Chapter Fourteen
Draco
Morning finds me awake before the sun, staring at the cottage ceiling while my mind replays last night on an endless loop.
She knows.
The gladiator. The arena. The scars that map two thousand years of survival carved into my skin.
I showed her the ugliest parts of myself—the parts I've spent a lifetime hiding—and she didn't flinch.
Didn't turn away. Didn't look at me like I was a relic or a monster or something broken beyond repair.
She looked at me as though I was whole.
I roll off the couch and move through my morning routine on autopilot—feeding Lucky, brewing coffee, trying not to think about how Charity's hands felt on my scars. Reverent. Like she was reading something sacred instead of evidence of violence.
"You're not alone anymore."
The words settle in my chest, warm and terrifying. I've been alone for so long I forgot there was another option. Even at the sanctuary, surrounded by men who shared my impossible history, I kept myself apart. Easier that way. Safer.
But Charity doesn't let me be safe. She sees past every defense I've spent a lifetime perfecting, straight through to the parts of me I thought I'd buried in Roman sand.
Lucky’s tail gives a soft swish against the floor, his way of telling me I’m overthinking again. I scratch behind his ears, and he leans into my hand with absolute trust, this limping stray who decided we were his pack.
Smart dog.
I know she’s close before I hear her, sensing her arrival the way you feel a storm building. Change in pressure. Electricity in the air.
She steps inside and stops just past the threshold, still wearing that leather jacket from yesterday, her platinum hair loose around her shoulders.
The morning light catches it like spun silver.
Her pale blue eyes find mine and hold, and I see it immediately—the same question that's been eating at me since she walked out last night.
What happens now?
"Hi," she says, soft enough that it feels like a confession.
"Hi."
Lucky trots over to her, demanding his morning greeting.
She kneels to rub his chest, but her gaze stays on me.
There's a determination in her expression I've seen before—the same look she had before our first subway ride, before she chose vintage clothes that made her look dangerous instead of delicate.
"I want to show you something," she says, standing. "If you're ready."
My pulse kicks. "Show me what?"
"A place. My place." She twists her hands together, nervous energy radiating off her in waves. "The locked building. My workshop."
The mysterious outbuilding she disappears into. The secret she's been keeping as carefully as I kept mine.
"You don't have to—" I start, but she cuts me off.
"I know. But I want to." She lifts her chin, that stubborn angle that means she's made up her mind. "You showed me who you really are. I want to do the same."
The parallel hits me square in the chest. She's offering trust for trust. Vulnerability for vulnerability. The kind of exchange I've never believed in before—never had reason to.
"Okay," I say, and her shoulders drop with relief.
"Okay," she echoes, like she's confirming it to herself.
We walk the estate paths in silence, Lucky tripodding between us with his tongue lolling happily.
The converted carriage house looms ahead, larger than I expected—stone walls and soaring ceilings, skylights throwing geometric shadows across overgrown climbing vines.
It looks less like an art studio and more like a temple someone forgot to finish.
Charity pulls out a key that hangs on a chain around her neck—I couldn’t help but notice it that night on the couch, but never asked about it. Her fingers shake as she fits it into the heavy lock.
"No one comes in here but me," she says quietly. "Not even the staff. I told them years ago that this space was off-limits."
"Why?"
She pauses with her hand on the door. "Because this is the only place where I've ever been allowed to be messy.
Imperfect. Real." Her voice drops. "Everything else in my life has to be perfect.
Polished. Exactly what my parents expect.
But in here?" She turns to look at me. "In here, I can fail.
I can experiment. I can make something ugly or strange or beautiful, and it's mine.
No one judges it. No one tells me I'm doing it wrong. "
The ache in her words nearly breaks me. This woman who has everything money can buy but has never been allowed to want anything real.
"Show me," I say.
She opens the door.
The space swallows us whole—massive and full of light from the skylights, dust motes dancing in the beams like falling stars.
The air smells of metal and fire and machine oil, sharp and industrial.
Equipment crowds the edges: welding torches, power tools, workbenches scarred with use.
