Chapter 42

Shannon

The air in the manor always felt heavy. Not like before when I was a slave—back then, fear filled my chest like a locked cage. Now, it was different. I wasn’t beaten. I wasn’t ordered around by angry guards. But even in all this quietness, I still wasn’t free.

Evan said I could only leave when I gave birth to his child.

That was the deal.

That was my fate now.

I had been here long enough to know every corner of this big house. The tall windows, the shiny floors that always seemed too clean to step on. I knew the guards by name. Nothing here...