Perhaps it is a genuine attachment…Perhaps they are unusually devoted…Perhaps the Beast has finally found his match.
It was not approval, quite—but it was acceptance.
And that was enough.
That night, they retreated to their respective chambers as always.
The doors remained locked.
But something had changed.
The calm between them, the newfound steadiness, felt like a taut thread held in perfect balance.
As though the storm had quieted only to gather its strength for something larger.
Celine fell asleep easily, lulled by exhaustion and the faint lingering scent of Elias’s cologne on her gloves.
Elias slept less easily. He lay awake, staring at the canopy, replaying the evening in a series of unbearable images:
Celine in pale silk.
Celine smiling, her eyes seeking his across the room.
Celine curtsying before him as he bowed for their second dance—that brief, dazzling moment when she looked up and he saw everything she was not saying.
He had never wanted her more fiercely.
Nor more tenderly.
Sometime past two in the morning, a soft sound drifted through the hall—a faint rustling, then a muffled thud.
Elias was on his feet before his mind caught up.
He opened his chamber door quietly.
The hallway was dim, lit only by a single lamp at the stairs.
And in that lamplight—
Celine.
Barefoot.
Hair loose, tumbling down her back in soft waves. A thin linen shift skimmed her figure, translucent in places where the glow caught it, revealing hints of form that made his breath catch.
She was holding a glass of water, clearly returned from the service table at the corridor’s end.
She froze when she saw him—equally startled, equally breathless.
He wore only linen trousers and an unbuttoned nightshirt, its sleeves pushed carelessly to his elbows, revealing the powerful lines of his forearms and chest.
The faint sheen of sleeplessness gilded his skin.
The soft cotton clung to him in places, hinting—more than hinting—at the breadth and strength of the body beneath.
She looked him over once, a quick, startled sweep, and he saw her breath hitch.
“Elias,” she whispered. “I didn’t intend to wake—”
