Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Horatio looks like he’s about to burst. A mixture of humiliation and fury runs through his features before he storms out of the room.
Penelope grasps her gown in her hands and quickly dashes after her father.
The doors slam shut, their echo the only sound to disturb the stillness.Sebastian takes my hand and pulls me in the opposite direction.
He walks me out of the ballroom and into the main castle corridors.
“I leave for one moment to take a piss, and you’re out there waging war with one of the great Elvarran houses!” he scolds me as we continue down the hall.
“Sorry… I got a little irate,” I apologize.
“A little?” Sebastian scoffs, stopping his advancements as he turns to face me. “Raelys, you have to trust me.” He takes my face in his hands and pulls me close.
“I do trust you,” I lie. I don’t trust anyone in the North.
“Let me take care of you,” he says gently. “I can keep you safe, if you’ll allow me.”
His words stop me cold. The revelry drains from my body, leaving a raw quiet in its wake.
I spent my entire life behind walls being told, and sometimes believing, that safety could keep me whole.
But safety is nothing more than a gilded lie when we are at war.
What I want now is to show my full fire: plans to topple those who keep me small.
Never again will I be a fragile piece of crystal kept in the curio cabinet.
“What do you mean?” I ask softly, placing a hand on his chest. I notice his heartbeat quickens beneath my touch.
Sebastian's gaze fills with longing. His gloved thumb runs along my cheek. The gesture is soft, as if he’s worried I’ll shatter in his grasp. “That I would do anything for you,” he replies gently, tilting his face towards mine.
He’s going to kiss me. I have to play the part and smooth things over with him after slandering Horatio. It will continue to build trust with him, allowing me to utilize him later. I slowly tilt my head toward him. Sebastian doesn’t hesitate, his lips brushing against mine.
Booming footsteps echo down the hall.
Gasping, I startle away from Sebastian, my head whipping around. My body already knows who it is, adrenaline coursing through me, my heart hammering in my chest. Sebastian steps in front of me, as if to shield me from any approaching danger, but there’s no protection from the wrath that’s coming.
Wrath turns the corner with two guards at his sides— a predator closing in on its prey, measured and deliberate. He clenches his jaw tightly, holding back a fury of words. Wrath's fingers twitch at his side, as if he’s itching for a blade to sink into Sebastian’s chest.
“Escort the Duke of Ashvarin out of the castle,” Wrath commands.
“Wait!” I call out, defensively raising my hands.
Wrath lets out a sinister chuckle. “You and I are going to have a chat, Princess,” he seethes.
Glancing back at Sebastian, I see the sorrow of the kiss that was stolen from us.
He opens his mouth to speak, but the guards reach him first. They press flat palms against his chest and shoulders to force him back.
Sebastian goes willingly, sighing as he turns the corner, their footsteps fading down the hall.
“That’s a high-ranking member of your court. You can’t throw him out; that’s bad decorum,” I point out, hoping he’ll put an end to this. “He didn’t do anything!”
Wrath—who is currently living up to his namesake—stops before me. He is a dagger cloaked in velvet, dangerous yet alluring. Wrath’s magic rips through me so painfully that I cry out, my hands going to my throat.
“Gottfried wants me in Rykaris,” I say against my will.
“I knew it.”
“I want to be free!”
“You can’t. My magic is etched into your skin,” he says, voice deadly. “Doesn’t matter where you go in Dratheria, Raelys, my presence will cling to you like shadow to a flame.”
I hate that my skin flushes. Hate that I falter even for a moment, because it shows him how much those words affect me. They’re possessive, claiming—no one has ever spoken to me like that before, as if I were already his. And gods help me, maybe part of me wants to be.
“If you insist on keeping me here, I will bring ruin to Khalessor,” I challenge.
Wrath gives me a wolfish grin. “Do not play the games of war with me, Raelys. You will not like the outcome.”
“Is that a threat?” I ask furiously.
“It's a promise,” Wrath replies, repeating our discourse from our time at the cabin in Sinaia.
That memory feels like a lifetime ago. The naive, sheltered girl I once was has since brought ruin to a great Elvarran house—with nothing but her words.
