Chapter 11 Mine
Mine
Yesterday was horrible, and I wake with the urge to escape, even if only for a day.
I could go back today, to the Baron’s house, not to the rooms I was meant to occupy, but to the kitchens and stables, where nothing in me was watched or weighed.
I would find Emva. Torsin. I miss them more than I want to admit.
I miss the small, quiet spaces where I was allowed to exist, like the forest that sits just past the Baron’s gardens.
I stand before the mirror, adjusting my veil and smoothing the fabric into place. The palace feels too still, too aware. My hand drifts back as if to call for Maridale to button my dress, but I delay, holding the thought of leaving a moment longer before the day closes around me.
The door flies open, slamming hard enough against the wall that the sound rings through the room. I turn just as Prince Colsar bursts inside, his face flushed with fury, his mismatched eyes burning, the air tightening around him.
“Why did you go to my brother?”
The words crack like a whip.
“Your Highness,” I begin.
“Answer my fucking question,” he snaps. “Why did you go to my brother for the necklace, Asharin?”
He has never said my name before.
I swallow. “I did not think you would help me.”
His eyes flash. “Do you think I am incapable?”
“No,” I say quickly. “That is not what I meant.”
“Do you think me weaker than him?” he demands.
“No, Your Highness.”
“My name is Colsar,” he snarls. “When it is just you and me, you will call me Colsar.” He advances, breathing hard, until my back meets the wall.
The pressure of his power makes my lungs ache.
He is tall and terrifying, his blonde-white hair pulled back from his face, as though it has never known warmth. Everything about him feels winterbound.
“To be clear,” he says quietly, dangerously, “the contract is signed. You are mine. Mine to protect. Mine to ignore. Mine to use. Mine to break if I choose.” His power reverberates, the air constricting for just a moment, his frustration raw and ugly.
“Do you honestly think I watched your worthless brother rip that necklace from your throat and did nothing?” His voice drops. “Do you know how he took it?”
I shake my head.
“Three fingers,” Colsar says. “Thumb. Index. Middle.” He pauses. “Do you know where those fingers are now?”
My voice barely works. “No.”
“In a drawer in my study.”
No.
His voice is cold. “As I said before, dismemberment soothes me.”
I should be disgusted, but I am not. I find his violence…relatable. In truth, the thought of Mysin screaming as his fingers are severed brings me pleasure. Perhaps we find the same things soothing.
“I do not want you as my wife,” he says flatly, yet he does not step away.
“Yes,” I reply softly. “That is what you say.”
His jaw tightens.
“You are convinced you do not want me,” I continue, “yet equally convinced that I belong to you. Those are not the same thing.”
He steps closer until the fabric of my dress brushes his boots. “Speak carefully, whore’s daughter.”
I lift my hand and trace the line of his cheekbone, unsure if he will pull away. “I think,” I say, “I am not what you expected.”
He stills beneath my touch. Then he takes my hand and lowers it to my side, neither rough nor gentle. “I hate nearness,” he mutters, as though the words themselves irritate him. “And yet we stand like this.”
He hesitates, and then, almost against his own will, his hand returns to my waist, the pressure light and testing.
It is enough to send heat through me. As if he senses it, he withdraws first, as though the contact costs him something.
But instead of stepping back, he leans in.
His face finds the curve of my neck, his breath warm against my skin as he inhales deeply, as if committing my scent to memory.
A low sound rumbles from his chest. “I agreed to take you as my wife,” he growls into my ear. “That makes you mine.”
The words sink low in my spine. My hand lifts, tangling in his ash-blond hair, and I pull. His head jerks back. His eyes meet mine, darkened now, no longer controlled, and for a suspended second we simply stand there, too close, too aware. His breath brushes my mouth. Mine falters between us.
I loosen my grip first, suddenly aware of how bold I have been, of the way my pulse betrays me. He does not step away, and something dangerous moves beneath his restraint before he straightens abruptly, as though remembering himself, the room, the contract, the walls.
“You may enter,” he calls out. A small, sweating man scurries into the room, clutching parchment and quill. Colsar sits at my vanity as if it belongs to him, spreading the document out with precise, angry movements. “I have added an addendum to our contract.”
I stare at the parchment. “I will not sign it.”
