9. Stellan
STELLAN
Bryony sat in the chair near the service passage, safely outside my reach. Her bandaged hand rested in her lap. The clean cloth hid the cut, but it couldn’t hide the pulse beating in her wrist.
I could hear every beat.
She’d scrubbed the blood from her skin and changed the bandage. The royal rooms smelled of soap, tea and woodsmoke now. None of it covered the warm human scent that had filled the throne room since she arrived.
Her return to the chair hadn’t helped. Distance softened the hunger, but seeing her choose to stay made a different need settle beside it. I wanted her closer for reasons that had nothing to do with survival.
That was exactly why she needed the locked fucking door.
The stored blood had given me control for a while. The Claiming was burning through it much faster than I’d expected.
“Go back to the bedroom,” I said. “Lock the door and stay there until this settles.”
She didn’t stand. “You just told me it’s getting worse. That doesn’t sound like something likely to settle.”
“Distance will help.”
“It didn’t help when I tried it ten minutes ago.”
She was right. It was pissing me off how quickly that was becoming a habit.
I turned my face from her and pulled my free hand into my lap. The chains held the rest of me against the dais. Even if hunger took my judgement, I couldn’t reach the chair.
“Then move it farther back,” I said. “You need more room if the chain around my waist changes.”
Bryony dragged the chair another metre towards the service door. She kept the path to the royal rooms clear and the heavy torch close to her boot.
“Is that far enough?”
“For now.”
I kept the torch near my boot.
He watched the chains instead of answering.
Her mouth curved. The brief warmth eased some of the pressure inside my chest, then the Crown pulled at the restraints again.
I felt the change in the chains a second before they moved. The left wrist cuff heated first. The restraint at my waist followed, drawing tight enough to press the old scars against my ribs.
Bryony noticed the shift and reached for the torch. She didn’t rush towards me or freeze in the chair. She watched my hands, my eyes and the amount of chain left on the floor.
Practical. Careful. Still here.
Red light travelled over the chain at my waist. Hunger tore through me as the court took another portion of the blood I’d drunk.
My free hand closed around the edge of the dais.
Bryony lost the smile. “What did it just do?”
“The Claiming is using my blood to power the seal around us. It wants you to choose between feeding me and taking the Crown.”
“Those aren’t the only choices.”
“The court has never been imaginative.”
She leaned forwards, forearms on her knees. “Give me the three rules that matter tonight. No history, no titles and no new rooms with their own personalities.”
I took a breath I didn’t need and organised the answer around survival.
“Your blood woke Harrowmere and sealed us inside. Blood you give freely to me weakens the chains one link at a time. Blood taken from you by force strengthens the Crown and the wards holding me. The Crown can command the court and its bound king, which is why Adrian needs you to accept it. He can’t put it on your head and take control himself. You have to choose it.”
Bryony listened without interrupting. “The flask wasn’t my blood, so it restored you but didn’t weaken anything. Edith’s key opened your wrist instead.”
“Yes. She gave us one free hand without making you feed a stranger on the floor.”
“And the blood Adrian forced onto the throne strengthened the red marks over the remaining chains.”
“Yes.”
“Who decides whether blood is freely given?”
“You do. Harrowmere can tell the difference between a choice and someone forcing your hand. If Adrian threatens you into feeding me, the blood strengthens the Crown instead. Fear doesn’t become consent because a court wants an answer.”
She looked at the dark metal above the throne. “So pushing me to decide quickly could make everything worse.”
“Yes. That’s why I want you in the bedroom with enough distance to think.”
The red marks on the floor dimmed at the answer. The court might have accepted the truth. It might simply have been waiting for a more useful moment to hurt me again.
She sat back. “Then I stay away from the Crown, and Adrian stays outside. The immediate problem is keeping you alive without giving the court another way to control either of us.”
It was the correct conclusion. Her attention returned to my mouth.
Heat moved between us. I kept my fangs covered, although hiding them no longer fooled anyone.
“You don’t need to decide tonight,” I said.
“Your hand is cracking the stone.”
I looked down. Fine lines had spread from my fingers across the edge of the dais.
I opened my hand.
The cracks remained.
She reached for the jug beside her chair and poured water into the second cup. The scent of clean skin rose as her sleeve pulled away from her wrist.
I closed my eyes.
“Stellan.”
“Keep the water.”
“I wasn’t offering it as a substitute for blood. I’m asking you to drink because you’re still healing.”
Her correction mattered. The court didn’t react to it, and the iron remained still.
I opened my eyes. “Roll it to my right.”
She sent the cup across the floor. I caught it, drank and set it well away from the loose cuff.
The water cooled my mouth. It did nothing for the need gathering behind my fangs.
Bryony watched me for a moment. “Tell me how feeding works. I’m not promising anything. I want the facts.”
“A bite reduces pain and heightens pleasure, but it can’t make you offer more. Your wrist keeps you farther away and lets you pull back. Your throat would bring you too close for a first feeding.”
Her heartbeat changed at the word throat. Mine answered it.
“How much?”
“A few mouthfuls. My saliva will close the bite, and the chains will hold me if I lose control. Move back if I tighten my grip or stop answering.”
