The car had windows.

Eli had never traveled in a vehicle where he could see the sky. He watched gray clouds pass above dark trees, waiting for someone to cover the glass.

Nobody did.

Lucien sat across from him in the spacious rear compartment. Adrian remained beside the door. Neither Alpha touched him.

Every time the car slowed, Eli braced for another building with another locked room.

Instead, iron gates opened onto a road lined with enormous pines.

“Blackwood House,” Adrian said. “Our private residence.”

Eli studied the gates. They were tall enough to keep anything inside.

His fingers tightened around the borrowed coat.

Adrian followed his gaze. “The gates keep strangers out. They won't keep you in.”

Eli lowered his eyes.

The mansion smelled of woodsmoke, clean linen, and wolves. The entrance hall was larger than the entire laboratory wing. A chandelier glowed above a staircase that seemed to rise forever.

Ronan came through a side doorway carrying a tray.

“I had the kitchen make soup.”

Eli froze at the sight of the tray.

“Put it on the table,” Lucien said.

Ronan obeyed, then noticed Eli staring at the steaming bowl.

“Hungry?” he asked.

Eli couldn't answer. He didn't know whether the question required an answer.

Adrian gestured toward a nearby dining room. “You may eat whenever you like.”

Eli followed them inside, keeping close to the wall.

There were six places set at the long table. White plates. Silver utensils. Water glasses clear enough to see through.

He had never used a knife that wasn't part of a medical procedure.

“Sit wherever you want,” Cassian said.

Eli stopped.

Wherever was too many possibilities.

He watched the Alphas take their seats. Then he knelt beside the wall, careful not to block the doorway.

The room fell quiet.

“Eli,” Lucien said softly.

He looked up. The name was unfamiliar. The doctor had found it on an old intake record, a name written before the laboratory replaced it with a number.

“Would you like a chair?”

Eli looked at the chair nearest him. It had cushions and carved wooden arms. He shook his head.

“Okay,” Lucien said. “You can stay there.”

Ronan opened his mouth, then closed it when Adrian gave him a look.

A servant entered carrying bread. Eli tracked the basket with painful intensity.

Lucien noticed.

“May I leave some beside you?”

A pause. Then the smallest nod.

Lucien set a plate on the floor several feet away and returned to his chair.

Eli waited until nobody was watching. He took one piece of bread, folded it inside his sleeve, and kept his head down.

He didn't eat it.

He had learned that food was more valuable tomorrow than today.

Across the table, Cassian's fork stopped moving.

Adrian saw the motion and shook his head almost imperceptibly.

Nobody said anything.

When dinner ended, Eli still hadn't touched the soup.

Lucien crouched nearby. “Does your stomach hurt?”

Eli pressed a hand to his abdomen.

“Sometimes food hurts after you've gone without it,” Lucien said. “We can start slowly.”

He offered a small cup of broth.

Eli accepted it with both hands. He sipped once, then again. The warmth surprised him so much that his eyes filled.

He quickly lowered his face.

“You're all right,” Lucien murmured.

A loud clatter came from the kitchen.

Ronan stood abruptly. “What the hell was that?”

Eli dropped the cup.

Broth spread across the polished floor. He was on his knees before the sound finished echoing, forehead nearly touching the spill.

His hands flew behind his back.

Ronan went white.

“Eli?”

The Omega trembled harder.

Ronan stepped forward, then stopped when Eli recoiled.

“I wasn't shouting at you.”

Eli didn't move.

“I swear I wasn't.”

Adrian raised one hand. “Ronan, give him room.”

The big Alpha retreated until his back touched the far wall.

Lucien fetched a towel and placed it beside the spill.

“Accidents happen,” he said. “Nobody's angry.”

Eli glanced toward Ronan, then immediately away.

Ronan looked as though someone had struck him.

“I'll clean it,” he said quietly.

He knelt on the expensive floor and wiped up the broth himself.

Eli watched in disbelief.

At the laboratory, important men never cleaned anything. They only decided who would be punished for making a mess.

When the floor was dry, Ronan stood without looking at him.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

Eli had never heard an Alpha apologize to him.

The words made no sense.

The house had other unfamiliar rules. A woman in a blue apron asked whether he preferred tea or water. Eli stood with his mouth open, unable to imagine why his preference mattered. When she offered both, he almost cried. Later, he found a basket of clean towels in the bathroom and folded every one of them, certain that usefulness might earn him another night indoors. Nobody asked who had done it. Nobody even seemed to notice. Eli could not decide whether that was a good sign.

Later, Lucien showed him a small room on the ground floor. There was a sofa, a lamp, and a window overlooking the garden.

“This is a quiet room,” he explained. “You can come here if the house feels too busy.”

Eli touched the sofa arm.

“Would you like to be alone?”

Eli nodded.

Lucien left the door partly open.

For several minutes Eli stood perfectly still. Then he checked behind the curtains, beneath the sofa, and inside the cabinet.

No cameras that he could see.

He took the bread from his sleeve and hid it behind a cushion.

Then he took it out again. Someone might discover it and punish him.

He finally tucked it beneath the sofa, far back where fingers would have difficulty reaching.

A soft knock sounded at the doorframe.

Silas stood outside holding a glass of water.

Eli stiffened.

Silas didn't enter. He set the glass on the floor, then sat down in the hallway with his back against the opposite wall.

No questions. No instructions.

Eli watched him through the narrow opening.

After a while, Silas opened a book.

The silence stretched without turning dangerous.

Eli crept toward the glass. He took a sip, then retreated to the sofa.

Silas turned a page.

For the first time that day, Eli's breathing slowed.

At midnight, a clock chimed somewhere downstairs. Eli counted twelve strikes, then listened for footsteps. None came. He moved to the window and watched the garden lights flicker in the wind. Beyond the glass lay a world he could see but did not yet know how to enter. He pressed two fingers against the pane. In the laboratory, windows had been painted white. Here, darkness was full of trees and distant stars. He wondered whether the stars belonged to anyone. When he turned away, he left the curtain open. He wanted to see them again if he woke.

An hour later, Lucien came to check on him. Silas stood and stepped aside.

“Did he drink?” Lucien whispered.

“Half.”

“That's good.”

Silas hesitated. “There's bread under the sofa.”

Lucien glanced inside. Eli was pretending to sleep, his fists clenched in the borrowed coat.

“Leave it,” Lucien said.

“He thinks someone will take it.”

“Then tomorrow,” Lucien replied, “we make sure there's more.”

Inside the room, Eli heard every word.

He waited for footsteps returning to confiscate his hidden food.

They never came.