22. Violent Delights
T he ballroom doors burst open behind them, spilling figures onto the terrace. Dresses rustled, voices overlapped—sharp, urgent, demanding.
“What happened?”
“Who screamed?”
The moment splintered like glass.
Dorian barely registered them. His focus was on Selene.
She wasn’t looking at him. Not really. Her gaze was locked on the blood blooming against his sleeve, her expression carved from something pale and stricken.
“It’s nothing,” he said, or thought he said. “Just a graze.”
But the words were weightless, lost in the distance between them. Selene wasn’t here. She was somewhere else entirely.
Her knees buckled .
He moved to catch her, but someone else was there first—one of the other guests who had been laughing and dancing only moments ago. Their voices blurred into a low hum, a chorus of concern.
Dorian didn’t think Selene heard them. He barely did.
More shouts. More figures.
Soren appeared out of nowhere, cutting through the chaos. Dorian barely had time to speak before he reached him, pressing a firm hand against the wound.
“Dorian—”
“I’m fine,” he snapped, but his voice was lost beneath the flood of noise. Lord Everton. The servants of the estate. Too many questions, too many people.
“What’s going on?”
“Is Lord Nightbloom bleeding ?”
“Selene, Selene, it’s fine, I’m fine—”
Someone was pulling him away. He barely had time to resist before he was being whisked towards the doors, the press of bodies swallowing him whole.
Selene tried to follow.
Dorian saw her push forward, saw her struggle against the hands that held her back. Panic flickered across her face, raw and unguarded, her breath coming too fast.
“Soren!” He twisted against the hold on him. “Go with her!”
Soren hesitated—of course he did—but he obeyed.
And then Selene was lost to him, swallowed by silk and candlelight and the churning storm of the night.
Dorian was whisked away to another room. Whiskey was forced into his hand. Lord Fairmont was there, asking dozens of questions. Everyone was asking questions. The bolt had been discovered. Did he see who shot at him? Was it an accident?
The local constable was summoned, along with a physician, who saw to Dorian’s arm.
Dorian answered every question he could, multiple times. It all seemed horrendously pointless. He hadn’t seen anything. It had been too dark.
His eyes scanned the room, searching for the Duke. Dorian was certain that the incident was no mere accident, but Drakefell would never have shot Dorian himself. He was fairly sure he saw him in the ballroom before he stepped outside.
Marta came in at one point.
“Is Selene—” Dorian asked, trying to stand up.
“She’s fine, My Lord,” she promised. “I’m just collecting your jacket.”
Dorian had no idea what she planned to do with it, but he didn’t argue.
The questions seemed to go on for hours. Dorian was no stranger to hearing the same thing again and again (he had literally lost count of the number of times he’d had to tell Ariella and Rookwood he’d returned from the future), but this much in quick succession was rather grating.
He just wanted it over. He wanted to get back to Selene.
She was almost certainly asleep by now, but her screams still rattled around his skull like a persistent headache, impossible to dispel. She looked so panicked, so frightened.
She’d probably never been that close to injury or violence before—at least not that she remembered. Of course she was spooked. It probably had nothing to do with him.
Finally, finally he was permitted to leave.
Soren sat slumped on a chair outside the bedroom. He snapped to his feet as soon as Dorian approached. “You’re all right?” he asked.
Dorian nodded. “I’m fine.”
“Should we talk about—”
“No,” Dorian snapped, regetting it immediately. “I’m just… Not tonight.”
Soren nodded and squeezed his shoulder as he passed. Dorian stepped into the room. He expected Selene to be fast asleep, and was most surprised to find her still awake, curled up in the exact same seat he’d promised to sleep in.
Dorian closed the door behind him, the latch clicking softly into place .
Selene was on her feet in an instant. Before he could say a word, she launched herself across the space between them and flung her arms around his neck, pressing against him as if she could fold herself into his skin.
