Chapter 27
OPHELIA
Morning in the Alistair estate did not break gently; it intruded brutally.
I was buried beneath the heavy duvet, trying to cling to the remnants of a dream where the world wasn't made of obsidian and the cold, when the heavy door to my chambers was thrown open. There was no knock, no polite request for entry—only the sharp, efficient sound of invasion.
Light flooded the room as the heavy drapes were ripped back by unseen hands.
I sat up, blinking against the sudden glare, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm.
Two Cenite maids, their faces masks of terrifying, blank efficiency, were already moving through the room.
They didn't look at me. They simply began pulling dresses from my armoire—heavy, dark silks in deep emerald, midnight blue, and black.
“What is going on?” I demanded, my voice raspy with sleep. “Who told you to enter?”
They ignored me completely, laying out a gown of severe black velvet on the chaise. One of them moved to the vanity, arranging brushes and pins with the precision of a executioner sharpening a blade.
“Get out!” I snapped, grabbing a pillow and hurling it at the nearest maid. It struck her shoulder with a soft thud. She didn't even flinch. She simply picked it up, dusted it off, and placed it back on the bed.
I groaned, a sound of pure frustration, and pulled the covers back over my head. "Poppy," I hissed mentally. "Wake up. We are being besieged by cleaning supplies."
Poppy let out a muffled, grumpy chitter from the foot of the bed. “Tell them to go away. It’s too early for tyranny.”
“Little Ophie,” a voice boomed from the doorway, echoing with stone-grinding amusement.
I lowered the duvet just enough to glare at Friedrik, the gargoyle perched casually on the doorframe. “Make them leave, Friddi.”
“I’m afraid I cannot, my dear,” he said, examining his claws. “You know the master has issued his decree. The staff are forbidden from speaking to you—likely to preserve everyone’s sanity—and you are required downstairs immediately.”
“Required?” I scoffed, throwing the covers off. “I am not a soldier in his army.”
“No, dear, you are the wife in his house. And apparently, the Master requires his wife’s presence at breakfast.” Friedrik’s stone eyes twinkled. “Something about maintaining the facade of a functional union. Or perhaps he just enjoys watching you seethe over toast.”
I allowed the silent maids to dress me, if only because fighting them was like fighting shadows. They laced me into the gown with bruising efficiency; the fabric heavy and constricting. They brushed my hair until my scalp tingled, leaving it in a severe, cascading curtain of crimson down my back.
I stomped down the grand staircase, the heavy skirts rustling like angry whispers, Poppy clinging to my shoulder, radiating a sour mood that matched my own.
The dining hall was a cavernous space of stone and vaulted ceilings. At the far end of a table long enough to seat a small army, sat the absolute ray of sunshine, the Prince of Perpetual Gloom himself, Cain bloody Alistair.
He didn't look up as I entered. He was reading a thick document, a cup of black coffee steaming untouched beside him. He was clad in the dark tunic and breeches I’d seen before, the terrifying ceremonial armour finally discarded.
It was jarring to see him like this—stripped of the obsidian shell, looking merely like a male rather than a monster.
Though nothing about my husband ever looked truly normal.
Without the bulk of the plating, he looked leaner, sharper.
He just seemed exhausted, immaculate, and utterly infuriating.
I marched to the chair opposite him—an expanse of mahogany that felt less like a dining table and more like a continental divide—and sat with enough force to make the heavy silver service rattle against the bone china.
The spread was a grotesque display of plenty.
A wheel of blue-veined Stilton sat sweating on marble, flanked by dark, heavy breads and meats.
But it was the pomegranates that turned my stomach; split in half like open chest wounds, their ruby seeds wept juice onto the linen.
Their sharp, acidic tang mingled with Cain’s own scent, creating a cloying perfume that coated the back of my throat.
I hated it. I hated how delicious it smelled.
“Good morning to you too,” I muttered, bypassing the feast to snatch a piece of dry, burnt toast—the only thing on the table that didn’t look like it was bleeding.
Cain did not look up from his documents. His hand, pale and elegant, hovered over a silver bowl before selecting a fig. It was a dark, bruised purple, swollen to the point of bursting.
“You are late, wife,” he stated.
As he spoke, a large death's-head moth detached itself from the shadows and fluttered silently just behind his head, a dusty, grey halo against the gloom.
Cain ignored it. He lifted the fig to his lips and took a slow, deliberate bite.
