19. Stellan
STELLAN
“Yes. That was exactly what I planned.”
Bryony went still. The truth might cost me everything I wanted, but I wouldn’t soften it now.
I stayed near Cecily’s fireplace and kept my hands where Bryony could see them. The waist chain lay loose across the floor, long enough for me to reach her. I didn’t take a single step.
“Adrian told me a human heir was coming to Harrowmere,” I said. “He gave me your name and enough facts to let me recognise you. When you entered the estate, I felt your blood wake the court. I knew you could open the prison, and I decided I’d use you to do it.”
Her face lost the warmth it had held in the garden and in my arms. “Tell me the whole plan.”
Every warning about Adrian would be true, and I’d be the only person willing to explain the danger. Need would keep Bryony returning while I encouraged the attraction between us.
“I was going to make you want the man you needed.”
A sharp breath left her. She glanced at the marks on her wrist, then felt the bite on her throat. I knew which memories I’d just damaged.
Her blood had to be freely offered. Force would strengthen the Crown’s hold and ruin my chance of escape, so restraint had served me from the start. I’d known feeding could give her pleasure and counted on it making the next offer easier.
During her first visit, I’d watched every reaction.
She feared my fangs and came close anyway, questioned Adrian’s story and noticed my partial answers.
I adjusted the plan while we spoke. Bryony would need facts and choices that felt like hers, and I’d been arrogant enough to believe I could control where they led.
“So every time you stopped when I pulled away, you were building trust.”
“Yes. I kept you safe from my hunger, but your safety wasn’t the reason I began. I measured the trust I earned until I had enough blood to reach the old service passage.”
Bryony stared at me. I could feel the court listening around us. Red light appeared in the cut lines of Cecily’s childish carving, then travelled down the wall to the floor.
“Once the chain opened, you’d have used that passage while I believed we were still working together.” Her mouth tightened. “I’d have been trapped here with Adrian.”
“Yes.”
The word landed between us. I let it stand without asking her to make it easier for me.
Bryony walked to the small window overlooking the underground garden. She folded her arms and looked out at the red roses. The chain gave me room to follow her. I remained by the fireplace.
“You fucking knew what he wanted from me,” she said. “You knew about the Crown.”
I’d used Adrian’s need to keep her alive as an excuse. He would have confined her and worked on her until she accepted the Crown, and I had planned to run while he did it.
“I knew he wanted to force you into the succession rite.”
She turned. “You’re still making it sound cleaner than it was. What would the rite have done to me if you were gone?”
She’d found the part I had refused to examine.
“The first command opens a channel for the Blood King’s heartblood. If I’d escaped, the rite would have searched for the nearest source of royal blood. That would have been you. It could have killed you.”
Colour drained from her face. “You knew that?”
“I knew it was possible.” My throat tightened, but my voice stayed clear. “I decided my freedom mattered more than the life of a woman I hadn’t met. Then I met you and kept the plan.”
“Fucking hell, Stellan.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” She left the window and stopped outside my reach. “Because I walked into that throne room believing you were dangerous. I still gave you my wrist. I kept choosing to come back because you gave me limits I could trust. Now you’re telling me those limits were part of the trap.”
“At first, they were.”
She shook her head. “Don’t give me two words and wait for the anger to pass. Explain it.”
I nodded once. She was owed more than bare facts.
“The control was real. I didn’t pretend to stop when you pulled away.
My concern for whether I hurt you was real too.
I still used every decent choice to make myself useful and desirable.
You couldn’t consent to the plan because I hid it.
That made your decisions easier for me to shape. ”
The red line crossed the floor and curved around my boots. Harrowmere had recorded royal confessions for centuries. It didn’t punish a lie or reward the truth. It kept the words so neither ruler could change them later.
Bryony watched the light. “When did you stop planning to leave me?”
“Here, when you refused the Crown.” Her gaze came back to mine.
The Crown had offered her control of my body and the power to open every door. It used her fear, my blood and the promise of my freedom to make the choice feel necessary. She still walked away while the collar cut into my throat.
She hadn’t excused my danger or handed her judgement to Harrowmere. She refused to own me even when the court made ownership look like safety.
That choice forced me to see how neatly I’d placed her beside every heir who’d abused Harrowmere. She hadn’t earned my suspicion. I’d assigned it to her so I could take what I needed without thinking about who would pay.
“I’d spent a century telling myself every heir would choose control once the court offered it. You proved that was an excuse. I abandoned the service passage when you walked away from the Crown. If the chain had opened then, I would have stayed until I could get you out.”
Bryony’s expression didn’t soften. “Would you have told me?”
“I intended to.”
“That’s a lovely answer. It also means no.” The brief edge in her voice was familiar. It hurt more than shouting would have.
“No,” I said. “I kept finding reasons to wait, and I used every one because I was a coward.”
