Chapter 40 Bronwen
Bronwen
Shopping was supposed to calm me.
That was the lie, anyway.
People liked to believe that if you give a woman silk and jewelry and the quiet rustle of expensive fabric, whatever was clawing at the inside of her skull would politely wait outside the shop until she’s finished browsing.
It didn’t work that way.
I had begged Violet to come with me. I told her I needed help choosing dresses, that the war room had made my eyes cross and I deserved something frivolous after the week we’d had.
The truth was much simpler.
I couldn’t be alone right now.
But Sebastian had refused to let her out of his sight, and he was absolutely not going shopping with me.
He didn’t need to see what I spent his money on, and I didn’t need to listen to him pretend he didn’t care while mentally calculating how many starving faelings could be fed for the price of a single gown.
So here I was.
Alone.
I pushed open the door to my favorite dress shop, the bell above it chiming softly as I stepped inside. Bolts of fabric lined the walls from floor to ceiling—silk, velvet, lace, organza—each one arranged with the obsessive precision of someone who understood that beauty was a business.
Miss Kalana looked up from her cutting table the moment I entered. She had been dressing Night Realm women for nearly eight centuries. At this point, I suspected she’d seen worse things than an ex-vampire queen in a foul mood, though all she saw was a bitchy red-headed fae.
“My Lady,” she said politely.
“I need a distraction,” I replied. “Show me what you have.”
Her eyes flicked over me briefly before she nodded and moved toward one of the racks.
She held up a dress so the light could catch the fabric properly.
It was midnight blue silk layered with sheer black organza, the bodice structured and sharp enough to double as armor.
The skirt was cut in long, fluid panels that would move like liquid shadow when the wearer walked, the kind of design meant to command attention without appearing to try.
Fine silver thread traced the neckline in delicate patterns.
At first glance it looked like decoration.
But the longer you stared at it, the more it began to resemble sigils.
Power dressed as elegance.
Beauty pretending it wasn’t a weapon.
The shop vanished.
Suddenly I was standing somewhere else entirely.
I saw Carrow again.
He stood on the stage where the execution had taken place, boots planted comfortably next to the bodies of my parents. His hand hung loose at his side like he hadn’t just ruined the world, like the carnage around him was nothing more than a mild inconvenience.
The ropes creaked softly. My parents’ bodies swayed in the wind.
And Carrow—
Carrow was smiling.
His eyes locked directly onto mine like we were sharing a secret across the crowd.
Like this had always been meant for me.
Like he had done it for me.
“My Lady?”
The present snapped back into place.
The dress shop reassembled itself around me piece by piece. The light through the windows. The soft scrape of scissors on fabric somewhere behind the counter. The quiet scent of lavender and silk.
Miss Kalana was still standing there, holding the gown. Her arms had begun to strain slightly from the weight of it. I realized I had been staring at nothing.
I blinked once, forcing the memory back into the dark corner of my mind where it belonged.
“Yes,” I said smoothly, stepping forward to touch the fabric. The silk slid cool and perfect beneath my fingers. “It’s beautiful.”
And if I kept my voice steady long enough, maybe the ghosts in my head would stay quiet for a few minutes longer.
“I’d like to try it on,” I said.
Miss Kalana inclined her head and gestured toward the fitting rooms.
The fitting room swallowed time. I didn’t bother counting how long I stood there staring at my reflection.
The mirrors were tall and merciless, showing every angle of the dress, every subtle shift of light along the silk.
I smoothed the fabric over my hips. Adjusted the neckline.
Turned slightly to watch the skirt move.
It was beautiful.
I didn’t need it.
That didn’t matter.
I changed dresses once, then again, then a third time.
Each one slid over my skin like armor disguised as luxury—soft, expensive, suffocating in a way that had nothing to do with the fabric itself.
Now, I stood in the center of the shop as Miss Kalana’s assistants moved around me in quiet, practiced motions, pinning seams, adjusting the fall of silk, stepping back to assess before returning with another needle.
I blinked, and I wasn’t in the Night Realm anymore. I stood in a cell, servants dressing me in a pink dress that was probably worn by every woman forced into this role before me. The door opened, and Carrow stepped inside. The servants disappeared immediately, slipping out without a word.
He circled me slowly, his gaze dragging over every inch of me with quiet scrutiny.
