Chapter 9 Violet
Violet
When will you be back? I asked through the bond.
A shadow brushed my neck, and I shivered despite myself.
Even when he wasn’t here, he was everywhere—in the stone, in the air, in the quiet hum that lived under my skin.
I was still getting used to the scale of Sebastian’s power.
Everything had shifted the day we saved him.
Since then, it felt like the world had narrowed around him, like nothing could touch him unless he allowed it.
Soon.
The answer came with certainty.
I smiled at my reflection, though my stomach still twisted with unease. He could see me—I knew that—but the distance bothered me. It always did.
I turned my back to the mirror, fingers lifting to tie the thin straps of my dress behind my neck. Before I could finish, my hands were gently nudged aside. Shadows rose from the floor, cool against my wrists as they took over, moving with careful precision.
“Hey—” I started, then stopped as the knot tightened perfectly.
Another shadow slid lower, skimming my hip, trailing down my side. My head tipped back without permission as it slipped beneath the hem of my dress, cold enough to make my breath hitch.
“No.” I caught the fabric and shoved it back down, heart pounding. “I want you.”
The shadows paused.
This is me.
“All of you,” I said firmly, smoothing my dress and meeting my own eyes in the mirror. “The entirety of you. Standing in front of me. Preferably naked. So—no more touching me until you’re back.”
His laughter spilled through the bond.
I will try my best to be back tomorrow.
“Good,” I said, reaching for my comb and dragging it through my hair until it fell the way I wanted. “Now let me get ready for breakfast.”
Ah, yes. Your favorite event. A pause, then amusement. But don’t pretend I started this. You called to me first.
I rolled my eyes, even as heat crept up my neck.
Don’t let him get to you, he said. He’s doing it on purpose.
“Don’t worry,” I said aloud, fastening a bracelet around my wrist. “All of my focus is going to be on our dear vampire.”
I’m glad that’s out in the open. Just don’t push too hard. It’s… sensitive.
“I have plenty of questions for you, too,” I said, grabbing my boots and sitting on the edge of the bed to pull them on.
I’m sure you do.
The bond eased, not gone—never gone—but quieter, like he was turning his attention elsewhere.
I stood, smoothed my dress one last time, and took a breath.
Breakfast with a vampire.
What could possibly go wrong?
Bronwen filled the space the moment I sat down—talking about a shipment Finnel had nearly lost, the way the west wing carpets were cursed to collect bloodstains, and how whoever designed Night Realm tableware clearly hated elbows. Her voice echoed across the balcony, bright and relentless.
Adar ate without comment, posture rigid, chewing like it was a task to be completed rather than a pleasure. He didn’t look at me. He barely looked at Bronwen.
But I couldn’t take it any longer. I didn’t want to know the latest update on things around the castle. I wanted to know about her.
“Did you have other siblings?”
Adar stopped chewing.
The pause was brief—almost imperceptible—but it landed hard enough that the scrape of cutlery suddenly felt too loud. I hadn’t spoken to him since I’d learned the truth, but I had no doubt Bronwen had already told him. She never kept things from him.
Bronwen set her cup down with care and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “No,” she said lightly. “Just us.”
Her tone was smooth. Practiced. But her fingers lingered on the cloth a beat too long before she folded it.
“What was your mother like?” I asked.
Bronwen’s gaze flicked to me. Something sharp and unguarded passed through her eyes—gone almost before I could name it.
“Wonderful,” she said. “Kind. Loving. Patient.”
“She’d have to be patient with you,” Adar said dryly, reaching for his drink.
Bronwen snapped toward him. “Me?” Her brows lifted, wicked and delighted.
“Says the one who found his way under nearly every skirt in town when he wasn’t off being Papa’s spy.
” She leaned back in her chair, eyes bright.
“Well—no. I’ve heard the stories about the women who came through your camps.
It’s a miracle you didn’t catch a disease and die. ”
A smile tugged at Adar’s mouth before he could stop it.
He cleared his throat. “She was the best seamstress in Joveryn,” he said instead, voice steadier than his expression. “People traveled from all over to have a piece made by her.”
Bronwen nodded once. “They’d line the roads during Market days.”
“What were your Markets like?” I asked.
Her posture shifted, shoulders loosening.
“Crowded. Loud,” she said. “Booths packed so tight you could barely walk between them.” She gestured vaguely with her hand. “Everything was handmade. Clothes. Tools. Spices. Nothing wasted.”
“Most of us lived far out,” Adar added. “People traveled in just for Market. Traded what they’d grown or built. It’s how we survived.”
