Chapter 72
SEVENTY-TWO
Iwake with the ghost of Deimos’s kiss still burning on my mouth.
For one breath—just one—I let myself believe he’s still here. That I’m not alone. That I’m not cold. That the dream wasn’t just a desperate hallucination clinging to the last scraps of hope.
But then the necklace pulses. And the pain is sharp. Searing.
It tightens like a fist around my throat, as if it heard his name echo in my chest. As if it wants to choke the memory from me.
I curl into myself on the too-soft bed, fists twisted in crimson sheets that smell nothing like home. I want to scream. I want to disappear. I want to tear the silk from my skin and rip the necklace free until it bleeds.
But I do none of those things. I stay still.
The door opens—no knock, no warning. Just a hush of magic and polished boots on obsidian floors. My heart stutters.
Zepharion enters like a king visiting a shrine built to honor himself.
He’s draped in ceremonial robes—black and gold, sharp and gleaming—stitched with ancient script I don’t recognize. He’s already dressed for our wedding. The one I never agreed to. The one I can’t escape.
And he looks pleased.
“Ah,” he says, voice silken, “you’re awake.”
I sit up slowly, careful not to show how the movement costs me. My stomach knots. Hunger claws at me. My skin feels dry, cracked, as if my magic is leaching out of me with every breath I take.
He crosses the room and sets a silver tray down on the side table. Three slices of fruit. A crystal goblet of water.
Scraps. Again.
I say nothing. I just stare.
“You should eat,” he says gently. “You’ll need your strength for the ceremony. Crimson suits you, by the way.”
His eyes drag over me, slow and indulgent. I clutch the sheets tighter to my chest, suddenly aware that I’m naked. Bare before him.
He reaches out, brushing a strand of hair from my cheek with the back of his hand.
“You’ll be the envy of Hell, Lillien. A goddess in red.” His voice lowers, syrup-thick. “I commissioned your gown myself. Each stitch soaked in the blood of a thousand offerings. You’ll be so radiant when you kneel beside me.”
I flinch, and he sees it. Revels in it.
“Do you know what I look forward to most?” he murmurs, his fingers tracing down the curve of my jaw. “Not the ceremony. Not the politics. Not even the power that comes with claiming you.”
His hand drifts to my throat.
“It’s the moment I make you mine. Completely. Irrevocably. In front of them all. Before the court. Before your precious rebels. Before whatever gods you still pray to.”
I shake my head. “You won’t win.”
His smile is sharp. “But I already have.”
He leans in, his lips ghosting over my cheek. Not a kiss. Not quite. A claim in progress. His hand lingers on my bare thigh, just enough to make my skin crawl.
But he doesn’t touch me where I need him to. He never does. That’s the point.
“You ache, don’t you?” he whispers against my skin. “It’s in your nature. You need to feed. To burn. To be filled.”
I shut my eyes. The shame is its own brand of fire.
“And yet…” He sighs, lifting his hand again. “Not yet. Not until you’re mine by law and blood and magic. Not until the bond is sealed and your power belongs to me.”
He walks away before I can speak. Before I can scream. Before I can collapse. The door clicks shut like the snap of a guillotine. And I’m alone again.
I don’t move for a long time. Just stare at the velvet drapes that frame nothing. No window. No stars. Just the illusion of softness over stone.
My thighs are slick where he touched me—touched, but never gave. A tease, a torment. A test.
Every inch of me shakes with the effort not to scream. Not to shatter.
My hands curl into the sheets, white-knuckled and clawed, but there’s no satisfaction in the grip. No anchor. Just silk that slides away too easily—like control, like hope, like breath.
I force myself up. Each movement a negotiation. My knees threaten to buckle, but I find the floor. My legs carry me to the hearth, where the coals still smolder. I sink to them like they’re the last bit of heat I’ll ever know.
And I reach. Not for the fire—but for them. My bonds.
Cassiel. Bastion. Deimos.
“Please.”
My fingers curl against the mark on my chest, the place where their magic once hummed like a song beneath my skin. I push inward. Harder. Desperate.
For a moment—a moment—I feel it. A flicker. A faint thread of something warm. Familiar.
“Cassiel?” But then it slips.
Snuffed out like a candle in a storm. The necklace around my throat pulses—tightens—like a collar with a leash I didn’t agree to.
Pain sparks down my spine. The bond dims again. Gone.
My shoulders hunch forward. Silent tears track down my face.
I can’t keep doing this. No.
I force myself upright, the movement clumsy, defiant. I drag my trembling limbs across the room to the gilded vanity. The mirror stares back, cruel and cold.
A stranger blinks from within the glass.
Her cheeks are hollowed. Her skin dulled to ash. Her eyes… Gods, her eyes are wrong. Wide and hollow, rimmed with shadow and grief. The necklace gleams at her throat—garnet and obsidian, polished like a trophy. Like shackles dressed up for court.
She looks like she belongs to him. But she doesn’t. Not truly.
I lift a hand to the glass and touch the reflection’s face. Her skin is cool where mine burns. Her mouth trembles where mine sets into steel.
“I won’t let you win,” I whisper.
The voice is faint. But it’s mine.
“You want to make me your bride,” I say to the mirror, to the walls, to the monster watching from the shadows. “You want to make me forget.”
But I remember.
“I belong to them,” I whisper fiercely. “To Cassiel. To Bastion. To Deimos.”
Not to Zepharion. Not to this prison. Not to the lies dressed as ceremony and silk.
And even if the world forgets me. I won’t forget who I am.