Chapter 18
ALEXANDER
Alexander paced the stone courtyard, boots striking sharp against the flagstones. The cold night air couldn’t cool the heat under his skin. Above him, Parandor loomed, its walls lit by torchlight and moonlight—a fortress as unyielding as the storm in his chest.
He looked up at his room’s windows.
She was waiting for him behind those curtains. His wife.
He still felt the echo of his own voice in the great hall, and tasted the bitter residue of Bertrand’s toast. Still heard the silence she wore beside him after he’d looked at her—really looked—and recoiled.
Shame surged up, quick and uninvited.
“Brooding suits the moonlight,” came a familiar voice.
Alexander turned. Krystoff stepped into the torchlight, grey-streaked hair silvered by the flame. Darion followed a pace behind, arms folded.
“But if it were my wedding night,” Krystoff continued, a grin touching his lips, “I’d rather be gazing at my bride than pacing a courtyard full of old stones.”
Alexander huffed a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Don’t pretend you didn’t see my face when I lifted that veil.”
“I saw surprise,” Krystoff said, his gaze steady. “That’s not a crime. But I’d hope surprise isn’t what rules a Wulfbane’s judgment now.”
Alexander looked away. Surprise. Was that all it was? The word felt too small for the thing that had crawled under his skin when her veil lifted.
“All I’ve ever wanted was to restore this House. To drag it from the pit my father left behind. When the king arranged this marriage, I thought it was a blessing. I thought—” He cut himself off, exhaling sharply through his nose. “I didn’t expect a lie.”
“Was it a lie?” Krystoff asked, his tone gentle.
His hand clenched into a fist at his side, his fingernails digging into his palms. She hadn’t begged. Hadn’t offered excuses. Was that guilt . . . or a dignity he’d been too blind to see?
“I don’t know,” he ground out.
“Beauty won’t last forever,” Krystoff reminded. “The beautiful face this morning is already one day older than last night, but a kind heart is evergreen. And your bride, I dare say, has an evergreen heart.”
Alexander couldn’t deny it. He thought of the way she had carried herself—not cowering, not shrinking, despite everything.
There was something there. Something he hadn’t seen before.
After the wedding feast, even he must admit she possessed more steel than he’d credited her with.
For a moment, a reluctant respect surged.
Then the cold, political reality crept in at the edges.
He could accept her courage. He could even come to accept the mark itself.
But the court? The Nine Kingdoms? They would not be so charitable.
He could already hear Bertrand’s voice rehearsing the whispers that would follow: ‘House Wulfbane, so diminished it must accept damaged goods. A princess with a flaw they’ll mock behind fans for generations. ’
The words were not his, but they would be spoken. They would be believed. And House Wulfbane would bear the scorn—again.
He looked up at the window of his chambers, where he knew she was waiting, and felt his pulse thickened and slowed, the way it did before a battle he wasn’t sure he’d win.
She would never be one of them. She would be a curiosity at best, forever a laughingstock.
Krystoff rested a weathered hand on his shoulder. The weight was fatherly, firm. “She is your wife. Don’t let wounded pride set the tone for your first night. Go. Speak to her. Listen, even when it’s hard.”
“She’ll face enough judgment from the world tomorrow,” Darion pointed out. “She doesn’t need it from you tonight.”
Alexander’s gaze shifted between them—the mentor and the loyal right hand. The churning in his gut intensified. “And what if she was part of it?” he asked, the words bitter. “What if this was no mistake?”
Krystoff’s brows lifted. “You think she conspired to deceive you?”
“The veil. The portrait.” Alexander’s jaw worked. “It’s not just what was hidden. It’s that she never tried to explain.”
“What explanation could she give at the altar,” Darion countered, “with your guests watching?”
Alexander had no answer.
“One look at your wife,” Darion said evenly, “mark or no mark, tells me she’s not a woman of deceit.”
Alexander’s head snapped toward him. “You’ve known her for three days.”
“I’ve seen enough. The way she walks—guarded, but never scheming. The way she speaks—measured, but never false. That’s not deceit. That’s someone trained to keep her head down.”
“Trained?” Alexander shot back, the anger flaring again. “She let me believe her limp came from the ambush. She let me think she was whole!”
Darion’s voice hardened, cutting through the night. “Aye. Like any good soldier would! You hide your weak side so no one can use it against you. That’s not trickery. That’s survival. If a princess had to learn that, ask yourself what kind of life forced her to.”