“And how everyone knew everyone else’s business,” Bronwen muttered. “I tried everything to get out of going. I hated smiling at prudes just to get them to buy from us.” She shot Adar a sideways look. “That was more his talent.”
“All I did was be polite,” Adar said.
The word slipped out of me before I could stop it. “You were nice?”
I froze, bracing for the shutdown. The sharp look. The comment meant to remind me where I stood.
Instead, Adar huffed.
It wasn’t quite a laugh—but it wasn’t a sound I had never heard from him before. He shook his head once.
“Only when it mattered,” he said.
Bronwen smiled into her cup, and for a heartbeat I could see them as they must have been before everything broke—siblings trading barbs in a world that hadn’t yet learned how much it could take from them.
“What about your father?” I asked.
Bronwen’s smile brightened again. “Either working for the coven or tending his horses.” A pause. Then, quieter, “When he had a spare moment, he trained us.”
“With your magic?”
“With swords,” Adar said, cutting in before she could answer. His jaw tightened, just a fraction. “He wanted us prepared if we were discovered. Without a natural connection, we wouldn’t have anything else to defend ourselves with.”
“If you were discovered?”
He tilted his head. “Magic was forbidden.”
That, I didn’t know.
We ate in silence for a few moments after that. It felt strange—seeing them like this. Adar drifting into memory, almost… lighter. Bronwen quieter than I’d ever known her, her attention turned inward.
I should have let the silence hold.
But the question had been sitting in my chest since the night before, heavy and insistent.
“Did you take magic from August often,” I asked carefully, “once the two of you were together?”
The shift was immediate.
The air tightened, sharp as a drawn wire. Bronwen’s spine went rigid, every muscle locking into place. Her eyes flashed—green gone bright and dangerous for the briefest heartbeat—before the shutters slammed back down.
Adar was watching her now. So was I.
“He didn’t like it,” she said flatly. “It was… excruciating.” Her jaw clenched. “Like having his very essence pulled out of him.”
There it was.
The line in the sand.
August.
This was the fracture point—the place where everything else in her splintered. The part she guarded harder than her own life. I understood then what Sebastian had meant about not pushing too hard.
I knew this was where I should stop.
But stopping had never been my strength.
“How long were the two of you together?” I asked.
Porcelain split beneath her fork. Fragments skittered across the table and hit the floor, scattering like startled birds.
Bronwen didn’t look at it as tears filled her eyes.
“Not long enough,” she whispered.
“B,” Adar said.
He was already moving. He knelt beside and took the fork from her hand before she could tighten her grip around it. His thumb brushed once over her knuckles.
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, every trace of pain was gone.
“Should we go shopping today?” she said brightly.
I blinked.
“I was thinking about that party we talked about,” she continued, words spilling too quickly, too neatly, like they’d been rehearsed. “Nothing big, obviously. You haven’t declared yourself Sun Sovereign yet, and I’m fairly certain your glowing hair would ruin the surprise.”
“But—”
She laughed. “But it’s been ages since we’ve had one, and we clearly need new dresses. I saw the most obscene pair of heels in town the other day and I’ve been suffering from extreme non-buyer’s remorse. Is that the phrase?”
“But, Bro—”
“Stop,” Adar said, looking at me.
I stared between them. “What the fuck is wrong with the two of you?”
Bronwen didn’t pause. Didn’t even breathe differently.
“I thought maybe a small gathering with music,” she pressed on, smiling too wide now. “Nothing excessive. Just enough to remind everyone we’re alive.”
“Nothing is wrong,” Adar snarled.
“But this—”
Adar stood abruptly. “Training. Now.”
Normally, I would have argued. Pushed back. Refused to be redirected like a misbehaving child. But the emotional whiplash had knocked the breath clean out of me.
So I just nodded and followed him even though I was wearing a dress.
The walk to the training field was filled with Bronwen’s humming. The cheerful noise was completely at odds with the way she had been moments ago. I kept having to remind myself to breathe.
What kind of world let someone bleed and break and then ask about dresses?
What had happened to her to make that survivable?
Adar didn’t look at me. He didn’t speak. He didn’t slow when my steps lagged or my thoughts tangled. He just kept walking, boots striking the path harder than usual.
When the training yard opened before us, Adar stopped, turned, and pressed a staff into my hands without meeting my eyes. His jaw was locked tight, the muscle ticking like he was holding something back by force alone.
“Ready?” he asked.
He lunged before I could respond.