His fingers lifted a strand of my hair, adjusting it with mock care, before his attention shifted to the rest of me—my skin, my posture, the way the dress sat against my body.
Making sure everything was exactly as it should be. Untouched. Presentable.
Like I hadn’t been ruined the night before.
“You look exquisite, Bronwen,” he said when he stopped in front of me.
I said nothing.
His hand rose, and he pressed his thumb into the fresh bite mark at my neck. Pain flared, my breath catching as memory slammed into me—his hands, his mouth, the suffocating weight of him, the way the world had dimmed at the edges when he almost drained me.
I forced myself still, swallowing down the reaction clawing its way up my throat.
“Say thank you, Carrow.”
I kept my gaze fixed just past him, refusing to look directly at his face. I couldn’t. Not when it was that face. The one he stole. The one I—
No.
I couldn’t think about that.
When I didn’t respond, his grip snapped to my chin, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. He forced my head up, his strength making resistance pointless, but I kept my eyes lowered.
“Look at me,” he snarled.
A tear slipped free, but I didn’t move.
His hand dropped from my face only to slam against my stomach, fingers digging in hard enough to pull a sharp gasp from my lungs.
“Would you rather I rip that baby from your stomach, hm?” His fingers pressed. “Do not test me, Bronwen. I would take great joy in taking the last thing you care about… and then leaving your body to rot. Look. At. Me.”
Slowly, I lifted my eyes, and the ache of losing him flared to life again.
His mouth curved slightly, satisfaction settling into his expression. “Now was that so hard?” he asked, almost gently. “Now say it.”
The words burned before they even left my mouth.
His lips pressed against mine.
I blinked—
—and the world snapped back.
Silk. Light. Air that didn’t choke me.
Miss Kalana’s shop.
My hand was at her throat.
I had her pinned against the wall, my fingers digging into the soft space beneath her jaw, crushing her airway like it was nothing. Like she was nothing.
Like he was still here.
A sharp gasp tore from my chest as I let go, stumbling back like I’d been burned. “I—I’m sorry.”
Miss Kalana collapsed forward slightly, dragging in a breath, her hand flying to her throat as she coughed. I stared at her, at the red marks already forming beneath her skin, and something cold twisted in my stomach.
I turned, needing space, needing—
The assistants were huddled in the corner, wide-eyed, silent. Watching me like I might snap again.
Gods.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, quieter this time, but it didn’t make it better. It didn’t undo anything.
I couldn’t stay here.
I couldn’t breathe here.
Before anyone could respond, I turned and moved—fast—toward the dressing room, shoving the curtain aside harder than I meant to.
My hands shook as I reached for my clothes, tearing the gown from my body with none of the care they had taken to put it on me.
I dragged my own clothes back on, fingers fumbling with laces and fastenings, my pulse still racing, my skin too tight.
The mirror caught me for half a second—flushed, wide-eyed, something unsteady lurking beneath the surface.
I looked like her.
Like the girl in the cell.
I ripped my gaze away. I took a deep breath and rebuilt the wall, but the stones were unsteady.
“Miss Kalana,” I said as I pushed back out into the shop. “I’ll take them all.”
Her eyes flicked up to me, still cautious, still shaken.
“All of them,” I repeated, already moving toward the door. “Bill the sovereign for your troubles.”
I didn’t wait for a response. I walked straight out.
The moment I stepped onto the street, the city pressed in around me.
The street was loud in movement. Too many bodies brushing past one another.
Too many heartbeats echoing softly beneath skin.
Too many pulses of life brushing against my senses like curious fingers I couldn’t quite shake off.
It was always like this.
One of the less charming side effects of vampirism.
Usually, I drowned it out by humming under my breath, a quiet trick I’d picked up centuries ago that helped blur the edges of the noise.
But today, the city felt closer.
Like the world itself had decided to breathe directly against my skin.
I checked over my shoulder.
Nothing.
People moved along the street without paying me any attention. Shopkeepers called to customers. A pair of faeries argued near a fountain. Somewhere down the road, a carriage wheel rattled against the cobblestones.
Normal.
Perfectly normal.
The words the corpse had spoken replayed in my mind anyway.
He shouldn’t have been in there.
Now he’s out.
What did I do?
The question slid through my thoughts like ice.
I had spent centuries in a place where monsters far worse than Carrow roamed freely, and I had never flinched. Never shaken. Never lost control.