A remarkable feat for someone once taught to stay silent.
We hold each other’s gazes, neither yielding to the other as we wage a silent war of wills.
Wrath’s lips press into a thin line. His posture turns rigid to maintain control.
I wonder if he sees the same in me—the fire burning behind my carefully composed exterior.
“Are you jealous?” The realization dawns on me suddenly. “Go back to Penelope, your fiancée.”
“She’s not my fiancée and will never be my fiancée.” Wrath brazenly corrects me. “You have no idea what that man you were with is capable of.”
“And you’re the pillar of honor and veneration?” I counter. “The most wicked king in Dratheria has the nerve to critique my sense of company?”
“You’re one to judge.” The scar on Wrath’s neck flexes. “When you traded an entire kingdom to save yourself.”
His words strike true, hitting the part of me I’ve repressed since leaving Avelisar. What’s worse is that I don’t feel a single ounce of regret for my actions. All of those lives were lost so I can be free… and I’m still chained.
I turn, taking long strides away from him as I surge down the hall. My anger boils over as I reach a breaking point. Wrath and I are like wildfire, ready to consume anything in our path, including each other. If we keep going much longer, one of us will burn the other to ash.
“Raelys!” Wrath’s voice calls out as he surges after me. It’s the closest I’ve heard him to yelling. His fingers wrap around my right wrist, stopping me in place.
Magic flares up my arm, the mark beneath my sleeve sending a tinge of heat throughout my body. I whirl quickly, ready to unleash my fury on him, when my gaze catches on something. With his arm outstretched to grab my hand, Wrath’s sleeve rides up, allowing me to see the inside of his right wrist.
On Wrath’s skin is a silver mark that matches mine.
I move in the blink of an eye, shoving up his sleeve before he can stop me.
All the air leaves my lungs as I try to make sense of what this means.
I trace my thumb over the skin, the magic jumping to life at my touch.
It moves closer to greet me, the same way mine moves when Wrath touches me. A realization crashes over me.
I look up at him and feel his heavy breath brush my cheek. “What’s this?” I whisper. “Why do we have matching marks?”
“We’re bonded,” he says in a voice equally low.
I pull away. The tingling sensation immediately fades from the broken contact. Wrath’s eyes darken as he watches me, standing deadly still.
“I’m bound to protect you. You’re bound not to cross me.” He reminds me of our deal. “When you’re in extreme pain, I feel it,” Wrath reveals, sending a shockwave through me.
“You certainly didn’t mean to do that… did you?”
Wrath inhales a sharp breath. “When we made our deal, and we touched hands, the magic within you reached out and took root in me.”
Wrath made a mistake—a severe one. That’s why he doesn’t want me to return home to Cathros. He is trying to figure out the nature of the bond between us. It is why I feel the magic call out to him. His power flows through me, and mine in him—a bond neither of us can break.
“You probably can’t think of a worse fate than being tied to me,” I say softly, feeling pensive.
I remain suspended in the intensity of his gaze as I wait for his response—two twilight skies of gray, the dawn to my every day and the dusk to my every night.
The two of us are a cycle of ruin, a curse with no end.
He is the culmination of everything I am not: composed, distinguished, and controlled.
Yet he is the source of my every undoing, and the sum of every ache my soul carries.
“You have invaded my kingdom, my thoughts, and my sanity. I have fought many wars, but the one you wage seeks to destroy everything I have worked for.” He steps closer, closing the space between us.
“You are the bane of my existence. And no matter how fiercely I try to resist, you are everything I desire.”
My breath catches in my throat. Every nerve in my body becomes attuned to this moment, to Wrath, as he waits for my response. The world around us slowly melts away, and the magic in the castle walls holds its breath alongside me.
“If I am the bane of your existence, then you are the plague of my peace,” I counter, losing all sense of logical thought. “Because when our skin touches… I burn for you. I know it’s the magic that makes me feel this way, but sometimes it’s not—”
“I can do this no longer.” Wrath’s lips crash into mine.