The impact came fast—too fast—and my arms shook violently as I barely caught the blow. Wood cracked against my palms, the sting sharp enough to make my fingers numb. I stumbled back.
“Focus,” he snapped.
I didn’t have time to answer.
He swung again. I blocked it by instinct alone, the shock traveling straight through my shoulders.
Bronwen’s face flashed in my mind.
The tears.
The switch.
The way Adar had gone lethal in the span of a breath.
I hesitated.
He swept my leg out from under me.
I hit the dirt hard, the air punched from my lungs in a sharp, humiliating gasp.
“Adar—”
“Get up.” His voice was empty. Not cold—hollow.
I pushed myself upright, ribs protesting with every movement. “You don’t have to take it out on me.”
He froze.
His grip tightened around the staff until the wood creaked in protest. When his eyes met mine, they were dark and unreadable, a storm banked and waiting.
There it was.
The hostility. The thing under his skin that never quite slept. Gods, I’d almost forgotten it during those few quiet minutes at breakfast.
Then he attacked.
I deflected the first strike, but missed the second. The third slammed into my shoulder and sent me spinning sideways. Pain burst white-hot down my arm and I tasted blood where I bit my tongue.
“Again,” he barked.
I staggered upright. “You’re being a dick.”
“That’s new?”
“No,” I snapped. “But it’s worse than usual.”
He swung low. I jumped just in time, heart hammering as the staff sliced through the space where my legs had been.
“Focus.”
“I am trying!”
“Try harder.”
He drove me back step by step, each strike forcing me closer to the trees until bark pressed rough against my spine. My arms trembled so badly I could barely lift the staff. Every block sent pain screaming through my bones.
“Adar—slow down—”
“Why?” he demanded, launching another strike that missed my ribs by inches. “Because it hurts? Because you pushed where you shouldn’t have and don’t like the consequences?”
My jaw clenched.
I swung wildly. He caught the staff with one hand, ripped it from my grasp, and hurled it aside like it weighed nothing.
“One day,” he said, low and dangerous, “you’re going to learn that not everything is yours to pry open.”
Rage flared in my chest. “I wasn’t trying to hurt her!”
“But you did.”
“I didn’t know!”
He drew back—
And suddenly Bronwen was between us. Hand up. Eyes sharp.
“Stop it, Adar,” she snapped. “He is going to kill you.”
“He isn’t here.”
The words hit me harder than anything else.
I flinched.
Adar saw it.
He went completely still.
For just a second, something flickered across his face—regret, maybe, or the echo of it—before it vanished, sealed away behind the same iron control he always fell back on.
Shadows slid across the ground like spilled ink.
Then a voice cut clean through the clearing.
“Step away from her.”
Adar went rigid.
I turned.
Sebastian stood a few paces behind us. The shadows at his feet were coiled. Waiting. His dusty-blue eyes were dark in a way that meant someone had already crossed a line.
“Bash—” I started.
He didn’t look at me.
“What did you do?” he asked Adar.
Adar didn’t flinch. “Training.”
Sebastian took a single step forward. The ground darkened beneath his boots.
“That,” he said evenly, “was not training.”
It was like he was deciding exactly how much damage this moment required.
“She’s bleeding,” he continued.
I wiped at my lip. “It’s barely—”
“It’s something,” he said, and the word carried weight without volume.
Adar’s grip tightened on his staff. “Stay out of it.”
Sebastian laughed once. No humor. No warmth.
“You’ve trained beside me long enough to know better than that,” he said. “You don’t touch what’s mine.”
“Your pet—”
Shadows surged.
Tendrils slid along his arms and throat.They wrapped around Adar in a heartbeat, stopping just short of crushing.
“She is not a fucking pet,” Sebastian said through gritted teeth. “She is my mate.”
Bronwen stepped forward. “Sebastian—”
His focus didn’t leave Adar. “If she is harmed again, there will be no misunderstanding the difference between you and her.”
Adar didn’t struggle beneath the grip of shadows. He met Sebastian’s stare without blinking, even as death coiled around him.
“Is that a threat?” he asked.
Sebastian’s eyes went flat. “It’s a fact.”
I stepped between them before the moment could tip into something irreversible.
“It’s my fault,” I said.
Sebastian’s attention snapped to me instantly. “Do not ever put the blame on yourself.”
My pulse roared in my ears.
Then Bronwen spoke.
“Well,” she said brightly, clapping her hands once like she hadn’t just witnessed a near-execution, “Vi, how do you feel about shopping?”
I thought I might be sick.