1. The Price of Her #4
"Soulbinding isn't romance, son. It's a curse dressed in poetry.
Once sealed, the body does not forget, instead it becomes need, persistent and unrelenting.
A chain you can't remove even if it's strangling you.
" His ice blue eyes fixed on Malec with unusual intensity.
"I have no desire for that and neither should you. "
Malec's fingers stilled on the map. "Someone you knew was soulbound?"
Surin's expression shuttered completely. "Someone I knew suffered for it, that's all you need to understand."
Malec’s expression remained unchanged, though his hands tightened beneath the water.
“I can’t make it stop,” he said after a moment. “It doesn’t matter what I do. My thoughts won’t settle. Breathing feels deliberate. I kept telling myself it would lessen with time.”
Surin shook his head. “It doesn’t.”
“Then how do I diminish it?” Malec asked quietly.
Surin lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “I’ve only seen three things offer any relief. One is excess drink, enough to dull sensation completely. The other is indulgence. Giving the body what it demands. Or the sweet relief of eternal sleep.”
Surion inclined his head as though he followed the discussion perfectly, eager to insert himself into meaning he did not fully grasp. “I’ve heard,” he offered, “that even indulgence fails if an Awyan’s soulbinding is unreturned.”
Surin gave a polite nod, her expression mild, as if they were exchanging idle commentary about shifting weather patterns rather than dissecting Malec’s unraveling mind.
“Why are you even here?” Malec asked coolly. “Shouldn’t you be off managing your little Canariae trafficking operation instead of polluting my peace?”
Surin let out a theatrical sigh, tilting his head back as if Malec’s words were a passing breeze, mildly annoying but not worth ducking for.
“Oh, my dear boy,” he said, easing into the water with practiced grace, “I do so enjoy when you try to sound moral while sitting in a stolen palace bathhouse with murder in your heart and your cock halfway to rebellion.”
A frown ghosted across Malec's face, though his eyes remained shut and his body perfectly still. A clear sign he had heard but didn't approve.
From across the bath, Surion let out a short laugh he didn’t bother to suppress. “He’s not wrong.”
Malec opened one eye, his glare attuned enough to strip paint from stone. “Choose your next words carefully.”
Surin waved a hand through the steam. “Relax. I didn’t come to provoke you. I came to speak plainly.”
He let the quiet stretch, water lapping softly around them.
“When we helped her escape,” Surin continued, his tone shifting, “we believed we were protecting you as much as the kingdom. We thought this was infatuation, a passing fancy. You’ve never balanced power and sentiment well, and she complicated matters.”
Malec said nothing. The absence of refusal was its own answer.
“We didn’t understand the depth of it,” Surin admitted.
"Your body reacts to her like nothing I've seen. Your entire mind bends toward her. I’ve seen records of Vash’telor before, rare as they are, but your reaction exceeds even those accounts.
It isn't simply intensity. Without the bond, you'd come apart entirely. "
Surion spoke without looking up. “He isn’t exaggerating. When you brought her back, you didn’t resemble yourself. You looked like someone who had destroyed his own future to keep another breathing.”
The words settled over Malec, stirring heat in his chest that had nothing to do with anger. He remembered the portal’s collapse, the panic that had hollowed him out and the certainty that the world would not survive her absence.
"We misjudged you," Surin said quietly. "Every one of us failed to see it. Whatever this bond is, politics can't touch it. Obsession would be manageable, however, you've been knocked off your axis."
A tempered intake of air slipped past Malec’s control before he corrected it.
"She's not making you weak," Surin said. "She's the only thing holding you together. If you lose her, you fall apart completely."
Steam drifted between them. Malec leaned back against the marble rim, silver hair slicked to his neck, eyes half-lidded but alert.
“You’ve finally caught up,” he murmured. “It only took you long enough to recognize what I would die to protect.”
Surin's smile was thin, not entirely free of regret. "I always knew you burned fiercely. I never imagined you'd set fire to your own world for someone else."
“I already have,” Malec replied.
The ache returned at once, constant and immovable. It was pain, but it was also proof. Her absence tormented him, yet the certainty that she remained alive and within his domain kept his thoughts from splintering.
“It’s been made clear throughout the Capitol that she is untouchable,” Surin said. “That boundary holds for everyone.”