Her breath came in sharp, unsteady bursts, and her fingers clutched the back of his shirt, gripping tight, desperate.
He couldn’t remember the last time he was held this way, least of all by Selene.
Selene, Selene, Selene.
“You’re all right?” she breathed, voice trembling.
His arms closed around her, careful at first, hesitant. He was half afraid of her vanishing. He was afraid of having to let her go.
But then he exhaled, and the hesitation melted away. His grip firmed, drawing her closer.
“I am,” he murmured, inhaling the scent of her, the warmth. “You?”
She nodded against him, before pulling back just enough to look at him. Her hands found his arm, skimming over the fabric until her fingers brushed the bandage.
Her lips parted, her brows furrowing.
“It’s fine,” he said quickly, covering her hand with his. “It’s nothing.”
Selene didn’t seem to share that opinion. A sharp breath escaped her, and suddenly, her composure shattered. Tears welled, spilling over her perfect cheeks. She pressed her lips together, shaking her head, her grip tightening on his sleeve.
“Selene,” he whispered. His knuckles brushed her cheek, then cupped it fully, his palm warm against her skin. His thumb swept over the damp trail of her tears.
“It’s all right,” he promised.
“You could be dead.”
“But I’m not.”
“This is my fault.”
His brows drew together. “No, it isn’t—”
“No, no, you don’t understand.” Her voice cracked, raw with urgency. “The Duke did this. The Duke tried to kill you—”
Dorian stilled. How in the world could she know that?
“Even if he had,” he said, determined to ease her worries, “that still wouldn’t be your fault.”
“I should never have married you.”
The words struck his chest like a punch, but worse still was the feeling of her moving back, moving away from him. Dorian couldn’t let her go, not like this. He caught her fingers before she could retreat too far. He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of it.
“Selene.” His gaze held hers, unwavering. “I don’t regret it, and I hope you don’t either.”
Her breath shuddered. “I’ll regret it if you get hurt,” she whispered. “What if he tries again?”
Dorian hesitated, choosing his next words carefully.
He didn’t want to give weight to her fears.
He wanted to banish them. “I’m hopeful that it was just some unfortunate misunderstanding,” he said at last. “The Duke was present in the ballroom at the time, and I don’t see why he’d have tried to kill me because of our earlier altercation—”
“That’s not why,” Selene said softly.
Dorian studied her, his brows lifting. “What other reason could he have?” That you know about?
Selene swallowed hard. Her fingers twitched in his grasp.
“I didn’t tell you the whole truth when I asked you to marry me,” she admitted, voice barely above a whisper. “I… I learned that the Duke wanted to marry me to gain control of my grandmother’s estate.”
Dorian inhaled. Where had she learned that from?
The timelines blurred together in his memory.
Was that one of the rumours he’d started?
It must have been, surely… or maybe one of the rumours he’d started had inspired real ones.
Someone must have known what the Duke was planning, after all.
Perhaps all his gossip had stirred up something true.
“I don’t know why, but—but it’s clearly important,” Selene continued. “Enough that he still wants to marry me. Enough that he’d hurt you to… ”
Her voice broke entirely, dissolving into noisy sobs.
Dorian cradled Selene’s face in his hands, his thumbs brushing away her tears, but they came faster than he could chase them. She was shaking, breath hitching in shallow, uneven gasps, her fingers curled into his shirt as though she were drowning and he was the only thing keeping her afloat.
A sharp pang lanced through him, raw and unforgiving.
He hated seeing her like this—hated that she was hurting, that he was powerless to stop it.
But a terrible, aching part of him rejoiced in it too, because it meant she still felt something.
That he wasn’t alone in this grief, in this unbearable wanting.
She doesn’t want you, a voice whispered . She’s just in shock.
Maybe that was true. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe, just maybe, she needed him as much as he needed her. And wasn’t that enough? Wasn’t it all he had left?