He takes my face between his palms and kisses me like I'm the air keeping him alive. The kiss is commanding and wild, tempered only by the faintest trace of tenderness. The world narrows to this—his hands, his mouth, the breaking of every wall between us.
I reach up, wrapping a hand around the nape of his neck as I thread my fingers through his hair.
Wrath’s arm circles my waist as he pulls me through a doorway.
Slamming the door behind him, he pins me to it with his hips.
Our lips meet once more as he grips my body tightly.
Wrath’s jaw is smooth against my palm as I cling to him, desperately craving more.
“Wrath…” I whisper his name, trying to get his attention. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Then stop me.” His mouth finds the pulse jumping at my throat.
I tilt my head back and release a soft moan of pleasure. “Wrath,” I repeat his name in a poor attempt to stop this revelry. Secretly, I don’t want him to stop—I want to indulge.
“Casimir,” he murmurs against my neck, breath fanning across my skin.
“What?” I ask in a haze of lust.
“My namesake.”
“Casimir…” My brows lower as I scour my mind for the reason why that sounds so familiar. “Casimir… Bainbridge?”
“Yes, that's my name.”
Then it hits me.
I jolt backwards out of his arms, stumbling over my dress. “You!” I gasp.
Dread fills me. I knew it. I was in denial for so long, refusing to believe what was right in front of me.
What I thought was a clever ploy ended up as the truth, and now I’ve kissed the Warlord.
Itheon is likely laughing at the irony of my anguish, Seluna, too.
And if I could, I would let the castle walls swallow me whole to avoid the mortification I feel.
He gives me a bewildered look. “I what?”
“The book.” My breaths turn ragged. This corset feels all too tight, too constricting, too stifling as it cages my lungs.
“What about it?”
“You wrote it.”
“I know, that's why I gave it to you,” Wrath—no, Casimir replies. “I thought you understood immediately. Isn’t that why you stormed out of the library?”
“Is this all some game to you, Wrath—Casimir, whatever your damned name is?” I slowly back away, my dress weighing me down like an anchor.
“Raelys, we’ve been quoting the lines back and forth to one another for weeks. It was so blatantly obvious, I thought you knew the entire time.” Genuine confusion flickers across his features. “I wasn’t trying to trick you. It's—”
“I live my life based on those words.” My hands tremble at my sides as I come to terms with this newfound discovery.
“I know you do,” he says gently. “You and I are two sides of the same coin, Raelys, bound to one another by our oath. Your soul’s desire for power and vengeance is a mirror to mine. And you have no idea how beautiful, how bold, how spellbinding you are to me.”
My heart skips a beat.
“Don’t play the games of war with you,” I repeat in disbelief. “Is that what you meant? Because you’re the warlord? That I couldn’t possibly win against you?”
His gaze darkens. “Yes.”
My mind is trapped in an endless cycle of doubt as I agonize over every interaction I’ve had with the King. Each lingering look and fleeting touch replay in my mind over and over. How could I not have seen it sooner?
You are everything I desire.
I would rather burn Dratheria to the ground than give her back.
She is mine.
Wrath’s words echo in my mind, taking on new meanings each time I recall them. He has taken root in every part of my mind. It is maddening how my thoughts twist around him like a tunnel with no exit, trapping me inside.
“Raelys.”
“I have to go—”
Casimir steps in my path, stopping me from leaving.
“Wait.” His eyes fill with something I’ve never seen—anguish.
“I know you. You are a viper waiting to strike in the shadows. There is a part of you that reads that book every damned day because it’s what you aspire to be,” Casimir says ardently.
“You can release that darkness, Raelys. It is not a flaw. It is your strength.”
“You only need me to break the curse,” I challenge, my whole world spinning.
“No.” Casimir shakes his head. “The curse can go on for an eternity for all I care. I will wage this war until my very last breath before I live in a world without you in it.”
His words steal the air from my lungs. I’ve never been desired like that, so completely that it terrifies me. I can’t trust it. He’s the Warlord, and I’m nothing more than a piece on his gameboard.
“I must go.” I head for the door.
This time, he doesn’t stop me.