The Heir in Chains

The scent of burning sandalwood still clung to the hall where Aiden’s engagement had been sealed. He remembered it even now, years later—the way the smoke curled through the gilded rafters like a serpent, the way it filled his lungs until he could hardly breathe.
That was the night he became someone else’s property.
He had been twenty-two then, proud and brilliant, the next Alpha in line to lead House Veylor. His father’s blood ran like flame through his veins. Yet before the ink on his inheritance papers dried, his fate had been signed away in a marriage contract bound by politics, profit, and poison.
The Omega family—House Rhadell—had been powerful, ancient, and dangerously ambitious. Their daughter, Lira, had smiled sweetly as she slipped the golden ring onto his finger, her eyes the shade of honey left too long in the sun. Everyone had clapped, everyone had bowed. The union would “bring balance,” they said, “strengthen ties.” But Aiden had seen the satisfaction in Lord Rhadell’s smirk—a silent victory over the wolf who was supposed to rule them all.
He had known even then: the chains would come disguised as silk.

---
The morning after the ceremony, they began to tighten.
He was forbidden from business meetings “for rest.”He was barred from reading estate ledgers “for convenience.”Every command was coated with courtesy, every restriction wrapped in concern.
“You’ve worked too hard, my dear,” his new father-in-law would say, pressing a cup of calming tea into his hands. “Let us manage the burdens for you. You should simply… enjoy your new life.”
That tea tasted of jasmine and control.
At first, Aiden resisted—quietly, subtly. He signed documents in secret, sent coded messages to loyal stewards, and hid ledgers under the false bottoms of drawers. But soon, his resistance dulled. The tea left his limbs heavy, his thoughts slow. There were days he could not even recall what had happened between dawn and dusk. He had begun to suspect what he’d refused to admit.
They were drugging him.

---
The mirror became his only witness.
At night, when the corridors emptied and the guards retreated to the far corners of the manor, he would stand before it, shirt unbuttoned, watching the faint tremor in his hands. Once, they had been steady—hands that could command armies, build empires, tame beasts. Now, they shook when he reached for a quill.
He hated the reflection that stared back.Hated the pale hollows under his eyes.Hated the soft voice he’d learned to use just to keep from angering Lira’s father.
The Omega family called it “taming the heir.”
But even a chained wolf remembers the taste of blood.

---
The night it all began to unravel, the moon was low and red as a wound.
Aiden sat at the window of his private chamber, staring at the courtyard below. The estate was quiet—too quiet. His chest throbbed with a familiar ache; the sedatives they gave him made his heart feel caged. He let the night air in, hoping it would ease the pressure.
That was when he heard it.
Two voices—muffled, cautious—drifting from beyond the corridor doors.
He rose silently, padding barefoot across the marble. The voices grew clearer with every step.
“…he’s almost too far gone. The doses keep him docile.”
“Good. By next month the council will believe he’s unfit to lead. Once the treason charges are sealed—”
Treason.
The word hit him like ice water.
He pressed his ear to the wood, breath shallow. His pulse thundered.
“He signed nothing himself,” one voice said, “but we have his seal. The letters are ready. A few fabricated ledgers, some missing funds, and the accusation will stand. When the Veylor line falls, the Rhadells inherit by law.”
“And the Alpha?” asked the other.
“Dead by his own hand. Tragic, but believable.”
Aiden’s breath stuttered. The world tilted. For a moment, he thought he might be sick.
They were going to erase him. Not just his title—his life.
He stepped back, shaking. The drug still hummed through his veins, but fury burned hotter. His mind began to clear for the first time in months.

---
That night, he didn’t drink the tea.
He poured it down the drain and watched it swirl into the marble basin like a dying serpent.
Every nerve in his body screamed with withdrawal; sweat slicked his temples, his teeth clenched until his jaw ached. But his mind—his mind blazed awake.
He pulled open the hidden drawer beneath the writing desk. The ledgers he’d guarded for months were still there: coded transactions, smuggled letters, accounts that only he understood. Proof of his secret control. Proof that the empire was still his.
They thought him a puppet. But even puppets can cut their own strings.

---
By midnight, he had gathered what little he could carry—a sealed packet of documents, a small blade, and the crest ring his father had given him before the wedding.
He paused before the mirror again. The man staring back was not the soft-spoken, obedient husband they had tried to create. His eyes glowed like embers. The wolf was awake again.
A quiet knock startled him.
He froze.
“Aiden?” a voice whispered. Feminine, uncertain.
Lira.
She stepped inside, candlelight trembling in her hand. Her silk robe brushed the floor, and for a heartbeat, the sight of her made him forget his fury. She had once been kind—or at least, she had pretended to be. He remembered the nights when her touch had been soft, when she’d whispered his name like a prayer. But now, all he could see was the family whose poison ran through her veins.
“Why are you awake?” he asked quietly.
“I could ask the same,” she said, moving closer. The flame cast gold against her hair. “You look… different tonight.”
“Do I?” He smiled faintly. “Perhaps I’ve simply remembered who I am.”
Her brow furrowed. “My father said—”
“Your father says many things.”
She flinched. Her eyes softened with something almost like guilt. “You shouldn’t speak that way.”
“Why? Because I might remember that I was never supposed to be yours?”
The words sliced through the quiet like a blade.
For a moment, silence. Then she stepped close enough that he could smell the jasmine still clinging to her skin.
“I never wanted this either,” she whispered. “But what choice did we have? You think they would’ve spared me if I defied them?”
Her voice trembled—not with fear, but with a strange honesty. It disarmed him. He wanted to hate her, yet part of him still burned for the warmth she used to offer when no one else did.
She reached up, fingers brushing the edge of his jaw. “Aiden… please. Don’t do anything foolish.”
Her touch was fire and ache all at once. He caught her wrist before she could pull away.
“Foolish?” he said softly. “You mean… don’t remember that I’m not a prisoner?”
Her breath hitched. “You’ll die if you run.”
“I’ll die if I stay.”
For a heartbeat, their eyes locked—Alpha and Omega, predator and cage.
Then she leaned in, and the distance vanished.
Her lips found his—not gentle, not pleading, but desperate. Months of silence cracked open in that single kiss. It was anger, apology, hunger. A clash of broken loyalties. He felt her tears against his mouth, tasted the salt of them. Her body trembled when he drew her close, one hand at her waist, the other tangled in her hair.
The candle flickered violently. The scent of wax and heat filled the room. His pulse roared in his ears.
She whispered his name once more, a fragile plea.
And then, before the night could take them further, he pulled back. His breath was ragged.
“I can’t,” he murmured. “Not now.”
Her eyes searched his, wide and wet. “Then when?”
“When I’m free.”

---
When she left, he stood in silence, staring at the door long after it closed. Part of him wanted to believe she meant those tears. The rest of him knew better.
He moved quickly after that, slipping through the servants’ hall, past the sleeping guards, down toward the lower gates. Every shadow looked like a trap. Every creak of the floor sounded like a blade being drawn.
Outside, the wind carried the first scent of dawn—cold, metallic, sharp with rain. The world beyond those walls had never felt so far away.
He clutched the packet of ledgers to his chest and took one last look at the manor.
The house where he had been drugged, silenced, and tamed. The house that had stolen his name.
No more.
He stepped into the night.
And from the balcony above, unseen, a pair of golden eyes watched him go.