The Kiss Before Court
? Ivy ?
Sleep won’t come cleanly. It drifts close enough to make my body heavy, then slips away whenever I remember the summons beside Holt’s copied notes. I don’t need to open either page to see the words again.
Formal vow review. Public inquiry. Resonance irregularity. Transfer. Consent. Corruption.
The court keeps finding new ways to make me sound movable.
The fire has burned low. My blankets are warm. My suite door is locked from the inside, and no one gets in unless I allow it.
That should make the room feel safe.
Instead, I lie awake with my wrist pressed to my chest, feeling the quiet warmth beneath my sleeve. It isn’t pulling me anywhere. It isn’t pain. It only feels awake, as though the mark remembers tomorrow is coming and doesn’t know how to rest either.
I tell myself Roman is probably awake because he always is when there are maps, injured riders, and a capital waiting to hurt someone. He’s likely in his rooms with a bandage beneath his shirt, finding reasons to stay upright because resting feels too close to surrender. The thought annoys me.
It comforts me too, which is worse.
After midnight, the storm turns ugly. Wind snaps against the shutters hard enough to rattle the glass, and snow scrapes along the stone in thick gusts. I lie still and listen to the fortress answer with old walls settling, boots passing my door, and a horse stamping somewhere far below.
Then the wind hits again, and I’m back in the Moon Chamber.
White dress. Silver arch. Flowers crushed in my hand. Jace looking toward Sloane before he looks at me. The court waiting for me to break in a way it could call tragic instead of cruel.
I sit up before the memory closes around my throat.
Tomorrow, they’ll ask whether my yes can be explained away.
The stone is cold through my slippers when I stand. I pull a dark robe over my nightgown and tie it twice because my hands won’t settle the first time. My braid has come loose over one shoulder, but I leave it that way. I’m too tired to arrange myself for ghosts.
When I open the suite door, the guard straightens.
“Luna?”
“I need to walk.”
Her eyes move toward the storm-dark window at the end of the hall. “Inside?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll follow.”
“Not too close.”
“Of course.”
The fortress has a different body at night. Long shadows. Low firelight. The storm pressing against every narrow window. My guard stays far enough back that I don’t feel herded, though I can still hear her boots when the wind quiets.
I tell myself I’m walking because my room became too small. That isn’t the whole truth.
My feet turn toward Roman’s wing before I decide to go there.
His part of the fortress is quieter than mine. Fewer lamps. Fewer tapestries. Nothing trying too hard to make stone seem gentle. It feels like Roman when people are watching, controlled and useful, difficult to accuse of wanting comfort.
The mark warms beneath my sleeve when I reach his door. I stop. It’s closed.
For some reason, that makes my chest ache. He remembered. He kept his room contained instead of leaving it open to the corridor the way it’d been when pain made him forget himself. I knock softly.
His voice comes through the wood almost at once. “Yes?”
“It’s me.”
There’s a short pause before the latch turns.
Roman stands there in dark trousers and a loose shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms.
His hair is damp, as if he washed recently or stood too long by an open window, letting the storm think for him.
He looks tired in the blue-gray light, but not weak.
Roman Maddox would probably have to be unconscious before he looked weak, and Nora would still argue with the word.
His eyes move over me quickly. Robe. Slippers. Loosened braid. Empty hands.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did something happen?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Something gentler than relief crosses his face. He steps back. “Come in.”
The room is warm, though not soft. A fire burns low in the hearth. A lamp glows beside several open route records. His coat hangs over the back of a chair, and his boots sit near the door. The bed along the far wall is made tightly enough that it looks untouched. I step inside.
Roman leaves the door open behind me.
I turn before he can move away. “Close it.”
His hand stills against the edge of the door.
The guard in the hall looks away quickly.
Roman’s attention stays on me. “Ivy.”
“I know what they’ll say tomorrow.” My fingers tighten around the edge of my robe. “Close it anyway.”
