Chapter 28 The Choice You Don't Get to Make
The frustration doesn't come all at once.
It creeps in slowly, insidiously starting as a dull pressure behind my ribs, tightening with every measured word Dante speaks, every careful reason he gives for why he knows better. By the time he finishes, it feels like my chest is caving in on itself.
Because I have heard this before.
Not these words. Not this tone.
But this choice.
In another life, he stood closer. Softer. His voice trembled when he told me he couldn't stay, that he couldn't be what I needed. He said he loved me too much to ruin me. Too much to drag me into his darkness.
And then he left.
He left me to a marriage rotting from the inside.
Left me to poison burning through my veins.
Left me to chains, to silence, to a blade that fell while the crowd cheered.
He came back only when it was already over.
Came back with regret in his eyes and blood on his hands and tears he thought might undo an ending already carved into stone.
My jaw tightens until it aches.
He stands here now alive, powerful, untouched by that memory and wears the same expression. Different man. Same resolve.
The same arrogance dressed as protection.
I don't tell him.
I don't tell him about the cell or the cold stone floor or the way my body shook as life slipped through my fingers. I don't tell him about how he cried into my hands, or how I forgave him while dying because I loved him too much to hate him.
All of it stays locked behind my teeth.
"You don't get to decide that," I snap.
The words come out sharper than I intended, but I don't soften them.
His eyes flicker. "Isabella—"
I don't let him finish.
I cross the space between us in two strides and grab his shirt, fingers digging into the fabric over his chest. The heat of him startles me solid, real, infuriatingly alive.
I yank him toward me.
"You do not get to decide what burdens I carry," I say, my voice shaking now, not with fear but fury. "You don't get to decide what kind of queen I am, or what kind of world I can survive."
He stiffens not resisting, not pulling away but clearly unprepared for this version of me.
"If I choose you," I continue, breath coming faster, "then you are my burden. My risk. My responsibility."
I tilt my head up, forcing him to meet my eyes.
"And that is my choice."
His mouth parts, but nothing comes out.
"You think you're protecting me," I say, bitterness cutting through every word. "But all you're doing is taking my agency and calling it mercy."
My grip tightens until my knuckles burn.
"I didn't ask you to save me," I whisper. "I asked you to stand with me."
For a heartbeat, something cracks in his expression.
And for a heartbeat, I forget.
I forget that this Dante has never knelt in a cell beside me.
I forget that he hasn't held my bruised hands or brushed blood from my lips with trembling fingers.
I forget that this version of him doesn't carry the weight of watching me die.
I only remember the ache.
The loss.
The words I never said when I still had time.
And I do the one thing I denied myself before.
I kiss him.
It isn't soft.
It isn't careful.
It's desperate and angry and raw years of restraint breaking loose in one reckless moment. My lips crash into his, stealing his breath and my own, pouring everything I can't say into the press of my mouth against his.
he doesn't move.
He's frozen caught between shock and instinct, between desire and restraint.
Then I pull away.
The room feels too quiet.
The fire has burned lower. The shadows stretch longer along the walls. I can hear my own breathing—too loud, too uneven.
I look up at him.
And my heart sinks.
Because the look on his face is the same.
The same stunned confusion.
The same disbelief.
The same expression he wore when I kissed him in another life.
As if the world has tilted beneath his feet and he doesn't know where to stand anymore.
I loosen my grip, my fingers slipping from his shirt, leaving the fabric wrinkled where I held him.
The silence after the kiss is unbearable.
It presses in from all sides, thick and suffocating, like the air before a storm breaks. I feel suddenly, acutely aware of myself of where my hands are, of how close we're standing, of how reckless I've just been.
"I—" My voice stumbles, fragile and breathless. "I'm sorry."
The words rush out of me in a panicked flood, tripping over one another as if I can undo what I've done by sheer force of apology.
"I shouldn't have done that........I shouldn't have crossed that boundary............I know you hate being touched, I know you don't like people in your space......and I didn't think, I just—" I stop, swallowing hard. "I'm sorry."
My hands hover uselessly at my sides, fingers twitching like they don't know where they belong. My heart is pounding so loudly it feels like it might crack my ribs.
"im sorry," I continue, my voice shaking now. "I shouldn't have—gods, I won't do it again. I promise. I swear I won't."
He says nothing.
He doesn't move.
He just stands there, utterly still, his gaze fixed on me in a way that makes my skin prickle. The fire behind him casts long shadows across the walls, and for a terrifying moment I can't tell what he's thinking whether I've just shattered something irreparable.
"I didn't mean to—" I try again, panic rising. "Dante, I didn't—"
He raises his hand.
My body reacts before my mind can catch up.
I flinch, eyes squeezing shut, shoulders tensing as I brace myself for anger for a sharp rebuke, for shouting, for the cold fury I know he's capable of unleashing. Every instinct tells me I've overstepped.
Nothing happens.
One heartbeat passes.
Then another.
Instead of pain, there is warmth.
His palm cups my cheek, firm and steady, his thumb resting just beneath my eye. The contact is gentle in a way that makes my breath catch painfully in my chest. I inhale sharply, startled by the softness of it.
Slowly, I open my eyes.
He's smiling.
Not cruelly.
Not mockingly.
It's a quiet, dangerous smile one stripped of humor, filled with intent. His gaze holds mine, unwavering, and for a moment the world narrows until it feels like there's nothing beyond the space between us.
Before I can speak before I can apologize again or pull away he leans down.
His mouth meets mine.
The kiss is nothing like the first.
This one is deliberate, unhurried, and undeniably real. His hand tightens at my jaw, not painfully, but firmly enough to keep me there, as if he's decided something and refuses to let the moment slip away. The warmth of him surrounds me the heat of his body, the steady strength in his touch.
I forget how to breathe.
Then instinct takes over, and I kiss him back.
My fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt again, gripping tightly, as though letting go would send me tumbling. The room seems to tilt, the firelight flickering at the edges of my vision, the crackle of the hearth fading into a distant hum.
When he finally pulls away, our foreheads rest together. His breath is uneven, warm against my skin, and my heart is racing so fast it feels unsteady.
"I warned you," he murmurs, his voice low and rough, lips brushing mine as he speaks. "I told you there would be consequences."
His thumb traces my cheek slowly, deliberately, the intimacy of the gesture sending a shiver through me.
"So don't blame me," he adds softly, "for what that crown will do to you."
Before I can respond before I can decide whether to be afraid or relieved he kisses me again.