CHAPTER 35
THE KINGDOM OF GLASS
POV: SILAS
Five years later.
The problem with owning everything is that you run out of things to conquer.
I stand on the terrace of the penthouse, looking out over a city that kneels at my feet. It is winter again. The park below is dusted with white, the trees like skeletons dipping their fingers into the frozen ponds.
It looks exactly like the day I took her.
The wind bites at my face, sharp and familiar, but I don't feel the cold. I don't feel the old, gnawing hunger that used to live in my gut, the one that screamed more, more, more.
That beast has been fed.
"Daddy!"
The scream is high-pitched, piercing, and joyous.
I turn just in time to catch the projectile hurling itself at my legs.
Elena Vane is five years old, and she is a terror. She has my dark hair and her mother’s defying eyes. She is wearing a black velvet dress that cost more than most people’s cars, and she has smeared what looks like crimson oil paint all over the front of it.
"Careful, little wolf," I rumble, scooping her up effortlessly. She settles on my hip, wrapping her small arms around my neck. "You’re going to ruin my suit."
"Mommy let me paint," she announces, unrepentant. "I painted a monster."
"Did you?" I brush a smudge of red form her nose. "Is it scary?"
"No," she says, looking at me with absolute solemnity. "It’s a nice monster. It protects the princess."
My chest tightens. It’s a familiar ache now, one I’ve grown used to over the last five years. It’s the weight of a love so heavy it should crush us, yet somehow, it only makes us stronger.
"Good," I say, kissing her forehead. "Monsters are good guard dogs."
"Silas?"
I look toward the French doors.
Ivy steps out onto the terrace.
Five years have not aged her; they have refined her. She moves with a lethal grace now, the hesitation of the past completely erased. She is wearing a gown of shimmering silver that clings to her curves—curves that have softened slightly since Elena, becoming even more intoxicating.
She holds a glass of wine in one hand and a rag in the other.
"She escaped," Ivy says, nodding at our daughter. "I turned my back for two seconds to mix a color, and she bolted."
"She knows where safety is," I say.
Ivy smiles. It is the smile of a woman who knows exactly who she is and who she belongs to. She walks over to us, the winter sun catching the diamonds at her throat.
And the platinum band on her ankle.
She never took it off.
I offered to remove it. The day we brought Elena home from the hospital, I told her I would cut it. I told her she didn't need to be tracked anymore. I told her I trusted her.
She refused.
It reminds me, she had said. It reminds me that I am tethered. I like the weight.
Now, it is just a part of her. A symbol of our pact. The world sees jewelry. We see the chain.
"The gala starts in an hour," Ivy says, reaching out to take Elena’s hand. "We need to get the paint off the heiress."
"I don't want to wash it!" Elena protests.
"You want to look like a queen, don't you?" Ivy asks. "Queens are clean until they need to get dirty."
Elena considers this logic, then nods. "Okay."
Ivy takes her from my arms. "Go get changed, Silas. You look like a brooding gargoyle standing out here."
"I am a brooding gargoyle," I correct her. "I’m guarding the castle."
"The castle is secure," she assures me. She leans in, balancing our daughter on her hip, and kisses me.
It is a slow, deep kiss. It tastes of wine and paint and five years of shared nights. It tastes of a darkness that we have learned to navigate together.
"Go," she whispers against my lips.
I watch them walk back inside. My wife and my daughter. The two beating hearts that I hold inside my hands.
I look back at the city one last time.
The world is still dangerous. There are still enemies waiting in the shadows, new rivals who think they can take what is mine. But they are fools.
They don't know that I have already fought the hardest war. I fought my own nature, and I won.
I didn't break her. I didn't crush her.
I built a glass house around her, and she filled it with light.
I turn and walk inside, locking the terrace doors behind me. The lock clicks with a heavy, final sound.
The cage is closed.
And we are exactly where we want to be.
POV: IVY
The gallery is full.
It is the five-year anniversary of The Vane Gallery, and the crowd is larger than ever. Critics, collectors, politicians—they all clamor for a piece of the "Vane Mystique."
I stand in front of my latest collection. It is titled Metamorphosis.
The paintings are different now. They are no longer just red and black. There are golds, silvers, deep blues. They are violent, yes, but there is a structure to the chaos.
"It’s a masterpiece," a critic from the Times says, staring at the main canvas.
It is a portrait of a wolf lying down in a field of snow, with a small bird nesting between its paws. The wolf’s teeth are bared at the world, but its eyes are soft, fixed on the bird.
"Thank you," I say.
I feel a presence at my side.
Silas.
He slides his arm around my waist. The heat of his hand seeps through the silk of my dress, grounding me instantly.
"Ready to go?" he murmurs.
"We just got here," I tease.
"I’ve been here ten minutes and I’ve already threatened three people with my eyes," he says. "I’m bored. I want to take you home."
I look up at him. The scar on his eyebrow has faded to a thin white line, but the intensity in his blue eyes hasn't dimmed a fraction. He is still the predator who snatched me from my life. He is still the monster who chained me to a bed.
And I love him with a ferocity that terrifies me.
"Home," I repeat.
The word used to mean a cramped apartment in the Lower East Side. Then it meant a prison cell in the Hamptons.
Now, it means him.
"Okay," I say. "Let’s go."
We leave the party. We leave the adoration and the envy. We walk out to the waiting car, flanked by Luca and a team of guards.
As Silas helps me into the car, his hand brushes my ankle. He fingers the tracker for a split second—a subconscious check. Still there. Still mine.
I cover his hand with mine.
"I’m not going anywhere, Silas," I whisper.
He looks at me. The streetlights reflect in his eyes, making them look like molten silver.
"I know," he says. "But I like checking the lock."
He kisses my palm.
"Happy anniversary, Mrs. Vane."
"Happy anniversary, King."
The door closes, sealing us in the quiet dark of the car. The city rolls past, a blur of lights we no longer need to watch.
We are the darkness. And we have finally found our light.
THE END