Alexander opened his mouth to argue, but the words died.
Hide your weak side.
Hadn’t he been raised on the same brutal principle? Every hidden bruise, every concealed doubt, every moment of vulnerability buried deep so no rival could sniff it out.
The realization was a cold, sobering draft. He knew—had sensed from the start—she was no cosseted court flower. The things she’d let slip about her family, her startling modesty, the alarming frailty of her frame beneath the silks all pointed toward a life of hardship.
It unsettled him completely. It meant she hadn’t played him for a fool. She’d been doing what he himself had always done. What his House had done.
Surviving.
Krystoff placed a hand on his shoulder, the grip steady as iron.
“If you let anger blind you, you’ll throw away the one thing you’ve not had in years: a chance at something real. She may not be what you expected, but she may be what you need.”
Alexander’s throat tightened. The torches crackled. His hands opened and closed again.
“What should I do?”
“Ask her what you need to know,” Krystoff said. “But ask her as a husband would. Not a judge.”
Darion nodded once. “Don’t look for reasons to resent her. Not when you haven’t even given her the chance to stand beside you.”
Alexander nodded.
He turned, decision settling across his shoulders, and began the walk back toward the keep.
Neither Krystoff nor Darion followed.
He found her in the chair by the hearth, her small form nearly swallowed by the seat, head resting against the winged back. Firelight gilded her nightdress and loose black hair, spilling down one shoulder.
She hadn’t gone to the Nest.
He could see it from where he stood. Silks and furs he’d arranged with painstaking care. The ravens he’d spent days carving glinted above. A sanctuary, meant to welcome his Omega bride.
For a long moment, he simply watched. Her hands, folded beneath her cheek, bore the calluses of work. He’d wager even the castle laundress had softer palms. These weren’t the hands of a pampered woman. They were the hands of someone who had clawed her way through life.
Part of him wanted, desperately, to believe she was blameless. That it was her father who’d set the snare, lured by King Ferdinand’s bride price. That she’d simply been caught in its web. But the thought festered bitter as gall: she had worn the veil, said nothing, let him stand there blind.
Was silence not also a lie?
JingYi stirred, lashes fluttering as she woke. She blinked up at him, her eyes darting as though disoriented, and pushed herself upright.
“My lord—” Her voice was rough with sleep. “Forgive me. I dozed off.” She glanced toward the Nest, then lowered her eyes. “I . . . didn’t want to disturb it.”
“I had the Nest prepared for my Omega bride,” he said, keeping his tone even. The words felt empty, a lord stating a fact, and he hated the sound even as they left his mouth. “You are that woman. Use it, or don’t. The choice is yours.”
Silence hung between them, filled only by the fire’s crackle. Her hand twitched toward her cheek, then fell. The birthmark remained bared in the firelight—stark, inescapably hers.
Alexander crossed the room and added another log to the fire.
He poured two goblets of wine, added cloves and orange peel, then heated the mixture with a red-hot iron.
He could feel her eyes on his hands—the indifferent motions of a soldier making camp, not a husband offering comfort.
When he passed her the cup, she hesitated, then accepted it with both hands.
He sat across from her and watched her sip before breaking the silence. “Did you know that I hadn’t been told?”
Her lashes lowered. The firelight caught on the rim of her goblet as she turned it slowly in her hands.
“My father assured me you were apprised of my . . . condition,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
Alexander’s jaw ached from clenching. Every grievance of the day clamoured for him to reject her words outright. Lies, hissed the voice of his wounded pride. More deception.
But another voice—firmer, wiser, more commanding—intervened. It replayed every flinch, every steadfast silence, the sheer lack of guile in her bearing now. A schemer would have offered excuses, justifications, tears. She offered only one simple, devastating truth.
‘I didn’t know.’
The fury in his gut didn’t dissipate; it shifted target. If she spoke the truth—and gods help him, he believed her—then the deception hadn’t been hers, but her father’s.
And they’d both been the victims of that deception.
His eyes returned to those rough hands, still wrapped around the cup.
Emperor HāiYán wasn’t a father but a tyrant who viewed his children as pawns—tools to sharpen, sacrifice, or display at his pleasure.
Even if she was complicit, could he blame her?
Anyone with a scrap of self-preservation would do the same to escape such a cage.
She’d been thrown a lifeline, however barbed.