Chapter 12
Jul 4, 2025
They called it a “guest suite.” I called it a prison with better interior design.
Cream walls, gold trim, velvet drapes that probably cost more than most people’s houses. A fireplace that crackled with fake warmth. A wardrobe stuffed with clothes I’d never asked for. And—oh yeah—no door handle on the inside.
“Subtle,” I muttered, testing the enchanted glass windows that looked out but wouldn’t open. “Real subtle.”
The guards outside never spoke, but I could hear them shifting every time I moved. Like they were tracking my every breath. The windows were crystal clear but cold as ice when I touched them. Perfect metaphor for my entire situation, really.
“Breakfast, Lady Lucy,” the maid said, setting down a tray like she was handling radioactive waste.
“Thanks, but you can drop the ‘Lady’ stuff,” I said. “We both know I’m not.”
She flinched and practically sprinted out the door.
They never stayed long. Never met my eyes. Just dropped off food and fled like I might bite them.
Can’t say I blamed them. I was seriously considering it.
Night was when the real entertainment started. The maids thought I was asleep, but sound travels in these stone hallways, and they loved their gossip.
“She’s dangerous,” one whispered right outside my door.
“Did you hear her touch can heal? But only if she wants it to?”
“Maybe she cursed the Prince. That bond wasn’t natural.”
I lay there in the dark, listening to them dissect my entire existence like I was some kind of science experiment.
“Yeah, real natural,” I muttered into my pillow. “Because nothing says ‘true love’ like being locked in a tower.”
Cassian came just after midnight, slipping through the servant halls like he had every night before — quiet, purposeful, uninvited but never unwelcome.
He set down a worn basket filled with odds and ends: hairpins, a handful of honeyed figs, a pressed flower that had seen better days.
“Midnight snacks and smuggled contraband,” I said, eyeing the contents. “Someone’s feeling romantic.”
“You’ve been stuck in this room for five days. I figured you deserved something that wasn’t pity or politics.”
I looked up at him — really looked. He was exhausted. Dark circles under his eyes, jaw clenched like he’d been biting back words all day. He looked like someone who’d been at war, and lost a piece of himself in every room he walked into.
“You look like hell.”
“Yeah.” He gave a tired half-smile. “Better than feeling it.”
He crouched beside me and unwrapped the bandages on my wrist with hands gentler than they had any right to be. He moved like a soldier, but touched like someone afraid of breaking me.
“So,” I said. “How’s the royal popularity contest going?”
He didn’t laugh. “They don’t understand what you are.”
“I’m not a threat.”
“No,” he said, jaw flexing. “You’re a challenge. A reminder that they don’t control everything.”
“A reminder of what?”
He didn’t answer.
I reached up and touched his face, coaxing his eyes to mine. “Do you regret the bond?”
He stiffened. “I regret what it costs you. The way they look at you. The danger it puts you in.”
“That’s not what I asked.” I laid my hand flat on his chest. His heart was hammering. “Do you regret me?”
“They keep asking about the bond,” he said. “If I’ve marked you. If I plan to.”
I glanced down at my bare wrist. “And what do you tell them?”
“That it’s none of their business.”
“So… not no.”
“They want me to reject it,” he admitted. “To break it before it settles.”
“And do you want to?” I asked, softer than I meant to. Afraid of the answer.
“No.” His voice was low. Honest. “But every time I defend it, I lose something. An ally. A vote. A piece of leverage.”
“So I’m a liability.”
He looked at me sharply. “Don’t do that. Don’t twist it.”
“Then tell me what I am.”
He stood, pacing like he needed to move or explode. “You’re the only thing that’s felt real since all this started. Maybe the only thing that ever has. But if I lose everything—if I can’t hold my position—I can’t protect you at all.”
I stood too. My voice shook. “You said you would protect me.”
“I am protecting you.”
“Then why does it feel like I’m locked in a cage while you make deals to save me from a world I don’t get to face?”
He stepped close, voice low but unflinching. “Because they would tear you apart out there. And I am not watching that happen.”
“You don’t get to decide what I can survive.”
“No,” he said. “But I’ll damn well make sure you have the chance to try.”
He reached for my hand — not demanding, not commanding — just steady. His palm was warm. Solid.
“Trust me,” he said. “I will mark you. I will protect you. But not while the walls are still this thin.”
I looked up at him — this man with fire in his blood and battles in his eyes — and my breath caught.
“Why me?” I asked, voice breaking despite myself.
He stepped in, one hand brushing the side of my face, grounding me.
“Because you look at me like I’m not just a weapon. And that makes me want to be more than one.”
