The thought twisted her gut.
Could he truly be that conniving? Could he hand her over to strangers and let her disappear—for the right price?
“Are you in trouble?” The words came out thin, shaky, each syllable scraping against the dryness in her throat. “If you are, maybe I can help.”
She hated how small she sounded, but it was all she had left to offer. “Is it money? I can ask my father?—”
His laugh cracked through the air. She flinched, instinctively pulling back as if the sound itself could bruise. There’d been warmth in that laugh once—bright and familiar, something she’d clung to during moments of doubt.
Now, it was a weapon, honed and merciless.
“By gods, Reiya.” His voice was soft, pitying, and that pity stung worse than the laughter. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”
His words pressed down like a hand around her throat. She raked her brain for another handful of explanations but came up empty.
“I couldn’t care less about money,” he continued, with the cadence of someone explaining a simple truth to a child. “My goals aren’t so pedestrian. This—” His voice dropped lower, every syllable deliberate and final, as if stating a law etched into stone. “This is bigger than you, bigger than me, bigger than your father. Bigger than the kingdom, even.”
Reiya’s heart faltered, tripping over the gravity of his words.Bigger than the kingdom?
Her thoughts churned, confusion unravelling into something far darker—a gnawing fear burrowing deep into her chest. What could be so vast, so all-powerful, that it had driven him to betray her?
Castiel rose from the chair with unsettling ease, each step unhurried, as if they had all the time in the world. Did they? If Batteronwasn’t their true destination, what was? How long did she have before their arrival?
When he reached the bed, his gaze softened—not with kindness, but with a twisted shade of pity, like someone offering condolences out of politeness, not care.
“Don’t fret,” he murmured fondly, as if appeasing a frightened pet. “I promised to take you away from Aethonia—I’ve kept my word. You feared marrying an Alpha—now you’ll never have to.”
The sinister undertone curdled her stomach. Her throat tightened as truth settled over her.
“The elopement . . .” Her voice crumbled into a whisper. “It was never real.”
He scoffed. “More like an impossible dream. A fantasy.”
Heat surged to her cheeks, burning with humiliation as she pressed her eyes shut, as if darkness could soften the sting. The roaring in her ears drown out all the noise.
She looked up. “I don’t understand. I thought you loved me . . .”
For the briefest moment, his eyes flickered. Was it guilt? Compassion? Another round of pity? But just as quickly, it was gone, replaced by that same detached mask.
“You’re a necessary part of the plan, Reiya. Nothing more.”
His voice was low, almost gentle. She caught the way his mouth curved, not with kindness but with something colder—a smile meant to belittle, to shrink her down to something small and disposable.
Pain lanced through her ribs. What plan? Had she been nothing more to Castiel—a tool, a stepping stone toward something larger?
The bitter irony twisted inside her. She’d spent so long believing she was only a tool in everyone else’s life—her family, the court, the Alphas.
But not Castiel. Never Castiel.
He was supposed to bedifferent.
“If you felt nothing for me, why agree to take me with you?”
Those lips curved into a thin, humourless smile. “I didn’t agree to take you.”
His gaze stayed steady, the words soft but deliberate. “You comingwith me has always been the goal. You wanted freedom, and I let you think you were the one choosing it.”
Her lungs worked in stuttering rhythm, the air trapped in her throat.
