Sin
The healing room was nothing like Magnolia’s cottage. Everything was clean. Too clean. No sign of any ingredients used in the witch’s salves.
Leaning against the door’s threshold, Max stood there with his arms crossed.
His eyes moved like a hawk’s, tracking every small motion the healers made, his fingers flexing as though he were preparing to strike at the first sign of danger.
His shoulders were stiff, every muscle taut, ready to snap at the slightest provocation.
Occasionally, a low, threatening growl would rumble deep in his throat. He wasn’t just watching her—he was guarding her, his presence like that of a predator protecting his wounded mate.
Peering down the hall, Max’s roar pierced through the chaos. “Find those fucking sisters and bring them to me—now!” The voice vibrated through the air, echoing off the walls.
With the last healing incantations done, a witch stepped back, her gaze settling on a deep wound on Sin’s head—a wound so severe, it nearly exposed her skull and needed a day to heal, they said. It was the one place her hair didn’t magically grow back, but it would once healed.
Stepping back when finished, the healers looked down at her with horror, undoubtedly noting the older scars covering her body.
One witch paused, her eyes widening at the Vhaevari scripts tattooed across Sin’s skin—words no scar could hide from another witch.
She traced one with trembling fingers, her voice quivering as she read, “Settle the weight of what lingers, balance what has been borrowed, hailstorm, destroy.” A dark shiver ran through her as she whispered, “This is tempestum—wrath given form.”
Max narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”
The witch was hesitant to answer.
“Audrira?”
The witch, Audrira, forced herself to look away from Sin, from the rune that looked carved into her wrist. “It’s a dark magic born of trauma—Tempestum. No one has wielded it and lived for long after, aside from Jafar across the seas.”
Feeling Max’s gaze intensely on her, almost burning her skin, Sin still refused to turn and face him. She didn’t need to see his expression to know he was balking at the horror of her appearance, trying to understand the truth of what she carried, the reason he should’ve let her die.
Max stepped forward, his boots echoing against the stone floor, the sound almost deafening in the now-silent room.
Callused fingers gripped her chin softly, tilting her face up to meet his gaze.
His eyes, fierce and intense, surveyed the jagged scar running down the side of her face.
Leading to many others, they trailed down her neck and body.
“You glamoured yourself,” he said in a low, steady voice. It wasn’t a question.
“To live,” she whispered, her voice faint and fractured. “Even if it was just for one night… even if it ended me… it would’ve been worth it.”
Shifting his gaze from the flickering candles to Sin, Max sighed, a softness entering his expression as he shook his head. “Your own mother—”
“Step-mother,” she corrected.
If possible, his frown deepened. “Where is your mother?”
Still being held by his hand, she looked down at his chest. “My step-mother killed her.” Her voice was a whisper, but silenced the room.
“Even after everything,” he murmured, his voice soft but resolute, “I’m grateful you came.”
Sin scoffed, rolling her eyes at him for acting like such a male.
“Because if you hadn’t,” he cut off her thoughts. “I wouldn’t have been able to save you.”
“Save me?” Sin echoed, failing to pull away from his unrelenting grip. “I was a slave for a hundred years, and I’m a slave now. You should’ve just let me die.”
Max’s eyes darkened, his fingers tightening around her chin. “I will forgive your truly unforgivable words, with your blatant disregard for your life. But remember, it is now my life, and I won’t hear another fucking word about you dying. Understood?”
Sin’s brows shot up to her hairline.
Amusement flickered in Max’s eyes before he let her go.
The witch Audrira grabbed her wrist, murmuring an apology under her breath.
Sin frowned. “What for?”
The answer came swiftly, not in words, but in the familiar sensation of magic being locked away beneath her skin. The warmth and power that surged through her disappeared just as suddenly, leaving only cold emptiness.
Sin’s breath came in short, jagged gasps, her voice trembling through the haze of agony, “Thank you.”
Confusion crossed Audrira’s face.
