“You need to see Doctor Lark about that,” he stated, his voice taking on the concerned tone that once would have melted me.
“Oh,nowyou’re worried?” I bit out. “After what just happened, you want to talk about my hand?”
“Listen to me— you witnessed something you shouldn’t have, but that hasn’t changed anything. Not for me. I still care about you deeply. I still respect you as I always have.”
Care. Respect. I turned the words over, waiting for the third one to follow the way it should have, the way it always should have. It didn’t come. How often had he actually said those three words to me?
I searched my memory, frantically sorting through the moments we’d shared. There had been gifts, protection, devotion even. But love? The word itself seemed conspicuously absent from his vocabulary, but not mine. What did he say when those words left my mouth? I had filled in the blanks, given meaning to his silence, his actions, his possessive touches.
I had accepted those responses, wrapped them around myself like a security blanket because the intensity in his gaze had seemed like enough. Because his actions had spoken louder than any words could.
Now I wondered if I had been a fool all along, creating a fantasy that existed only in my mind.
“Do you love me?” The question escaped before I could stop it, my voice small and raw in the quiet room.
He looked genuinely taken aback, his perfect composure cracking for just a moment. It was the most vulnerable I’d seen him since I’d walked in, and somehow that hurt me more than anything else.
His hesitation lasted only seconds, but it felt like an eternity.
“I care about you, your wellbeing, your happiness. But Selene...” He paused, and I watched something shift in his eyes—not cruelty, but a terrible honesty. “I’m notinlove with you. That’s not what this marriage is.”
The words hit me with physical force. I felt them like a blow to my chest, stealing the air from my lungs.
“This isn’t—“ I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“This was about many things. Protection. Partnership. Mutual respect. But love?” He shook his head, and I saw regret there, but not remorse. “We never promised each other that.”
I laughed, a hollow sound. “Is that why you could let her touch you? Because we’re notin love?”
“You’re twisting my words.”
“No,” I refuted, my voice steadier now as a cold clarity washed over me. “I’m finally hearing them clearly.”
His eyes searched mine. "The way you're looking at me now, like I'm a stranger, I deserve that."
"You think so?" I asked softly, sarcastically.
I could already see it then, this being our future as more of my mother's whispered lessons came back to me.
"A Dominion wife never begs, never pleads."
In the end she did beg and she did plea, and it got her nothing but those lectures she then gave to me and Amara. The same way I’d refused back then was the same now, I wouldn't become the reincarnation of that woman because of him. Not for anyone.
"So, what we do now, is what half the Dominion does."
His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.
"We pretend. You will sleep in your wing, I'll sleep in my own. We'll attend events together because our families expect it, but that's where it ends."
I swear his mouth twitched as if I’d just said something amusing and I knew to move past him and put distance between us before I clawed his face off. I’d never been outwardly violent; I wasn’t allowed to be. All those ideas of bloodshed or inflicting pain had always been kept within the confines of my mind. Hidden far beneath the demure woman people expected me to be.
Every year of my life spent learning to keep them buried, to fold them down into something small and quiet and acceptable, to be the woman in the room who never raised her voice and never raised her hand.
His eyes tracked my every movement.
“Any other rules you think you’re going to impose?”
My hand flew to my chest, fingernails digging into the fabric of my cardigan. The physical pain gave me something to focus on beyond the torrent of emotions threatening to drown me.
