7. Zara
ZARA
A few weeks after our parents’ wedding, Sterling’s library still dazzled my eyes as I followed him into the corridor, every step a metallic echo.
Fall was usually my favorite season, and I should’ve been happy for the spooky holiday, but I couldn’t get into it.
I hadn’t meant to move, my legs just obeyed when he said, “We’ll finish this after dinner.
” Finish what? My life? My sanity? The chandelier light cut diamonds across the polished floor, and I trailed those shards all the way to the formal dining room.
The room was a weapon dressed in crystal.
Chandeliers blazed overhead, with a table fit for diplomats stretched beneath.
Madeline sat poised at its center, like a queen spider, pearls gleaming, smile knife-thin.
John occupied the head, napkin folded with military precision.
They looked up in perfect sync as Sterling guided me to the place on his right.
He pulled out my chair with a courtly menace. “Sit, hummingbird.”
I did, spine tight. My whole body vibrated, an untuned instrument.
I hadn’t set foot in this house since before the wedding, before he destroyed everything.
The library wasn’t mine but, when Sterling dragged me back across these floors, I’d slipped there out of habit, the same way I always did when the world turned hostile.
And still, the air tasted of him. Bitter coffee, dark cologne, the after-scent of gunpowder ambition.
Soup arrived, a bisque the color of sunset. I managed two polite spoonfuls, while Sterling drained his glass in a single swallow. The silence between clinks might as well have been screams.
Madeline’s voice snapped the tension. “We’re so glad you rejoined the family, Zara. Tradition thrives on unity.”
I offered a paper-thin smile. “I take excellent notes.”
John dabbed at his lips, eyes sharp behind fatherly warmth. “Legacy isn’t merely blood, it’s discipline. Sterling understands that. I trust you do as well.”
“He means,” Madeline purred, “that a Kingsley wife must be… adaptable.”
Sterling set down his glass. The gesture was soft, but the sound cracked anyway. “Zara’s adaptability isn’t what needs testing,” he said, voice like glass over velvet. “Anyone who doubts her value can fight me for it.” His gaze never left Madeline’s. A shot fired without raising a gun.
Madeline’s spoon paused mid-air. “Of course,” she said, brittle. “Family first.”
“Exactly,” Sterling answered. “And Zara is with me.” He glanced sideways, eyes glinting, as if daring me to refuse the shield he’d just built.
A hush swallowed the table. For one impossible second, I felt… safe. Not trusting, never that, but buffered, as if the monster had turned outward, and pointed his teeth at bigger beasts.
Dessert was left untouched, since nobody had the appetite. Sterling rose, and offered his arm. Instinct screamed don’t, but there was nowhere to run. I placed trembling fingers on linen-covered muscle, and let him steer me out.
The butler, Horace, awaited at the stair landing. “Miss Johnston’s suite is prepared, sir.”
“Unnecessary,” Sterling said. “She stays with me.”
Up we climbed, one, two, three flights, through corridors heavy with cedar and oil paint. Portraits of dead Kingsleys judged every heartbeat. At the final door, Sterling halted, pressed a fingertip to the latch and swung it inward.
Heat and cedar and darkness. His room. Four-poster bed draped in navy, windows curtained in midnight velvet, the faintest ember of brandy in the air. I set my duffle on hardwood and didn’t cross the threshold.
“I want a room to myself,” I managed. My voice sounded small, but it held.
“Hummingbird,” he said, so softly it scraped my nerves raw, “every room in this house is mine. Privacy is a myth they sell to people with no enemies.”
Before I could spit back, a voice interrupted. “Turn down, sir?” the housekeeper called from the other side of the door.
“We’re fine,” Sterling replied, eyes never leaving mine. Footsteps faded away after a brief moment.
He leaned against the bedpost, sleeves rolled high, tattoos coiling over sinew. “We need to talk,” he murmured.
“About what?”
“Our engagement.”
My laugh broke like glass. “I’d sooner marry hemlock.”
He drifted closer, patient as winter. “Hemlock kills quickly. I prefer something slower.” His thumb brushed the hollow of my throat, claim or warning, I couldn’t tell. “We’ll announce at the gala next month.”
“I will never stand beside you.”
A smile ghosted his mouth. “You already are.”
Rage collided with helpless heat, sparking confusion. He’d taken my school, my money, and now my future. Yet some twisted part of me recognized the offer beneath the iron: protection in exchange for surrender.
“I’m not yours,” I whispered.
“You’ve never belonged to anyone else,” he answered, soft as silk strangulation. “Sleep here tonight. Decide in the morning how loudly you want to fight me.”
I backed away until the doorframe dug into my spine. He simply watched, gaze heavy, an ocean tide that would come, no matter how many sandcastles I built.
Outside the window, the night sprawled, stars, city, nowhere to go. Inside, a king waited for me to choose which kind of cage I preferred.
And the worst part? Some cracked shard of me believed him when he called it home.