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But it was all a sham.
Her strength was as fake as her, because I got a glimpse of the woman Julianna was hiding behind her perfect ruse.
Too bad for her, she didn’t realize that she was stuck here, on this island, and this was my kingdom but she wasn’t the queen.
Julianna was a martyr.
And she was trapped in this golden cage I had built around her.
I had her soul in my bare hands and Beasty didn’t even know it.
“Roses are beautiful, but their thorns can make you bleed,” I called out, approaching her from behind. “But you’d know that better than anyone, right?”
She straightened, giving the flowers one last look before turning to me. “You won’t bleed if you don’t mess with them. That’s why you don’t pluck roses. Leave them be and they’ll stay beautiful, without causing any lasting harm.”
I clapped my hands. “What a beautiful epiphany, wife.”
“What are you doing here, Killian?” she sighed. “It’s too early for this.”
I agreed, but to please my father – a dying’s man last wish was for him to see his son courting his wife – I had to play along.
I presented her with my elbow, begrudgingly. “Take a walk with me.”
Julianna squinted at me in suspicion. “Why?”
“You don’t trust me?”
“No,” she shot back.
“That’s a wise and smart decision, Beasty.”
She rolled her eyes. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to get me alone so you could slit my throat and dump me somewhere on the island.”
“Now, that would be too easy,” I drawled.
“You’re an asshole,” she hissed, before wrapping her fingers around my elbow.
“We’ve established that.”
We started walking, Julianna matching my long steps without any complaint. When I noticed that her limp was more pronounced, I slowed down. “What are you trying to do?” she asked, giving me a side-eye. Confusion masked her voice, but it was her curiosity that had her asking the question.
“Civil and in love, remember?”
She inhaled sharply. “There’s no one here though.”
Or so she thought, my naïve wife.
I paused in front of a bush of roses, also bringing Julianna to a stop. One specific bloomed rose caught my attention. It was lonely amongst the other budded ones that were still waiting to blossom. It was the reddest of the roses I had seen so far, its big petals fluttering against the breeze.
It was pretty, so I plucked it.
“Wait, don’t–”
Beasty was too late. I held the plucked rose by its stem, gesturing for Julianna to take it. “For you.”
This close, I could see the way her lips thinned in displeasure behind her thin, laced veil. When she didn’t take it right away, I grasped her hand in mine, pushing the rose into hers, forcing Julianna to accept the gift.
Our eyes silently locked, speaking in languages we didn’t understand. My lips twitched, she blinked – and I put the slightest pressure on my hold, pressing her fingers into the thorns.
“Ouch,” she gasped, releasing the rose and trying to snatch her hand away.
Blood seeped through where the thorn had pricked her index finger.
“Oops, I made you bleed.” I caught her hand in mine and brought it to my mouth. “Some people are roses, Beasty. Some people are thorns. Here’s the thing, you can’t turn a thorn into a rose petal. A thorn is a thorn, beautiful but unpleasant and painful at the same time. They mingle with the roses, but never let the thorns get to you. For once you’re pricked, you bleed.”
“They coexist, together,” she breathed. “What’s a rose without thorns? A wilted rose.”
My lips wrapped around her bleeding finger, sucking on the blood. Her grey eyes flared and Julianna didn’t make a sound. Her chest rose up then down, with the shuddering breath she took. I tasted her blood on my tongue, a subtle metallic flavor. My tongue circled the tip of her finger, laving over the tiniest wound. My teeth grazed her fingertip and I bit down until she flinched and whimpered. “There you go. All good,” I said, letting her finger slip out of my mouth.
She went to snatch her hand away, but I held fast. “We have eyes on us, Julianna.”
Her brows furrowed, before her eyes widened in understanding. “Oh.”
“Oh,” I echoed.
She plastered a fake smile on her face. “Your father,” she said.
My eyes flickered over her shoulder to find our stalker watching us. I nodded. “Play along, Beasty. It’s a dying man’s wish.”
“Who is it?”
“Gideon,” I answered, without needing her to clarify her question.
I tucked the flower into her hair; Julianna let out a barely audible gasp before I gripped her hand in mine, tugging her forward. We resumed our walk along the path of the castle’s garden. The royal people in the Victorian era sure loved anything fancy and grand. Who the fuck needed a seven-hundred acre garden?
Once we reached the fountain, the one sitting in the middle of the path, Julianna released my arm and limped over to it. With my hands shoved in the pockets of my slacks, I watched as she sat herself down on the flat surface of the fountain, stretching her legs out in front of her.