“I don’t ever want that power,” Sin clarified. “I have no desire to kill again.”
Audrira frowned at Sin’s words. With a silent press of her lips, she offered Sin a clean dress. Sin nodded in gratitude and casually threw the dress over her shoulders. She didn’t care who was watching.
With a turn to Max, his hand reached for her.
For several seconds, they stared each other down. Over her dead body, would she take the hand of a betrothed male. Mate or not, she didn’t know him.
His lips curled into a small smirk, but the edge still simmered in his eyes. This was the male who scared off the suitors that fancied her, the male who almost took her virginity in a ballroom. But the scoundrel was engaged.
Leading the way out of the room, he walked ahead of her with his hands behind his back.
They didn’t speak as they walked through the winding halls of the palace, Max’s long strides carrying them both toward his quarters.
With each step becoming increasingly difficult, Sin felt the heavy weight of her exhaustion.
She had barely slept in days, and her body screamed for rest, though her mind refused to quiet.
The opulence of the palace only served to mock her, and each flickering torch that lined the walls seemed to whisper her inadequacy.
When they arrived at his room, Sin eyed the bed with suspicion, as if it were a trap.
“You need rest.” Max gestured toward it, his expression softening. “I’ll show you to your new quarters when I’m certain you’ll survive the night.”
Despite her mind screaming ‘fuck no,’ her body had other ideas.
But despite her possessing exhaustion, completely giving in wasn’t something she was willing to do. She pulled pillows from the bed, constructing a flimsy wall between them—her line in the sand.
With a smirk he couldn’t hide, Max watched her climb onto the bed and promptly fall asleep.
A strong grip on her shoulder shook her awake after an indiscernible amount of time had passed. Blinking, her vision cleared to reveal Max standing over her.
His face and heavily tattooed chest were bathed in an orange glow from the hearth.
“Time to change your bandages,” he murmured.
Sin glanced at the clock. Already? It seemed as if she had just fallen asleep. The witches had warned her that the wound behind her head, still open and oozing slightly, required constant attention to heal properly. Confirming Vivienne meant to kill her.
With a pained sigh escaping her lips, she winced as she slowly sat up.
Already at her side, Max unwrapped the old bandages with surprising care. His fingers grazed her skin, the touch gentle despite the roughness of his hands.
“You wasted your time with a glamour,” he muttered as he worked. “The scars do nothing to inhibit your savage beauty.”
A hint of a smile touched her lips. “Savage beauty? Not exactly every girl’s dream compliment.”
“What else can I expect of my little blade?”
Her gaze narrowed at the possessive tone, the softness in his expression disarming her.
She was too tired to argue properly, the exhaustion weighing down her thoughts.
A zip of something unpleasant rang through her.
Anger? A quick glance at his eyes, and they were serpentine, pupils narrowing to slits.
“Why do your eyes do that?”
Max finished with the bandages, tying them off as he answered. “My mother is from Iostria. The realm of snake shifters. As I am half, I cannot fully transform. Though, sometimes when my emotions are high, certain parts of me shift, like my eyes.”
“Certain—” Sin stopped her question once she saw the sparkle in Max’s eyes, and remembered how she was deflowered by an unnatural scaly cock. “Oh.”
His gaze turned serious, as if assessing her reaction. “I would never harm you, Sin. I’ll never cross your boundaries… but nothing changes the fact that you belong to me. Just as I belong to you.”
With a clenching jaw, a muscle near her ear twitched. “You’re promised to another.”
Max’s silence was unnerving, his irritation clear.
Rather than answering her, he said nothing.
He simply lay down on his side, sinking into the soft bed as if the conversation had never happened.
The silence stretched between them, heavy and substantial, as the flicker of the hearth cast fleeting shadows across the walls, painting a dance of darkness.
As Sin drifted off to sleep, her mind swirling with everything that had happened, she couldn’t help but feel the tension between them deepen—an invisible thread that tethered them together, pulling them closer despite everything that stood in their way.