It was an act of absolute ruin. His teeth sank into the yielding pink flesh, tearing the skin with a quiet wet sound that echoed in the silence.
The fruit burst. A thick, dark rivulet of nectar escaped the wound, sliding over the curve of his plump lower lip like a slow bead of blood.
He didn’t reach for the linen. Instead, his gaze snapped to mine, heavy and hooded.
With agonising slowness, he dragged the tip of his tongue across his lip, catching the stray drop of juice before it could fall.
He savoured it, his eyes never leaving mine, and let a slow, devilish smirk curl the corner of his wet mouth.
Seeing the red interior of the fruit exposed, sticky and raw, sent a traitorous, heat-heavy shiver racing down my spine.
He chewed slowly, his voice a low, vibrating hum that seemed to penetrate my bones.
“I was assaulted by your staff,” I countered, fighting the flush in my cheeks. I took my knife to the butter, scraping it across the scorched bread with aggressive precision. “Next time, tell them to knock. Or better yet, tell them not to come at all.”
Cain’s gaze was searing. His eyes turned glacial, rimmed with that dangerous silver light. “They are trained to be efficient. Unlike you.”
“I am efficient at things that matter,” I snapped. “Like empathy. And basic decency. Concepts you clearly excised from your curriculum forever ago, if you ever possessed them to begin with.”
He closed the document slowly. “Do not test me this morning, Ophelia. The air is thin.”
“Is it?” I leaned forward, the memory of Caspian broken on the floor yesterday fuelling my recklessness. “Is the great Prince of the Void feeling fragile again? Or are you just tired from torturing innocent boys to make yourself feel big and bad?”
The silence that slammed into the room was absolute. Even Poppy stopped chewing the grape she’d stolen.
Cain stood up.
He didn't rush. He moved with the terrifying, fluid grace of a landslide. He walked the length of the table, his steps silent, until he stood directly beside my chair. The air temperature plummeted.
“Innocent,” he repeated, the word spat with so much vitriol. “You call the boy who tried to steal my property innocent?”
“He tried to save me!” I shouted, standing up to meet him, though I had to crane my neck to look into his stormy eyes. “He loves me! Something you will never understand because you are incapable of feeling anything but ownership!”
“Love is a weakness,” Cain snarled, stepping closer, forcing me to back up until my legs hit the chair.
The sudden proximity, the sheer mass of him blocking the light, sent a spike of old, jagged ice through my chest. A draft swept down from the high vaulted windows, carrying the heavy, metallic scent of the morning rain against the stone.
That smell—damp earth and cold water—mixed with the heat of his body, and suddenly I wasn't in the dining hall.
I was fifteen again, trapped behind the Academy greenhouse.
The suffocating scent of wet soil and cheap cologne filled my lungs.
The way those boys had laughed as they cornered me, thinking 'no' was just a pause in the conversation.
I had clawed my way out then, but the memory of being small and trapped against a wall by a male who felt entitled to my space never truly left.
I forced the memory down, turning the old fear into new, white-hot rage.
“It made him weak,” Cain continued, oblivious to the ghosts he had just summoned. “It made him fail. And it will destroy you if you do not purge it from your pathetic system.”
“I would rather be destroyed by love than survive on your hatred!”
Cain snapped.
He didn't hit me. He reached out, grabbing the back of my chair and hurling it aside with a crash that echoed like thunder. Before I could blink, his hand wrapped around my waist, not hurting, but unyielding. He bent, almost hitting my stomach, and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of grain.
“Put me down!” I screamed, pounding on his back with my fists. “You barbarian! Put me down! You cannot keep hauling me like this!”
He ignored me completely, striding out of the dining hall and down the corridor. He kicked open the double doors to the conservatory and marched inside.
The air inside did not hit me with its usual sweet humidity, not anymore. It hit me like the inside of a crypt. Dry. Stale. Tasting of death and dust.
He walked to the centre of the room, near the ruined cluster of what used to be his mother’s Vespertine Lilies, and finally dumped me onto a chaise lounge.
I scrambled back, hair wild, chest heaving. “What is wrong with you?”
Cain towered over me, but he wasn't looking at me.
His head was tipped back, his chest rising and falling with rapid, ragged breaths.
He looked at the destruction he had wrought not long ago—the piles of grey ash where the humming black flowers used to be, the skeletal remains of stems on the marble floor.