His head snaps up. “You will.”
“No,” I say, my voice calmer than I feel. “Not yet.”
His eyes narrow. “Explain.”
“You cannot know a person without looking into their eyes,” I say. “You have never looked into mine.”
Something dangerous flashes across his face.
“I will sign one addendum,” I continue. “One. After we are married.”
He laughs harshly. “You think you are in a position to bargain?”
I step closer. “I do not know what this addendum is, but you should be careful, Highness.” I draw in a breath, determined to sound more confident than I feel.
“After we marry,” I say quietly, “you may discover that you want me, that you do not want anyone else to touch me. And you will regret the clause that allows me…flexibility in this matter.”
His fingers flex, and I can tell that I am correct. I continue, voice stronger. “The thought of another man pleasuring me will begin to drive you mad. You will want to add yet another addendum, you will want to amend the contract so that no man can touch me.”
His jaw tightens.
“I told you I like to gamble,” I add. “This is mine.”
For a moment, the room feels too small to contain him.
“Get out,” he bites out. The man with the parchments scurries away, the door closing softly behind him.
I wait for him to follow, but he remains seated. “You did not come to me because you think I dislike you,” he says suddenly.
“Yes,” I answer honestly. “I believed you would refuse.”
“That does not matter,” Colsar snaps. “You come to me because you are mine.”
I nod. “I understand that now, my Prince.”
He looks at me, noting I am not yet dressed, the silk of my gown still open at the back. He stands and moves behind me, then begins tying the laces. The movement is awkward. His fingers are cold. And yet, I am not uncomfortable. “What were your plans today?” he asks roughly.
“I am going out,” I say.
He finishes the last tie and steps in front of me. “Where?”
“To my home.”
He clenches his fists and turns away. I hear him mutter under his breath, something like, “Nine eyes… plus the twelve here… four at the exit… too many…no.”
“Highness?” I ask carefully.
He looks at me. “The Baron’s house is not your home. Your home is here now, at Rathmor Palace or wherever I decide we will stay.” He sounds offended. “What reason do you have to go back?”
“There are things there that matter to me.”
“Like what?” he demands, narrowing his eyes. “Like who?”
I lift my chin. “Like Emva in the kitchens. Like Torsin, the stableboy. My best friends.”
Something dark passes over his face. He watches me for a long moment, eyes unreadable. Then he says, “You are soon to be a Princess. You do not return to a Baron’s house for things you want.”
I blink.
“If you wish for Emva and this… Torsin,” Colsar continues coolly, “I will demand the Baron gift them to you as part of your dowry.”
The words hollow something in my chest. I stare at him. Emva and Torsin here, within these walls, beyond my father’s reach, beyond my sister’s cruelty, beyond Mysin. My friends. My only friends. The room feels suddenly unfamiliar, as if it no longer belongs to the same world I woke in.
Colsar studies my silence. “Is that all that remains there that matters to you?”
I swallow. “Yes,” I say quietly. “That is all that is left there.”
He exhales through his nose, something like resignation cutting through his anger. “As for your necklace,” he says, almost as an afterthought, “you will have it soon. Your brother broke the chain. It is being repaired by my personal jeweler.”
I do not trust my voice. I press my lips together, holding the ache back, because no one has ever done something like this for me without demanding payment in advance.
“I…” My voice wavers despite my effort. “I do not know how to thank you, my Prince.”
“Don’t,” he starts.
But I step forward anyway. I rise onto my toes, and before I can lose the nerve, I press my mouth to his cheek, only the thin fabric of the veil between us.
“Moving forward,” I murmur near his ear, “I have only one king, and it is you.”
As I press against him, I feel something harden against my leg, and I realize his body is reacting to me.
His hand closes around my waist fully this time, and for an instant he almost pulls me back against him.
Almost. Then he reaches for my hand and brings it to his face.
He closes his eyes, but does not inhale, as though he wishes simply to absorb the warmth of me while still keeping distance.
Then he releases me, as though he has remembered himself too late.
“Good day, Lady Asharin,” he says tightly.
He turns and leaves without another word, the door closing behind him with finality.
I remain where I am, heart racing, fingers digging into the fabric of my dress, knowing with absolute certainty that something has just changed between us.