The concrete floor is stained with years of work, dotted with scorch marks that map failed experiments or successful creations.
But it's the sculptures that steal my breath.
They're huge—ten, fifteen feet tall, metal armatures supporting impossible structures.
One looks like frozen wind made solid, great swooping curves of polished steel that seem to flow upward despite their weight.
Another is all sharp angles and delicate balance, sheets of copper catching light and throwing it back in amber waves.
A third combines both—metal ribbons that spiral and twist through space like water refusing gravity's pull.
"Goddess," I breathe.
Charity moves past me into the space, trailing her fingers along one of the sculptures.
"I started with small pieces. Jewelry boxes.
Little decorative things my tutor thought were appropriate.
" Her smile is bitter. "Then I realized I could go bigger.
Bolder. Make pieces that took up space instead of apologizing for existing. "
I circle one of the wind sculptures, watching how it seems to move even though it's perfectly still. The metal is polished to mirror brightness in some places, left raw and textured in others. It's like frozen music—chaos and beauty held in impossible balance.
"These are incredible," I say, and mean it with every fiber of my being. "How did you learn this?"
"Trial and error, mostly. YouTube videos.
Library books." She shrugs like it's nothing, but I see the pride underneath.
"After my physics tutor taught me the basics when I was fourteen—stress points, weight distribution, how to make something stand that shouldn't be able to, I taught myself the rest."
I move between the sculptures, taking them in. Each one is different but carries the same signature—movement captured mid-flow, freedom expressed in steel and copper and bronze. Wind. Water. Flight. All the things she couldn't have in her gilded cage.
"You sign them?" I ask.
"Under a pseudonym." She walks to a completed piece in the corner, runs her hand along a small, engraved plate at its base. "Anima Venti."
Latin. Of course it's Latin.
"Soul of the wind," I translate, and something clicks into place. "Charity—"
"I know." She turns to face me, and there are tears in her eyes. "I've been signing my name as everything I couldn't be. Free. Untethered. Dancing with the sky." A bitter laugh. "Ironic, isn't it? Creating all this movement while I'm the one standing still."
The words gut me. I cross the space between us in three strides, cup her face in my hands, make her look at me.
"You make the wind dance," I say, fierce enough that she blinks. "You make metal flow like water. You create freedom out of steel and fire and pure will." I let her see every ounce of what I feel. "But you think you can't be free?"
Her breath catches. "I don't know how."
"You're learning." I brush my thumb across her cheekbone, catching a tear before it falls.
"Every time you leave the estate. Every time you choose something for yourself instead of what they expect.
Every time you stand in this workshop and create something beautiful and yours.
" I lean my forehead against hers. "You're already free, Charity. You just haven't realized it yet."
She makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and I pull her into me, let her shake against my chest while Lucky presses against her legs in solidarity. We stand like that for a long moment, surrounded by her secret creations, her hidden strength made visible in steel and light.
When she pulls back, her eyes are red but clear. Determined.
"There's one more thing," she says. "Something I haven't shown anyone. Not even my parents know about this."
She leads me to the far corner of the workshop, to an area separated by heavy curtains. Her hand hovers over the fabric for a moment before she pulls it aside.
The dragon takes up the entire corner.
"My name," I murmur before I can stop myself, "means dragon."
Her head snaps toward me, eyes wide. "In Latin?"
"Yes."
I swallow. "The lanista gave it to me. Not because I was the best fighter. Because I wouldn’t break."
"All this time, I thought your parents must’ve really loved Harry Potter."
I snort. "They didn’t love books. Or me, much."
A beat of silence hangs between us.
Gods. I shouldn’t have said that.
Too much truth, too fast, the kind that leaves a mark if it’s mishandled. A lifetime of survival says shut your mouth, armor up, pretend it didn’t matter.
But she doesn’t look away. Doesn’t pity me.
Just sees me.
And something in my chest loosens in a way that feels dangerous and right at the same time.
It’s too much, so I give my eyes somewhere else to land—the sculpture.