A Dangerous Obsession
Chapter 40 - 39

Chapter 40: Chapter 39

LAYLA

James stopped bringing in flowers, and somehow that small detail changed everything.

You would think it wouldn’t matter all that much—what’s a handful of wilting petals in a place like this? But I had grown used to them. Those little bursts of color left on my desk or windowsill, like he was trying to bring a little piece of the outside world into this cold, endless castle. Without them, my room felt emptier, colder somehow, and I could swear the silence crept in a bit thicker each day.

It wasn’t as though I was getting warmth anywhere else. The other servants had started treating me like I was just another piece of furniture—a fixture to work around, but not to acknowledge.

It didn’t happen all at once, this shift in how the servants treated me. It was more like a slow unraveling, little pieces of warmth dropping away until suddenly, there was just... ice.

Take Lewis, for instance. He was always the first to wave, flashing a grin every time I wandered into the garden to catch some air. He would point out little things, like where the ivy was creeping too close to the roses or how the robins were getting bolder, hopping right up to his feet. But now? Now he looks everywhere except at me. I caught him once, my hand halfway up in a returning wave, but he just turned, focusing so hard on a single blade of grass you would think it was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen. My hand fell, feeling suddenly very empty.

And it wasn’t just him. Clara, who used to chat with me while sweeping the halls, telling me which rooms were haunted or the latest scandal among the staff, barely acknowledged me. Just the other day, I tried a casual, "Good morning, Clara," as I passed her in the corridor. She stiffened, looked right through me, and mumbled something I couldn’t catch before hurrying off, like I was something she needed to scrape off her shoe.

Then there was Elarid. He used to help me with books, pulling down the ones I couldn’t reach and recommending all the good stories—his quiet way of being friendly. He always had this sly, half-hidden smile whenever he handed me a new book, like he knew I would be hooked from the first page. But the other day, he didn’t even look up when I walked in, just kept his nose buried in a stack of old texts, muttering something about being "too busy." I tried to brush it off, but I felt the weight of his absence like an ache.

I wasn’t sure what I did to deserve the cold shoulders. But it did start after the situation with Elara. Maybe they knew something I didn’t. Or maybe I had just become a ghost to them, someone who didn’t belong in their world but was stuck here by some cruel twist of fate.

It’s funny—or maybe just cruel—how the mind works, how a few cold shoulders can dig up old ghosts you thought you had buried. This silent treatment from the servants brought me right back to Sy. I thought I had toughened up to that kind of thing, that I was over it. But, no. Turns out, all it took was the sudden drop in warmth here to make me feel like I was back in those same old shadows, wrapped in whispers and side glances I wasn’t ever supposed to notice.

About every single soul in Sy saw me as an invisible weight they all had to work around, this thing they didn’t want to see, even though I was right there.

Maybe it was because I was different. Maybe they wanted me to remember my place—whatever that was supposed to be. All I knew was that they were never kind to me.

I thought I was used to it, immune even. I built walls, thick and tall, to keep out the worst of it. But coming here, things had been... easier. Maybe I let myself get too comfortable. Maybe I had let those small kindnesses—the flowers James left, the friendly nods from Lewis, the half-smiles from Clara—chip away at those walls, just enough to let the warmth in. And now, with all of that gone, I was feeling the hollow ache, that raw, bruised place they left behind.

So now I stayed in my chamber, keeping to myself, mostly reading or petting my cats. I had set up my little space with all the books I could carry, the ones that actually helped me forget where I was, who I was. And my cats—they understood me in ways nobody else could. They curled up beside me or stretched out in the sunlight that managed to filter in, just doing their best to keep me company. Sometimes I would catch myself whispering to them, telling them secrets I would never dare share with anyone else.

Heaving a deep sigh I raised my gaze to the window.

With everyone treating me like I was some kind of shadow, the irony wasn’t lost on me that I actually started looking forward to the one person I never thought I would ever want to see—the Lycan King himself. The same man I despised, who seemed to see me as nothing more than a form of entertainment, a bit of amusement to pass his time.

It was humiliating to think about, really. I used to dread his summons, knowing every encounter with him would be some twisted game. He smiled at me with that chilling smirk, his eyes always calculating, like he was trying to figure out just how far he could push me before I would finally snap. Half the time, I felt like I was just another pawn to him, something he could poke and prod, watching to see what I would do. And yet, he never outright hurt me. No, it was all in the way he’d tilt his head, the way he would ask those infuriatingly prying questions or hover just a little too close, letting me know he saw right through whatever mask I was trying to wear.

And then... he stopped. Just like that, as if he had grown bored. Like everyone else. The last time he summoned me was about three days ago and for some odd reason I felt pained.

For all his sadistic games and all the ways he got under my skin, he had at least noticed me. I mattered, if only in that twisted, dark way he seemed to see people. But now? Nothing. Not a single word, no summons. Just the cold, empty silence of my bedchamber, where I hid away with my books and my cats, feeling the absence of his attention more acutely than I had care to admit.

I couldn’t believe it, how low I had sunk. Here I was, practically yearning for the attention of the one person I had sworn to hate. It was humiliating.