The storm strikes the windows behind him.
For a breath, I think he’ll refuse because of all the careful reasons he keeps between us. Instead, he looks past me toward the guard.
“Wait at the turn,” I tell her. “Announce anyone who comes down this hall.”
“Yes, Luna.”
Roman closes the door. The latch settles softly. It should frighten me. It doesn’t.
“You can take the room,” he says. “I’ll use the outer sitting chamber.”
“You can stay,” I say.
His gaze lifts to mine.
“The chair, the bed, whatever lets you sleep,” I add.
“I didn’t come for the bed.” I hold his gaze. “I came because you’re here.”
The words leave before I can make them safer. Roman stops moving.
The fire cracks in the quiet. Heat climbs my throat, but I don’t take the words back. I’m tired of spending half my life trying to make true things sound less troublesome.
“You want me nearby.”
“Yes.”
His throat moves.
“All right.”
He gestures toward the chair by the fire. “Sit.”
I look at it, then at him. “You can sit there. You’re injured.”
“That chair is closer.”
“I know.”
His expression changes slightly. “Ivy.”
“I’m sure.”
I sit before either of us can think too hard about it.
The chair is too large for me, built for him or someone like him, but the cushion is worn and warm from the fire. Roman takes the chair near the map table, close enough that he doesn’t feel absent and far enough that neither of us can pretend this is an accident.
For a while, we listen to the storm.
The room smells like fire, ink, wool, and the sharp green trace of the salve Nora used on his wound. Roman’s scar catches pale in the firelight.
“I keep thinking about the Moon Chamber,” I say.
He turns toward me.
“Tomorrow isn’t the altar,” I say. “My body hasn’t figured that out.”
“That room hurt you. Of course you’re afraid.”
I study him. “You sound like you know that well.”
“I do.”
“I hate that they get to make me afraid of a room.”
“They don’t own it.”
“No?”
“Go in afraid,” he says. “Go in anyway.”
“You make that sound easy.”
“It won’t be.”
The quiet stretches between us, not empty, only careful.
“Holt said they may argue transfer,” I say.
“They’ll try.”
“Because transfer makes me sound less like a person.”
“Yes.”
“And corruption makes you sound like the danger.”
His jaw tightens. “Yes.” I lift my eyes to his. “Do you ever get tired of them finding new uses for you as a monster?”
He looks toward the fire for a moment. Then he says, “Yes.” Only that.
No speech. No performance of how little it hurts.
“I’m sorry.”
His attention returns to me. He looks like he wants to reject the apology out of habit, then thinks better of it.
“Thank you,” he says.
The shutters rattle, and I flinch before I can stop myself. Roman starts to rise. I lift one hand. “Stay.” He stops.
“I’m fine. It was just loud.”
He settles back into the chair slowly. “The storm should pass before dawn.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we travel after it eases.”
“The court will hate that.”
“They’ll wait.”
I laugh quietly. The sound changes his face in a way that makes me want to do it again.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier,” I admit.
“Which part?”
“That the mark could become more.”
His body stills.
“I shouldn’t have said it like the mark decides for us.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t.”
“No.”
“You don’t trust wanting.”
“I’ve seen men call taking what they want.”
The words settle heavily between us.
“You’re not Jace.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
His gaze lifts.
“I can still hurt you,” Roman says.
“Yes. But when you back away every time, Jace still decides what happens between us.”
His face tightens, but he doesn’t look away.
“Think before you touch me,” I say. “Listen when I say stop. Don’t decide the answer for me.”
Roman looks down again.
“I don’t want to take.”
“I know.”
“I want you.”
My breath catches. The words aren’t new. They still land differently here, in his room, with the door closed and the storm holding the world away.
“I know that too,” I whisper.
His attention drops to my hands tucked inside my sleeves. “And you still chose this room.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I trust you to stop.”
Roman looks away first, but I still see what it does to him.
The silence after that’s full of everything we aren’t saying because saying it’d make the room too small.
