CHAPTER EIGHT: Forbidden Doors

Maya's pov

The sun streams through the heavy curtains of my room, creating heavy shadows on the smooth wooden floor. Hours, minutes, seconds passed in numbing indifference as I gazed at the ceiling, the mate bond resonating in my chest as a second heartbeat, it's Vincent's heartbeat, I realize in nauseating dismay.

He's off in one corner of the vast house, literally plotting his next turn in some game he's absorbed in. The idea makes the flesh creep, but my body's reaction to him must in part be accepted. Through space and wood, I feel him as the needle to the north in the compass.

I lift myself out of the bed, bare feet silent against the hard floor. My first dress had been replaced with the same dress, plain black, just the right size. Vincent just happened to know my size to order.

The creaking quiet door opens to reveal a hallway off to either side. The Shadowfang estate looks even bigger from the inside, all dark wood and Gothic lines, the centuries-old alphas' portraits glowering down from gilded frames. Their eyes appear to follow me as I creep down the hallway, and I don't bother to flip them the middle finger.

A group of women gather by the massive staircase, their word turning to whispers as they spot me getting closer. All of them beautiful in the other-than-human way, but a hidden distrust lingered in their eyes as they stared at me.

".told she killed him with her bare fists."

".raise him from the dead in order to have her."

"Omega bond is already getting the guys wild."

I keep on walking, chin high in the presence of the heat at the back of my neck. Let them gossip. Let them gawp. I did not come willingly, did not come to be whatever Vincent has made me to be.

The house is bigger than I had imagined it, its corridors spoking off in all directions like the spokes of some wheel. The doors are mostly open, and you catch glimpses of libraries and drawing rooms, some enormous dining room whose table must seat at least fifty, bedrooms decorated by someone with poor taste but bottomless pockets.

It's all open to be looked at. Pretty much like Vincent invites me to go around, to make myself feel at home in his kingdom.

Which is just the reason I'm skeptical.

I no longer hear the sound of bare feet on the Persian carpets in the corridors. I go by more servants, all women, I notice, all of whom lower their eyes and mutter prayers to themselves as they behold me. Their terror is in the air, rolling off them in waves to unsettle my wolf.

"Luna," one of them pants running past me, and the name makes me wince. Luna. The name was so foreign to my ears.

I'm not quite familiar with the weight of that reality. The hallway by this point dead-ends at the massive oak door that is distinguished from the others by one reason.

It's safe.

The brass namplate attached at eye level has the text "SANCTUM MORTALIS" in beautiful script. At the bottom in smaller script is the announcement of the forbidden entry by the order of the Alpha on pain of death.

I run my fingers over the shaped letters, and the familiar shiver of power courses over me. Enchantment. Old enchantment, the kind to blacken the soul and scar the body. Whatever is happening behind this door, it's worth discovering.

So I have to know what's in it.

I look over my shoulder, but the hallway is empty. No guards, servants, no Vincent slumped in the shadows wearing the predator's smile on his face. No one. Me and one closed door and the kind of curiosity that has caused me trouble my whole life.

It's the turn-of-the-old-fashioned-type, the kind you turn the correct key, the one composed of metal, not some bit of electric waste. I'VE been picking locks since the tender age of twelve...a talent my grandmother inculcated in me winking at me and advising me to beware lest one becomes too inquisitive for one's own good.

I remove a bobby pin from my hair, shaping it to the correct form in deft hands. The metal slips smoothly in the lock and clicks softly home, and I start to juggle that soothing rhythmic motion.

The first pin clicks home. The second. The third resists more, but i'm not in a hurry. Vincent believes he's smart enough to keep secrets from me, to ensnare me in his beautiful gilded cage and pull the levers in the dead world.

It's just going to learn that I will not be trapped.

The fourth pin shifts in, and the lock starts to yield. Another, and at last, I will come to know some reality about what Vincent has in store. About the way in which all of my instincts yell at me how the man to whom I'm tied to feels utterly wrong.

The fifth pin is nearly in position when the sound breaks the silence like a knife.

"What do you think you're doing?"

I paused, the familiar voice sending shivers down my spine. Cold, measured, but the threat under those words were quite visible.

Slowly, I spun, my hands dropping at my hips. Vincent is at the end of the hallway, and he doesn't quite seem to be in the best of spirits. His dark hair is rumpled, like he's been pulling at it, and his eyes blaze with inner rage that has absolutely nothing to do with the unnatural glowing of his wolf.

Black pants and an unbuttoned white shirt at, his chest tattoos bare. The tattoos appear to writhe under the poor lighting, and I'm not even quite able to decipher the stories they're trying to tell. All I'm in a position to feel is the power emanating off him in waves, and the result is to have my wolf whine and cower.

"I was exploring,"I remark, grinning at how natural my voice is. "Your home is quite... interesting."

Vincent's eyes close in concentration as he's assessing my stance by the closed door, then the bobby pin in my hand. "Were you now? Just what were you planning to find?"

"Answers." I lift my chin to look him in the eye. "You dragged me into this mess, married me against my consent, and now you're just going to sit back and wait for me to silently sit in whatever room you've deposited me in? No way."

"You accepted the binding," Vincent states, his voice in the lower, menacing range that makes my spine shiver in recognition. "You decided to save your beloved wolves, didn't you?"

"You ended the war. That doesn't mean you're to be trusted." I nod at the closed door. "Especially if you're lying to me."

Vincent's laugh is spiky, bitter. "Hiding things? Maya, I'm leaving nothing to hide from you. My plans, techniques, reasons for bringing you here. The only thing is whether you're smart enough to know when to stop fixing what isn't busted."

He starts coming toward me, the footsteps echoing in the empty hallway. Each action makes the tension in my chest increase in intensity, and I have to fight the urge to either throw myself at him or run away from him. Both thoughts feel just as dangerous.

"It's off-limits," Vincent says, his gaze never wavering from mine. "For your sake more than anything. The Sanctum has.elements within its borders that would break your mind, Maya. Elements that would make you understand what I became to prevent this world from consuming itself."

"Then show me," I dare, one step forward to the door. "If you're worried about me, show me you're not the monster everyone says you are."

Vincent stiffens, his fists at his side. For a moment, I'm not at all clear whether he would even think about it. Then his face sets in its rigid lines, and the Vincent I know again stands before me: cold, calculating, and remorseless.

"No," he says in one sentence. "Certain doors remain closed, Maya. Certain secrets are simply too perilous to be spoken."

"Even with your mate?" The word is bitter on my lip, but I press the words from my lips. "Even with the woman you're tied to for eternity?"

Vincent's eyes dance, and then he comes closer, covering the ground we have between us in the soundless peril of prey. I press back against the doorway, the brass nameplate scratching at my back, as he places his hands to either side of my skull.

"Especially your mate," he whispers in my ear, his face next to mine. "Because you're the only one who would utterly kill me if you found out." The bond flairs between us, fiery and demanding, and I scent on him pine and leather and some darker being that makes my wolf turn over in submission.

But I'm wolf more than wolf, and the human in me who's awake is not going to back down.

"Try me," I let out, my words barely audible even in the room where we're in.