped, smothered, with walls closing in about me. He didn't care about me. Didn't care whether I lived or died. All that concerned him was the baby, the heir. I was nothing but an incubator, a vessel.

"And if she's not… sufficient?" the doctor asked uncertainly.

Damien's answer sent a shiver down my spine. "Then I will have to go and try again somewhere else. Not that qualified women in general are in short supply."

His words hurt me deep. It shouldn't have shocked me. I'd seen him to be heartless, cruel. But to hear it, to hear the cold, emotionless lack of concern in his voice, hurt my insides.

It shouldn't have reduced me to tears, but it did. Silently, tears streamed down my face, and I stood, listening in horror at the dialogue that took down with it the glimmer of hope I'd been holding onto.

I fled, my heels pounding down the corridor, fleeing to the security of my room.

I collapsed onto my bed, wailing in anguish. I'd been broken, humiliated, worth nothing at all.

He didn't desire me. Didn't even see me. I'd been a mere tool to him, a tool to secure him, secure his family name, for eternity.

The doctor's words sounded in my head. Weak… starving… inadequate. They'd been correct, I'd been weak, and I'd been allowing my parents to overtake me, run my life for me.

I'd let Isabelle tear me down, make me less, and I'd let Damien use me, use me for a mere purpose, a mere function: a womb.

I lay in my room for a long, long period, drowning in my misery. The rain ceased, and sunlight crept through gaps in cloud cover, but my inner shadow continued to consume me.

I braved my room a little later in the day, knowing I couldn't lock myself in forever, shut out the world, him. I must confront him, confront reality, my reality.

I saw him in the study, same room in which I'd overheard him speaking with the doctor.

He sat at his desk, with his back to me. I hung in indecision, my heart thudding in my chest. But I forced my way in.

He turned when he heard my footsteps. His face, ever-inscrutable, no exception.

"Seraphina," he said, in a voice neither warm nor cold, but simply matter-of-fact.

I stood, transfixed, my eyes locked onto carpeted flooring. I did not know what to say. I did not know how to accuse him.

"Is there something I can do for you?" he asked, a faint taint of annoyance in his voice.

I shook my head, my voice constricting in my throat.

"Then I believe I must insist that you leave," he advised, returning to whatever work lay in front of him.

His rejection pained, a blow I could almost palpate. I longed to scream at him, to inform him of all that hurt I'd received at his hands, of all I hated him for. But I couldn't. I was afraid.

I turned and fled the study, my heart shattering with each thudding beat. I returned to my room, my gilded cage, my prison.

I lay down on my bed, staring at my ceiling, my mind a maelstrom of conflicting feelings.

I hated him, aye, but I experienced a strange, unsettling attraction towards him. It was a confounding, horrifying sensation, a sensation that questioned my own madness.

I knew one thing for sure. I was no longer that silly, innocent little girl I'd ever been.

I was a wife, a captive, a soon-to-be mother. I was bound to Damien, bound to him with a marriage, with a baby, with an inexplicable, unsettling attraction that frightened me and intrigued me both at the same time.

And I lay in my room, surrounded in quiet, and couldn't help but wonder about my future, about the life I'd have in the shadow of his relentless heart and will. Would I ever break free? Or forever become a player in his game, a victim to his will?