I stand before I can decide what to do with it.
Roman doesn’t move, but his attention sharpens. “Ivy.”
“I’m not dizzy.”
“I wasn’t going to ask that.”
“You were.”
His mouth almost moves. “Maybe.” I cross the room slowly, giving myself time to stop and him time to step away. He doesn’t. I stop in front of him, close enough that warmth from his body reaches my cold hands.
He looks up at me with no court polish and no Alpha command. Just Roman, tired and wanting and afraid of wanting.
I lift my hand toward his face.
“May I?”
His breath changes. “Please.” I set my fingers against his cheek.
The touch is small. The mark warms beneath my sleeve, but it doesn’t surge or command. It doesn’t decide anything for me.
Roman closes his eyes for one breath. When he opens them, the restraint in his face is almost painful.
“I came because I wanted you,” I say.
His hand tightens on his knee.
“Tomorrow will be hard.”
“I know.”
He looks at me. “Is this because you’re afraid?”
The question hurts because it’s careful, but it isn’t unfair.
“I am afraid. I still want this.”
He keeps looking at me.
“Kiss me, Roman.”
Roman’s eyes darken.
“Are you sure?”
I lean in too quickly and catch the edge of his nose. Roman mutters something under his breath, and a laugh escapes me against his mouth before either of us can make the moment solemn again. I lean down slowly. My mouth touches his.
For half a heartbeat, Roman goes completely still beneath my hand, as if the kiss strikes somewhere deeper than want. Then he breathes my name against my mouth.
“Ivy.”
I draw back just enough to look at him.
His hand lifts toward my waist and stops before it reaches me. I catch his wrist and guide his palm over the fabric of my robe.
He lets out a slow breath. Then he kisses me back.
At first, he’s so controlled it almost hurts. His mouth moves over mine with careful pressure, as though one careless choice could ruin the whole thing. The tenderness tightens my throat. I step closer.
His hand firms at my side, and the kiss deepens without becoming rough or careless.
It’s warmer and fuller now, no longer made entirely of restraint.
Want moves through it, his and mine, and heat spreads from my wrist into my chest, but the bond didn’t bring me here or put my mouth on his. That was me.
My fingers slide from his cheek to the back of his neck. He makes a low sound against my mouth, then pulls back enough that our breath still touches.
His eyes are dark, but his control isn’t gone. It’s working.
“You’re tired,” he says.
“I’m fine.”
“I know. You’re still tired.”
Part of me wants to argue. I’m not fragile. I’m not confused. I don’t need distance placed between us like furniture.
But I don’t want to remember this as something the storm and tomorrow pushed us into.
I look at him. “Then we stop.”
Roman exhales slowly, as though the words cost him and save him at once.
“I don’t regret it,” he says.
“I don’t either.”
His thumb moves once against my side, then stills.
I step back because I choose to. He lets me.
The fire pops softly. Beyond the shutters, the capital is still waiting with its silver arch, its careful words, and its appetite for turning my answer into evidence against me.
Whatever the court calls this tomorrow, it wasn’t fear. It was mine.
“I should try to sleep,” I say.
“Yes.”
“You should too.”
His mouth almost curves. “Eventually.”
“So no.”
This time, the almost-smile becomes real enough to see. Small, brief, and beautiful in a way that makes my chest hurt.
I move back toward the chair instead of the door. Roman’s attention follows me. “Ivy?”
“I still can’t sleep in my room.”
Understanding moves through him slowly. “You can stay.”
“I know.”
“I’ll take the bench.”
I look at him. “You’re injured. You’re not sleeping on that bench.”
“All right.”
He moves to the chair near the map table without arguing, which tells me he’s more tired than he wants me to know. He lowers himself carefully, one hand brushing his ribs. I notice. He notices me noticing. Neither of us says anything.
I settle back into the chair by the fire and pull my robe around me. The quiet isn’t the same as before.
For now, it’s only warmth.