He had to make her stop crying. He had to stop his chest from caving in—
His mouth fell to hers before he could stop himself.
Selene, he gasped inwardly, as the taste of her rippled across his lips, Luna. Oh Gods, I’ve missed you.
The kiss was soft in pressure, but there was nothing soft about it.
It was raw, unrelenting—aching with everything he couldn’t say, everything he’d lost, everything he still remembered .
He kissed her like he could bring her back to him, like his lips could awaken something buried too deep for words.
A gasp, a spark—anything to tell him she was still his, still theirs, still something more than a stranger wearing the face of the woman he loved.
He pressed closer, desperate, drowning, pleading —and then, at last, her breath hitched, and she melted into his arms like butter in a pan.
For a moment, just a moment, he could pretend she remembered, that she knew everything he did.
That she loved him back.
But she doesn’t, came a voice. She doesn’t know you.
Her sobs subsided, and Dorian pulled back.She blinked up at him, dazed .
“Sorry,” he breathed, voice rough. “I shouldn’t have… we shouldn’t—”
“Yes,” Selene whispered, her hands still fisted against his chest. “Probably… probably a terrible idea.”
But then she curled her fingers tighter into his shirt and pulled him back to her.
Dorian groaned against her lips, all restraint shattering.
His hands roamed the curve of her back, kneading against the thin fabric of her nightgown, tracing the shape of her spine.
He needed to feel her, to convince himself she was here, alive, unbroken.
His grip shifted to her thighs, and she gasped against his mouth as he lifted her, ignoring the pain in his arm, and stumbled back towards the bed.
Her fingers dipped beneath his shirt, skimming the hard planes of his stomach, the muscles jumping under her touch. He shuddered, pressing his forehead against hers. Desire shot up him like a lightning bolt.
“Selene,” he murmured, half-warning, half-plea.
She tugged at his belt. Wine stirred on her breath.
“We—we can’t,” he said, breathless. “We shouldn’t—”
“You said that before,” Selene countered, voice low, teasing. “But I’ve quite forgotten the reasons why.”
He laughed, rough and frayed, and then forced himself to step back.
He knelt at the foot of the bed, dragging a hand through his hair.
“You’ve been drinking,” he reminded her, though his own pulse was still hammering against his ribs.
“And you’ve been through a shock. You may not be thinking clearly.
I don’t… I don’t want you to regret this in the morning. ”
She was silent. And for a moment, he thought she might argue. He desperately wished she would.
But then something flickered across her face. A hesitation. A thought she didn’t speak aloud.
He swallowed.
This wasn’t just about tonight. If they did this, they couldn’t go back. They would be husband and wife in truth, in every way that mattered .
He doubted that was what she really wanted. It was a steep price to pay for momentary release.
But what about him?
Selene looked at him, studying him, her expression unreadable. And then, finally, she nodded. “Right.”
Dorian exhaled, rising to his feet. He turned towards the chair by the window, meaning to put some distance between them, to give her space.
But before he could take a step, she caught his sleeve.
“Stay,” she whispered.
He stilled.
Her fingers tightened around the fabric. “Sleep here. With me. Just… just next to each other. Just for tonight.”
His chest ached. It would be an exquisite agony to lie down next to her and not touch her, but Gods, he wanted to. He’d never spent the night with her before, never been with her when morning came.
“Selene,” he started, but she shook her head.
“Please.”
He let out a slow breath, then nodded. “All right.”
She released him, and he hesitated only briefly before moving towards the bed.
Selene climbed in first, shifting over to make room.
He sat at the edge, pulling off his boots and glasses, then lay back carefully, exhaling as his head hit the pillow.
A small space remained between them, and though every nerve in his body longed to close it, he didn’t move.
The room settled into quiet, save for the sound of their breathing. Slowly, the tightness in his chest began to ease.
“Goodnight, Selene,” he murmured.
She exhaled softly. “Goodnight, Dorian.”