Her gaze moved over every restraint. “Keep your hand flat on the dais.”
“I’ll keep it flat.”
Her wrist would keep her farther away. I could hold it without touching the rest of her and release it the instant she moved back. Her throat would put her body against mine, her hair over my arm and her pulse directly under my mouth.
A century of captivity hadn’t removed desire. It had stripped away every distraction that might have made it easier to ignore.
I looked at the floor until the image passed. When I raised my head, Bryony was watching me with a flush over her chest. She’d felt enough of the thought to understand it.
Neither of us commented.
The Crown scraped against the throne.
Bryony’s head snapped towards it.
The dark points had moved several centimetres down the carved back, closer to the seat. No hands touched it. The court was placing its easier answer where she couldn’t ignore it.
She stood, picked up the chair and carried it farther from the throne.
“I said no,” she told the room.
The Crown stopped moving.
Pride warmed me. This time I kept it to myself.
The loose cuff on the dais shifted instead. It scraped across the stone and stopped beside my free hand, open and waiting. Harrowmere wanted Bryony to remember that she’d already released one restraint without blood.
I pushed the iron away. “The key won’t open another one. Edith made certain of that.”
“I know.”
The court was trying to make every choice feel like hers.
She looked at the Crown, then pushed the cuff farther away with her boot.
The loose cuff remained where she’d pushed it.
Bryony sat again and tucked one foot under the chair. “If freely offered blood weakens the chains, why did the old court build them at all?”
“To stop either ruler holding all the power. A human heir could bind a dangerous king, but she couldn’t keep him imprisoned if she still trusted him enough to feed him willingly.
The king could protect the heir, but he couldn’t take her blood by force without making the Crown stronger.
The system was meant to require choice from both people. ”
“Until Adrian changed it.”
“He fed the court forced blood for years and taught it to reward obedience. He didn’t create the Crown’s hunger for control. He made it worse.”
“Can we undo that without me wearing it?”
“We can free me and stop Adrian. The Crown itself is a problem for later.”
The simple answer seemed to ease her. One enemy outside, one dangerous object in the room and one vampire she hadn’t decided whether to trust. That was enough for any first night.
I didn’t tell her that freedom had been my first thought when her blood opened the lower door.
At the time, I’d known nothing about her except her name and the fact that Edith had hidden her.
I’d imagined charm, willing blood and an open chain.
Seducing an heir had seemed cleaner than threatening one.
Then Bryony had stepped into the room with a torch raised and questioned every answer I gave her. She’d fed me Edith’s stored blood, opened one cuff and still kept enough sense to remain out of reach.
The old plan had survived meeting her. It had only become harder to pretend it was clean.
I still wanted freedom. I also wanted her choices to feel like her own, which was a convenient standard while I controlled which facts she had.
Another pull tightened the chain around my waist.
Pain cut across my ribs. My vision went red at the edges, and Bryony’s pulse became the loudest thing in the room.
I forced my hand flat against the stone.
“Go,” I said.
She rose at once but didn’t retreat into the suite. “Can you hear me?”
I lifted my head. Her red hair caught the light from the service passage. Her green eyes stayed on mine even after she saw the red filling them.
“Yes.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Bryony Ellison. Edith’s granddaughter. Human. Angry. Too close to a starving vampire.”
“I’m deciding what keeps us safest.”
“Then decide from the bedroom.”
Her jaw tightened. She hated being told where to go.
Hunger made the thought dangerous rather than amusing.
“I’m hungry enough to fucking hurt,” I said. “I’m not hungry enough to forget you’re a person. That could change if the court keeps draining me. I need you behind the locked door before it does.”
She studied me until she believed the part I couldn’t hide.
Then she carried the chair into the service passage.
The sitting-room door remained open. Her footsteps crossed the suite, followed by the bedroom lock sliding into place.
Distance removed her scent. It didn’t remove her pulse.
I leaned back against the dais and waited for the next wave.
The throne room looked larger without her in it. I’d spent years listening to empty passages and waiting for the few visits Edith could risk. Silence had once been ordinary. Now it felt wrong after less than an hour of Bryony’s questions, dry humour and sensible shoes crossing the stone.
Wanting her back was selfish. Hunger would use any feeling it found and turn it towards blood. I fixed my attention on the sealed gate instead.
Adrian would be testing it from the other side. He’d lost Bryony, Edith’s case and the easy coronation he’d expected. He wouldn’t wait quietly while we worked out how to free me.
The threat helped. Anger was easier to control than appetite.
The court sent it quickly.
Red light sank into the iron and pulled at every drop of blood the flask had given me. My fangs cut the inside of my lip. The taste made the hunger worse.
I didn’t call for Bryony.
She needed a choice made without my voice pressing on it.
The bedroom remained locked for several minutes. Long enough for her breathing to slow. Long enough for me to regain control of my hands.
Then the lock opened.
Bryony returned without the chair. She’d rolled her jumper sleeve above one wrist, although the bandage still covered her palm.
She stopped outside my reach.
“I’ve decided,” she said.