“About?”
“The rage in my head.It’s… quiet now.”He stopped outside a door, the number matching the map.“But I can feel everything else instead.”
He keyed the panel, and the door slid open.Stepping back, he let her walk in before him.Watching her back, always.
Their quarters were small.There was a main room with a utility couch, a heavy metal table, and a viewport showing the dark expanse of space.A secondary door led to what had to be the sleeping quarters beyond.
The main door slid shut behind them, the heavy mechanical clunk locking them in.
He stood still.
Combat readiness thrummed, wired so deep that it was instinct.But beneath all that, the reality of the situation crashed into him.
She was small.
No, not small.Tiny.
She seemed larger because her personality was so strong, but when he actually looked at her, she was tiny.He wondered how she could look so small, almost fragile, when just moments ago she seemed to fill the room.Her dark curly hair was a mess, her clothes were badly creased, and there was a dark smudge high on her left cheek.
But she was the most beautiful thing he'd seen in all his life.
And she loved him.She'd said it out loud in front of the Emperor himself, in front of warriors who'd been prepared to kill her because of what thatdraanthicpurist Korrait had done to her.He'd kept the gauze Prince Isan had used to wrap their wrists during the bonding ceremony, carefully tucked it into his pocket.He'd never believed in anything sacred before.He did now.
She washis.
Not the Emperor’s.Not a commodity to be traded by a vicious mother.
His.Bonded and chosen.
And nobody… not the Purists, not the emperor himself… would ever take her from him again.
The breath punched out of him.It should have broken his control.Instead, it sank into him like a bone resetting after years out of joint.His jaw clenched hard.His hands uncurled at his sides, claws retracting.The war was over.His body knew it before he did.
He stood there, letting it settle.He didn't trust himself to speak, not yet.
She broke the silence first, watching him through the long lashes that framed her eyes.
"I'm so so sorry," she said, hands clasped tight in front of her, her fingers twisting together."For running.I owe you the real reason."
He waited, watching her, and she took a slow breath.
"I knew I couldn't stay away from you," she said."I tried.God, I really tried.But every single time I was in the same room, every time you were close enough to touch, I knew that if I had stayed and gone through with it, if I became the Empress while I was completely and utterly in love with you, they would have eventually killed you."
Her voice cracked hard on the last word.She pushed through it.
"They wouldn't have just exiled you… I knew that.Knew they'd execute you.And I couldn't..."She swallowed hard, and her chin came up.Her eyes were dark and fierce, the tears gathered at the corners threatening to spill over.
"I ran because loving you was a death sentence.For you… hell, both of us probably.And I would rather have lost you and known you were alive and breathing out there, than stayed and watched them… watched them?—"
The words landed heavily in his chest, slotting right into the tight clench of his jaw.
She had run to save his life.
Not because she didn’t want him.She had done the math on what loving him would cost, and decided to pay it herself, not let him carry the risk.
This stupid, reckless, infuriating little…human.She had ripped her own heart out just to keep him breathing.She had done it without giving him a single choice in the matter, because that was exactly who she was.Draanth.
"It's okay."His voice came out rough, pitched far lower than usual.He closed the remaining distance between them in two long strides, stopping just short of crowding her space.If he touched her right now he wasn't sure he'd get the words out."I understand why you did it."
