The butler's breath reeked of cheap liquor and undisguised lust.
"Don't resist, Tess," he hissed through gritted teeth, his sweaty palms pinning her wrists against the cold stone wall of the storehouse. "A girl from the slums like you should feel honored that I've even laid eyes on you. It's a waste for someone so beautiful to be scrubbing floors alongside those... ugly, crude wretches."
He cast a contemptuous glance toward the hallway, where the other maidservants—women with scarred faces and coarse features—labored in dull silence. Tess was different. At twenty, she possessed an ethereal, transcendent beauty that three years of servitude had failed to bury. In this manor, under the watch of such a man, that beauty was a curse.
But Tess was no submissive lamb.
Kill him, a primal voice whispered in her mind.No. Don't kill him. Just... stop him.
Tess closed her eyes as a strange, golden heat surged through her veins. His pet wolf let out a low, vibrating growl. It lunged, sinking its teeth into the butler.
The man didn't even have time to scream. The beast didn't bite to kill; it struck with terrifying precision. Its massive jaws clamped onto his shoulder, tossing him like a ragdoll until his head struck the stone floor with a sickening thud.
Silence returned, heavy and thick. The wolf stood towering over the butler's unconscious body, its glowing amber eyes fixed on Tess, awaiting the next command.
"Go," Tess whispered, her voice trembling. "Back to the greenhouse, quickly!"
The beast vanished into the shadows just as the heavy oak doors swung open. A group of maidservants huddled at the entrance, their faces ghostly pale. As they saw the butler's motionless body, a collective gasp filled the room.
"Tess... did you do this?" Mara, an older maid with a long scar across her cheek, stepped forward. Her gaze held no fear, only a terrifying spark of hope.
"He won't hurt any of you anymore," Tess said, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"You have to leave, child, now!" Mara urged, grabbing Tess's hand. "If the guards find out, they'll throw you to the hounds. Go!"
Tess looked at them—the women who had suffered alongside her, who had stood by her when the butler tormented them. She knew exactly what he had done to them in the dark corners of this manor.
"I won't run," Tess said, her voice hardening. "If I disappear, they'll torture all of you to find me. I will take the responsibility myself."
Three years. It had been exactly three years since she was dragged into this manor. She remembered her seventeenth birthday vividly—the day she was offered as a "gift" to the master of these lands.
She remembered him perfectly.
Silas. A man with hair as black as a raven's wing and eyes the color of molten amber. He had tossed her onto the silk-covered bed like a scrap of meat. She had cried—not with weak whimpers, but with panicked screams that filled the room.
He hadn't touched her. He had only looked at her with cold loathing and muttered, "Get this pathetic creature out of my sight."
She was demoted to a maid, hidden away in the kitchens, locked within this opulent villa—one of Silas's many strongholds. Silas was more than just a nobleman; he was the Underworld Kingpin. People whispered that his mother had come from the very slums where Tess was born. They said he had climbed a mountain of corpses to seize this territory. Here, his word was more than law—it was a divine decree.
Tess stood silent in the hallway's shadows, her mind a chaotic blur of calculations. She recalled the past three years. Silas was a man of whims; he was never short of beautiful women, yet he discarded them as quickly as he lit a cigarette.
However, one question always haunted her: Why hadn't he thrown her back to the slums—a place synonymous with a slow, agonizing death? He had chosen to let her stay as a servant. Perhaps, behind that ruthless and fickle exterior, Silas followed a hidden code that no one understood.
If I could become his... even just a mistress... Tess bit her lip. The thought was madness, but it was the only way to protect herself and the poor maidservants here. She could trust no one; she could only seek power for self-preservation. But how does one seduce a man who already has the world at his feet?
Night fell, bringing the bone-chilling cold of the Northern territories. Finally, the rhythmic thud of leather boots against the stone floor signaled the "Kingpin's" arrival.
Silas entered, followed by two towering bodyguards with faces like stone. There were only three of them, but the lethal aura they radiated seemed to suffocate the main hall. Tess felt her chest tighten; every breath became a struggle.
Silas's gaze swept the room, then came to a halt on Tess. He didn't remember her. In the memory of a man at the summit, a sobbing girl from three years ago was nothing more than a grain of sand. Yet, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. She was starkly different from the other maids, who bore the coarse, haggard look typical of the slums. Tess's beauty, under the flickering oil lamps, was as radiant and dangerous as a rose blooming amidst the ashes.
He brushed past her, moving toward the butler's corpse lying prone on the floor. A bodyguard stepped forward, flipping the body over with the tip of his boot to inspect the deep gashes on the neck.
"Boss. Wolf bites. He bled out from the severity of the wounds."
Silas glanced toward the iron cage positioned in the corner of the hall. Inside lay a wolf with fur as white as snow and piercing blue eyes, resting submissively. Everyone knew the late butler was a master tamer; he had broken wild bears and black panthers for Silas's collection. There was a bitter irony in him being mauled to death by one of his own caged wolves.
Silas sank slowly into a leather armchair and pulled out a cigarette. A bodyguard immediately leaned forward to light it. A veil of hazy white smoke partially obscured his razor-sharp features.
"You." Silas spoke, the cigarette clamped between two fingers pointing directly at Tess. "Tell me everything."
Tess took a step forward, fighting to keep her voice from trembling. She recounted the events, from the moment the butler cornered her to the "sudden" frenzy of the wolf as it lunged from its cage.
Behind her, several maidservants shivered, tempted to step forward and plead for Tess. But with a single chilling glare from Silas's guards, their feet froze in place, and the words died in their throats. However, their sheer terror and the anxious glances they cast toward Tess indirectly confirmed that she was telling the truth.
Under Silas's scrutinizing gaze—one that felt as though it were stripping away her very soul—Tess knew she couldn't remain silent. She took a deep breath, her voice low but steady:
"My Lord... I can commune with them." Tess lied skillfully about her true nature; in reality, she possessed the power of animal manipulation.
Silas had been idly twisting the signet ring on his finger, but the motion came to an abrupt halt. His amber eyes, previously cold and distant, flickered with a sudden, sharp glint of curiosity.
"Commune?" he repeated, his voice dropping an octave. "A slum-born girl possessing an Ability? Fascinating. Why haven't I received a single report about this in three years?"
He cut a glance toward the guard beside him. The man bowed his head, leaning in to whisper the details of the incident three years prior—of a girl who did nothing but sob, and her absolute silence throughout her years as a servant. Silas remained pensive, the smoke curling from his lips and shrouding the sharp contours of his face.
"Never mind," Silas spoke, his voice carrying the decisive weight of a man in power. "A butler lacking discipline, unable to curb his own primal urges, was bound to ruin the grand design sooner or later. Dying at the jaws of a beast is a fitting end for him."
He stood up, adjusting the lapels of his crisp black suit jacket. "Appoint a new butler. I want an older woman—composed and well-versed in the rules. I have no patience for harboring more fools or megalomaniacs in my villa."
His gaze nailed Tess to the spot once more. The sheer pressure radiating from him made her feel as though an invisible hand were tightening around her throat.
"As for you," Silas said, his tone icy but stripped of its lethal edge. "I will send a confidant. You will work alongside them to take over the care of the menagerie. Do not entertain any stray thoughts, and do not let me catch you using that 'talent' of yours to sow chaos."