“I want to know,” I said, my voice quiet but sharp, “why you ordered it. Why you wanted me dead in the forest.”
He turned slowly, his smile spreading like oil over water.
“Wynessa,” he murmured, his voice a low, poisonous drawl. “Do you truly think you were ever meant to arrive here?”
I stiffened.
He laughed—a sharp, humorless sound—and stepped forward.
“You were never a bride. You were a message. The quiet one, the obedient one, the girl they swore would bend like reedgrass in the wind. Easy to lose in the Wildervale. Easy to blame on wolves, or raiders, or a vanished escort. A runaway princess. A broken treaty. And war would come neatly wrapped.”
My chest tightened. “You tried to kill me.”
He stopped close enough that the gleam of his rings caught the light between us, his smile thin as a blade. “I tried to save us all the tedium. Elyrien is weak—fields and farmers playing at crowns. I wanted its end.”
His hand rose suddenly, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. I flinched at the touch, bile rising in my throat.
“But my scouts saw the way the trees bent toward you,” he whispered. “The way the forest failed to claim you. The way your magic hums, even when you don’t mean it to. The wilds love you, Wynessa. That’s what ruined it.”
I stumbled back until my shoulders struck the door.
He only smiled wider, calm as still water. “But I adapt. The forest failed. The mercenaries hesitated. You survived. So now”—his gaze raked over me, heavy, possessive—“you’ll serve another purpose.”
His hand dropped to my arm. His tone shifted; it was lower and more intimate.
“You know, most girls go mad when fire touches them. But you…you glowed. You were always intended for more. And now I get to keep you. So why not make it official?”
He moved to the desk.
There it was. The contract. Waiting. A fresh ink pot and quill beside it.
“Sign it,” he said, like it was nothing. Like it wasn’t my life laid bare on that page.
Suddenly, I became immobilized, unable to budge.
Kaelen looked up at me and narrowed his eyes. Then he smiled. Not a kind or amused smile, but one of possession.
“Don’t tell me you’re nervous. Is it the wedding night?” he asked, stepping closer again. “You can tell me, you know. I like innocent things. For a little while. Are you still a virgin, Wynessa?”
I gave him a blank look.
His eyes darkened with amusement. “We can fix that, you know. Sooner rather than later. Make this whole union feel more official.”
He reached out, hand gliding down my arm and settling on my hip.
“I hear fire-women are warm all over.”
I recoiled, stumbling back. My arm knocked the glass, and it tipped, shattering on the floor. Wine spilled like blood across the marble.
He caught my wrist before I could pull away.
“Don’t run,” he murmured. “You’ll make it worse.”
His grip was bruising and practiced. I could feel every ounce of control in his fingers.
“You can scream,” he said again. “But no one here will help you. Not in my kingdom.”
“Don’t touch me.”