Malec didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. Something inside him loosened, a pressure easing that he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. Gratitude surfaced, unspoken.
“Good,” he said at last. Then his voice grew clipped. “Where is Surian?”
Surin exhaled slowly. “That is mostly why I’m here. Surian went to see Allora, she wanted to see her.”
“Why?”
“So Allora wouldn’t feel abandoned,” Surin said. “After the kidnapping.”
The word struck harder than it should have. It cracked through the thin calm he had forced over himself and left nothing intact.
Kidnapping.
In his mind, he'd called it retrieval. Protection. Necessary strategy. The words had insulated him, made it bearable. Now they dissolved like smoke. What remained was stark and merciless: he had taken her. Severed her from her life, her people and the grief she'd earned the right to face.
He had done it because he could not bear losing her.
The realization did not excuse him. Shame settled over him. But beneath the weight of it, an unwelcome emotion emerged.
Gratitude.
Surian had gone to her. She had crossed the distance he created and offered Allora a gentleness that held no command or obligation. Not as a representative of the crown or a strategist securing an asset, but as a sister.
He would thank her. Later. When the admission did not feel like swallowing stone.
Malec rose without speaking. Water streamed down his frame, steam clinging to bruised skin and the faint lattice of older scars. There was nothing hurried in the movement, but nothing hesitant either.
He dried himself with brisk efficiency and reached for a towel. At a subtle gesture, a maid entered, young and silent, her gaze lowered. She knelt beside him and began combing his long silver hair, separating the strands with careful precision before drawing them into a tight, controlled braid.
Malec dressed without speaking, selecting each piece with deliberate care.
He pulled on polished boots, then a fitted tunic of deep gray. Over it he fastened his lighter ceremonial armor, silver etched along the edges and the fox crest of his house worked into the metal. It was not the armor he wore to war. This was chosen with intention.
For her.
As he secured each clasp and smoothed each fold, composure returned to his frame. The restless edge remained beneath the surface, but it no longer threatened to spill over. His breathing evened. Purpose returned to his movements. The heat beneath his skin shed its torment and became direction.
Hope threaded through it, unwelcome but undeniable.
When he finished, he dismissed the maid with a short nod and moved toward the doors, stride controlled and unhurried. He needed to see her while he could still stand in front of her as himself and not as whatever the bond threatened to turn him into.
Behind him, Surin and Surion watched in silence.
Surion adjusted the cloth on his bruised cheek. “Do you think she will ever return his feelings?”
Surin released a slow breath. “It makes little difference,” he replied. “He belongs to her already.”
They resumed their quiet exchange as Malec disappeared down the corridor, his composure masking the volatility beneath.
Apprehensive.
It wasn’t a word Malec associated with himself. And yet—there he stood. Outside the towering gold-embossed doors of the imperial bathhouse reserved for the female nobles and their guests, The Commander of the North, heir and general and legend in his own right—was nearly trembling.
The corridor lay quiet except for the muted splash of water and distant laughter. Steam perfumed with oils slipped beneath the door and curled into the hall. He remained just outside, every muscle held too tight.
This was torture.
He had not seen her since the night he pulled her from the wreckage of the collapsed portal.
The distance gnawed at him. His skin felt strained, his body weighted by the relentless pull of the bond.
Even standing still required effort. He carried a small arrangement of frost-white blooms in one hand and a tray in the other, gestures that felt strangely inadequate for a male who commanded armies.
A trio of maids emerged from the bathhouse, their conversation faltering when they noticed him. One nearly dropped her towels. They curtsied hastily and hurried past, flustered and wide-eyed. He barely registered them. His attention fixed on the door.
Allora stood beyond it.
He caught his reflection in the tall glass across the corridor. His platinum hair was braided neatly over one shoulder, ceremonial tunic and armor sat precisely as they should. He looked composed, deliberate, princely.
His eyes betrayed the rest.
Sleep had abandoned him. Food had become mechanical. He reached up, adjusted his collar. A small gesture, as if straightening it might still the storm inside him. Perhaps he should smile. Maybe a charming tilt of the mouth, like in court?
He tried.
It looked wrong. Like a blade pretending to be harmless. No. He wasn’t the smiling type. Not with her. She would see through it in an instant. She always had. His heart thudded once, hard against his ribs.
The doors opened.