Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
Remy’s arm wrapped tight around my waist as he led me from the Ascension Grounds, his grip both protective and trembling with barely contained fury. My feet dragged, knees buckling with every step, and still he didn’t let go.
My squad stood just beyond the ring—frozen in a storm of rage and helplessness.
Riven’s mouth was set in a thin, trembling line. Naia’s fists clenched at her sides.
Jax looked ready to rip Perin’s spine out with his bare hands.
He didn’t blink, didn’t breathe, just stared at the Iron Fang rider with murder in his eyes. A slow, cold rage that made even Perin glance away.
Ferrula leaned in, whispering something to Jax. I didn’t catch it, couldn’t focus. But his jaw flexed, and he gave her the smallest nod.
Then I stumbled, and the pain ripped through me all over again.
“Easy,” Remy said, his voice low and steady. “I’ve got you.”
He half-carried me the rest of the way through to the barracks door. It creaked open before we shuffled to my bunk, and I sank onto the edge of the bed, my body still screaming.
Nothing was broken.
But it felt like my skin had been peeled back from my bones, my muscles twisted into knots.
I wanted to scream again. Instead, I just let the tears burn down my cheeks as I collapsed backward, staring at the ceiling.
Remy knelt beside the bed. He didn’t speak right away. Just reached for my boots and tugged them off carefully, wincing when I did.
“I hate him,” he muttered. His voice broke something in me. “I should’ve done more.”
“You pulled me out,” I whispered.
“You shouldn’t have needed saving.”
He ran a hand down my arm, slow and gentle, fingers skimming the bruises that were already darkening beneath my skin.
Then he shifted behind me on the bed, one leg tucked under his body, the other draped across the floor as he pulled me gently into his lap and began rubbing slow, lazy circles along my back.
Not to seduce.
Not to stake a claim.
Just to soothe.
His touch was warm, careful, familiar in a way that made my eyes close despite the ache in my limbs. He found the places where my spine locked tight and pressed just enough to ease the tension.
“You always were too stubborn to quit,” he said softly, his voice brushing against my ear.
“You liked that about me.”
He chuckled low, sad. “I still do.”
We didn’t talk about what had happened between us. Not yet. But the silence wasn’t empty. It was full of old memories, of every time he held me like this, after the world tried to break me and almost succeeded.
I let him hold me now. Let him be gentle. Because my body was on fire, and I didn’t know how to come down from it alone.
And this time… I didn’t have to.
Remy’s hand slowed on my back, fingertips stilling like he was weighing something far heavier than pain.
“I never stopped thinking about you.”
The words were soft. But they struck like an arrow.
My breath caught, my eyes still closed as his voice settled into my bones. Not heat, not lust—longing. A quiet ache, tucked behind the lines of his jaw, the same way he’d always carried things he couldn’t say.
I didn’t move.
Because if I did, I’d break.
The walls I’d rebuilt after everything with Zander, after Kaelith’s rejection, after the bloodline revelations—they all cracked under the weight of Remy’s voice.
“Not a day,” he added. “Even when I told myself it was better this way. Even when I watched you with him.”
Him.
Zander.
My heart twisted, and a new kind of ache bloomed in my chest. One that had nothing to do with the duel.
Why hadn’t Zander interfered? He’d been there. Standing next to Remy. Watching. The second Perin had used his magic, he could’ve ended it. A lieutenant had that authority, apparently. But he hadn’t.
He let Remy do it instead.
Because it wasn’t his place?
Or because it wasn’t his choice?
The question burned hotter than the bruises on my body.
Zander had never told me he loved me. Not with words. Not even when I needed to hear them.
And now here was Remy, who once left me behind, admitting that he still cared for me.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered, pulling away just enough to look at him. “Why did you dissolve your marriage contract? Even if it wasn’t to the woman the court picked?”
His gaze flicked to the floor, then back to mine.
“Because it didn’t matter who she was,” he said, voice raw.
The air between us held too much regret, pain, longing and I didn’t know which part of it was worse.
“I wasn’t going to spend a life pretending,” he went on. “Especially once I found out what real love felt like.”
My throat closed.
And still… part of me reeled.
Because Zander had touched my soul. He had wrapped me in lightning and anchored storms and looked at me like I was his.
But he’d never said it.
And now… I didn’t know who was lying to me more. Remy, or the prince who hadn’t lifted a finger to stop my destruction.
“You didn’t want to marry,” I said quietly, my voice little more than breath.
I didn’t even know why I spoke. I didn’t care what he said next… not really.
I just needed to hear him speak.
His voice had always soothed me. Even now, bruised and half-broken, it wrapped around my ribs like a salve.
When we were together, and he’d come back from a mission, I’d always ask him about it.
Not because I needed to know what he’d done.
I knew there were things he wouldn’t say, shadows he wouldn’t drag into the light, but because his voice calmed the storm inside me.
As it did now.
“I didn’t,” Remy said, his tone low and honest. His fingers brushed a lock of hair from my face. “I didn’t want to be with someone who couldn’t look at me without seeing it as a duty.”
He exhaled through his nose, eyes distant, like he was seeing a version of his life that never happened.
“I would never want my wife to feel like I was an obligation,” he said. “Any court marriage… it would’ve been for heirs. For legacy. Nothing more.”
He looked at me then, really looked.
“I want more than that.”
The silence between us deepened, heavy but not uncomfortable. Just full.
I didn’t know what I wanted. Not really. But I knew what his voice did to me.
And for a moment, I let it pull me back from the edge.
The door opened.
