Serena POV
I slowed my respiration, forcing it into the deep, even cadence of slumber. Through the opening door, the scent of Silas — pine resin and costly tobacco — drifted in. I drew my own scent inward, folding it away until I was a void in the room’s olfactory landscape.
“Remember your station,” Silas whispered. I heard the scratch of a match, then the pungent aroma of a lit cigar. “I am bound for the safe house. Lyra has need of me. The pregnancy makes her volatile.”
I bit the inside of my cheek until blood filled my mouth. A Rogue carried the Alpha’s heir, while the Luna was serviced by a forgery.
“Alpha,” the clone spoke, his voice hesitant. “A word.”
“What is it, defect?”
“I am… concerned. The Luna’s instincts are keen. I fear she perceives the absence of a true connection.”
Silas emitted a low, contemptuous laugh. “Serena is a low-born Omega. She is too weak to smell the difference between us.”
The clone fell silent. Then, strained: “She has begun to demand more… affection. At night. I find myself… struggling.”
“Struggling with what?”
“The mate-instincts,” the clone confessed, his voice sinking to a whisper. “When she wears those nightgowns of lace… my body reacts.”
“Do not be absurd,” Silas growled. “You are a laboratory specimen. You do not possess an Inner Wolf. You cannot even Shift.”
“I know what I am. But when she touches me…”
“Silence!” Silas hissed. The command struck the air like a physical shockwave. I heard the heavy thud of knees striking the floor. “You are an instrument. You will not malfunction. You will not touch her beyond the minimum required. You are forbidden, on pain of your unmaking, from Marking her. Is that understood?”
“It is understood, Alpha.”
I heard the tread of Silas’s heavy boots receding. The great manor door opened and closed. He was gone.
Now, only the clone remained outside my chamber.
The floorboards creaked as he regained his feet. He pushed the bedroom door fully open.
I lay in the darkness, awaiting the approach of the monster. But as he stepped closer, I caught something in his scent — a faint, sterile undertone, like the cold air of a laboratory. And beneath that, something else. Something almost like sorrow.
I thought he was the monster. But the real monster had just walked out the door. And this one… this one I could use.
