He realized: Hewantedto provide for her.
When the bones had been stripped clean, he drew a deep breath, watching her purple-stained fingertips wipe the last of chestnut crumbs from her lap. The fire crackled low between them, throwing long fingers of light against the pines. The sweetness of chestnut shells and the sharper tang of singed rabbit bones wafted around them. They sat so near their sleeves almost brushed, sharing the same pocket of heat.
Alexander stared into the flames. “What I said last night,” he began, low, “in the study.”
Her fingers stilled.
“I shouldn’t have said it,” he admitted. “It wasn’t meant for you to hear, but that doesn’t make it any less shameful.”
It had been easy, in that room, to speak of her as though she were a problem to be solved. Easier still to blame her for his frustration than name it for what it was: his own failure.
The fire popped, sparks lifting into the late afternoon air.
“What difference does it make when it’s how you feel?” Her voice was barely louder than the wind slipping through the trees.
The shame pressed hard beneath his sternum. He saw her fingers, resting on her lap, curl inward. Her breath was held for a second too long before she released it, a controlled exhale that spoke of mastered pain.
“I understood the moment you looked at me,” she said softly. “You don’t need to explain. But I suppose it still hurts, knowing I wasn’t wrong.”
He closed his eyes for a breath. It would’ve been easier if she’d been angry—if she’d snapped or looked at him like the small, narrow-minded man he feared he was. But she didn’t. She simply sat beside him—close enough to reach, and still impossibly far.
And the worst was . . . she’d never asked him to be more than himself. She hadn’t looked at him and Parandor and questioned why it lacked the luxuries a lord’s hall should hold, or why his House bore its shame.
The failure was his, and his alone. He demanded a symbol to polish his legacy. She offered him a partner to build it. He insisted on a flawless bride to silence petty whispers. She came as a healer to silence suffering.
It was he who had wanted her to be someone else.
Then punished her when she wasn’t.
CHAPTER 24
JINGYI
Duskwane carried them along the trail, hooves striking soft against the damp earth. JingYi sat straight, hands steady on the saddle, but her mind kept circling back to the fire, to Alexander as he prepared a meal for her.
It wasn’t the food itself, though the rabbit had been tender, the berries sharp on her tongue. It was that he’d done it at all. In the palace, meals were scraped from what others left behind. This was different. He’d seen her need and met it without a word.
He’d handed her all the food and ate only what she couldn’t finish, as if her comfort was a natural priority. The warmth of that mind-boggling act spread through her faster than any stew.
She tried not to let it show, tried not to look like someone starved of this kind of care. But when she caught him watching her across the flames, she wondered if he had seen anyway.
It unsettled her—how this Alpha who’d spoken of her as a liability could, in the next breath, hunt and cook so she wouldn’t hunger. She didn’t know which was the truer version of him: the one behind the closed study door, or the one kneeling by a fire, tending to an Omega’s needs.
And when he admitted shame, it cut deeper than his first words had. Not because she hadn’t expected remorse, but because he sounded like a man who didn’t know how to forgive himself, let alone ask her to.
She’d answered with honesty, because she didn’t know how else to be. Yes, his words had hurt. But it had been harder to sit there in the firelight, the food warming her stomach, and realized she wanted to believe him.
The trees thinned now. She began to recognize the rhythm of Blackwood-Veyrde’s landscape. Soon, the forest would open up into a clearing, and they’d see Parandor.
As they left the forest behind, three wagons emerged from the mist, halted along the path. Horses stamped and blew plumes of breath into the autumn air. Over their cargo, tarps had been stretched taut and secured with knots, while men in the Crown’s livery rode alongside, checking the rigging.
Speaking to a soldier was Bertrand, Lord Fortier. His posture appeared relaxed, hands clasped behind his back, as if this were no more than a morning stroll. Even from a distance, JingYi felt the smug calm radiating off him. He turned as they approached, expression brightening with the easy pleasure of a neighbour greeting another.
“Your Highness. My lord,” he said warmly. “A dreary day for riding, though what does it matter when one has such company? The warmth between two newlyweds must be enough to chase off any chill!”
JingYi’s spine went taut. The words were genial enough, but they pricked all the same. For all his polish, she could not bring herself to like this man.
“Lord Fortier,” Alexander spoke behind her. She couldn’t see him, but she heard the gravel in his voice. “Sending off your bounty before the first frost?”