I didn’t lift my head from Remy’s shoulder; I didn’t need to. I felt Zander’s presence the moment it filled the room, distinct, stormy and laced with something rawer than anger.
His voice was cold steel. “Am I interrupting something?”
Remy didn’t move.
Didn’t flinch.
Didn’t even try to correct the assumption.
He just kept his arm around me, thumb still tracing slow, absent circles against the fabric at my back. And gods, part of me hated that he didn’t speak. That he let it look like something it wasn’t, or maybe something it could be.
“I didn’t realize we were past formal courtship,” Zander bit out.
Remy’s gaze finally flicked up. Calm. Dangerous. “You’ve never asked her for that, have you?”
Zander stepped fully into the room, shutting the door behind him with a heavy click. “You left her.”
“And you have a fiancée,” Remy shot back. “Or did the betrothal contract magically go up in flames?”
Zander’s jaw tightened. “You know I don’t want to marry Inderia.”
“That’s not the same as won’t.” Remy’s voice thickened. “You may not want her, but you still might, if the throne demands it.”
That shut the air between them like a slammed door.
I pulled away slightly, the tension cutting into my skin like glass. But neither of them looked at me.
Zander crossed the room in two long strides, fists clenched. “Don’t pretend you don’t know how this works. You had your contract annulled. Don’t act like you wouldn’t have married her if a deal hadn’t been made.”
Remy’s mouth pulled into a thin, humorless smile. “I would’ve married her because she needed protection. Not because I wanted to.”
Zander’s voice lowered, rough with something closer to pain. “You think I’m not trying? You think I haven’t looked for a way out? If you can get your contract dissolved. So. Can. I.”
That stopped Remy.
His expression flickered. Something unreadable settled there. Knowing.
“You’re hiding something,” he said quietly.
Zander said nothing.
The silence between them snapped tight, and I felt it in my bones. How much more was going on beneath their words.
Because this wasn’t just about me.
It was about power. Control. Sacrifice.
And the cost of choosing the wrong path when the whole realm might burn for it.
Zander’s gaze collided with mine like a tempest barely held in check.
His eyes weren’t just burning, they were consuming. Shadows of Dark Flame rippled in their depths, flickers of black-gray dancing just beneath the surface of his pupils. He was close to the edge. Too close.
Even Remy, calm, calculated Remy, went still beside me. He knew. If Zander lost control in this room, there wasn’t a single person who could stop him. Not even a dragon.
But I didn’t flinch.
“Why didn’t you interfere?” I asked quietly. “Why did he pull me out of that fight and not you?”
Zander’s jaw flexed, fire dancing across his knuckles as he balled his fists. “Because I was ordered not to.”
The words cracked the air like a whip.
Remy’s brows lifted slightly. Even he hadn’t known that.
Zander took a breath, and when he exhaled, the storm behind his eyes dimmed. A fraction. “But he wasn’t. That’s why I warned him. That’s why I ordered him to stay.”
My anger pulsed beneath my skin, a wounded, coiling thing, but I let it settle. Let the weight of what he was saying sink in.
Zander hadn’t stood back out of indifference.
He’d put his pride aside.
He’d gone to Remy. The man who had once loved me, maybe still did, and made sure someone would save me when he couldn’t.
That wasn’t weakness.
That was desperation.
And it wasn’t just about the duel.
“Someone wanted me in that ring,” I said, my voice low. “Someone wanted to see what I’d do. Or what Kaelith wouldn’t.”
Zander didn’t deny it.
I turned toward him fully, even as pain still clung to my muscles like a second skin.
“Who organized it?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“But you think it wasn’t just Perin.”
He met my eyes again. This time, the fire was contained, simmering in his veins.
“No,” he admitted. “I think someone higher gave him permission. Maybe even the order.”
“Theron?” I asked. “Or Inderia?”
Zander’s silence was the only answer I needed.
Because in this court… power didn’t just manipulate politics.
It weaponized people.
And someone had just used me to draw blood.
Zander exhaled hard, dragging a hand through his hair as though the motion could clear the shadows behind his eyes. He didn’t look at me as he said, “I don’t know who gave the order.”
But then his gaze slid, sharp and deliberate to Remy.
“But it was inappropriate for him to use the situation to his advantage.”
The words dropped like a blade between us, clean and cruel.
Remy stiffened. His expression cooled instantly, shoulders squaring as he turned to face Zander fully. “You think I planned this? That I sat back while she screamed just so I could hold her after?”
“You didn’t stop it,” Zander growled.
“I ended it,” Remy shot back, his voice like a whip. “Don’t twist what I did just because you weren’t allowed to move.”
“You didn’t have to touch her like that—”
“Someone had to,” Remy cut in. “She was shaking. Burning. And you were across the ring doing nothing.”
“I would’ve burned Perin alive!”
“And you’d be locked in a dungeon for treason,” Remy hissed. “So don’t act like you’re the only one who cares about her.”
Zander stepped forward, fists clenched at his sides. The tension in the room turned molten, the air thick with the scent of ozone and flickering fire. For a second, I thought one of them might actually draw steel.
“She’s not a prize,” Zander ground out. “She’s not some pawn in whatever guilt you’re carrying from leaving her. You don’t get to pretend she’s yours just because she’s hurting.”
Remy’s jaw tightened. “And you don’t get to push her away every time you’re scared of what loving her might cost you.”
Zander’s breath caught.
That hit too close.
They stared each other down like twin storms, wind clashing with fire, restraint wearing thin.
And in the middle, I stood, aching, exhausted, and furious that I was still the battleground.