“You weren’t too frightened to bite me or take me to bed.”
I forced myself to hold her gaze. “By then I wanted you. I knew the truth might end every feeding and every touch, so I kept quiet. That was another selfish choice.”
She looked away. Her fingers pressed into her sleeves hard enough to whiten the tips. I remembered those hands on my skin and understood that she might never put them there again.
“Was the sitting room part of it?” she asked. “Did you touch me because you thought sex would open the manacle?”
“I knew trust affected the iron. I didn’t know pleasure would release it. I wanted the manacle open, and I wanted you in my lap. Both were true.”
She gave a short, bitter laugh. “That’s bloody convenient.”
“For me, yes.”
“And when you stopped feeding?”
“I’d taken enough. I wanted the rest of that encounter to be about your pleasure and mine.” I paused, choosing accuracy over any answer that might soothe her. “It showed what I wanted by then. It doesn’t erase what I hid from you.”
The light on the floor darkened around my feet. The court drew a second line towards Bryony, though it stopped several inches from her boots.
She studied it. Harrowmere wasn’t asking for a judgement. It was keeping the confession where neither of us could change it later.
“You don’t owe the court a verdict,” I said. “You don’t owe me forgiveness either.”
“Good, because I’m bloody furious.”
“You have every right to be.”
Her head lifted. “Stop agreeing with me like that fixes anything.”
“It fixes nothing. I’m trying to answer without defending what I did.”
For several seconds, only the low movement of the court broke the silence. A door closed in the distant hall. The red lamps held steady.
Bryony came closer. She stopped near the fallen manacle and looked down at the iron her trust had opened.
At first, I’d placed every danger at Adrian’s feet and called myself another prisoner. Her refusal of the Crown stripped that excuse away. I’d become another man making decisions about her life without her knowledge.
The guilt hadn’t stopped me accepting her wrist. I wanted her safe and wanted the strength her blood gave me. Harrowmere always supplied another danger, and I kept using it to delay the truth.
She nudged the manacle with the toe of her boot. It scraped across the stone. “I don’t regret wanting you. I don’t regret what I did in that sitting room. You don’t get to turn my choices into mistakes because you lied.”
“I won’t.”
My answer didn’t ease the strain in her face.
“But I don’t know which parts of us belong to me and which parts you arranged.”
“Your desire belongs to you. I encouraged it, and I hid why I began. Both facts matter.”
She rubbed her palm over her mouth. Anger remained in her face, but hurt had settled under it. I could survive her rage. The hurt was harder because I had earned it after she had trusted me with far more than blood.
“Is there another plan?” she asked. “Anything else you’ve hidden that changes whether I live?”
“No. There are parts of my past you haven’t seen. I’ll answer for them when they matter. I have no other bargain with Adrian and no second plan for your blood. I’m not saving another confession that changes whether you live for later.”
She studied me while the red line completed its circle around the fallen iron.
“Why tell me now? Only because I asked?”
“I owed you the truth in the chapel. I was going to tell you here once I finished the account of Cecily, though you reached the question first. Lying again would prove I haven’t changed.”
She considered that without offering me belief or disbelief. “What happens if I don’t feed you again?”
Hunger tightened at the thought. The open manacle would stay open, but the waist chain might stop loosening and keep me tied to the lower court. The blood already in me would last for days, and the old stores could extend that.
“You have time to decide,” I said. “I won’t ask you for blood while you’re doing it.”
She held my gaze. “Don’t make a noble sacrifice out of it. I’m not responsible for rewarding you because you finally admitted the truth.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“And don’t use the chains to punish yourself where I can see it. That would make your guilt another problem I have to manage.”
She was right. Enduring the iron where she could see it would only place my guilt in her hands.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll use the blood stores if the court opens them. I’ll take care of myself. You won’t be forced to watch me starve.”
Some tension left her shoulders. I wanted to cross the floor and tell her the man who’d planned to abandon her was gone, but words couldn’t prove it. Only my next choice could.
“You said the plan changed when I refused the Crown,” she said. “Did you love me then?”
The question caught me harder than any accusation. “No. I barely knew you.”
Her brows rose, and for one second I saw the woman who had called my court’s timing bloody awful while standing half dressed in my sitting room.
“At least that answer isn’t dressed up,” she said.
“I wanted you. I respected you. I’d started caring whether you were safe for reasons that didn’t serve me. Love would be a grand word used too early, and you’ve had enough manipulation for one night.”
Her mouth pressed into a line, though the anger in her eyes eased by a fraction. “Do you love me now?”
I could have used the question. Three words might have kept her in the room, and some part of me wanted to say them for that reason alone.
“I’m getting close,” I said. “I won’t call it love while I’m hoping the word will stop you leaving.”
Bryony looked at me for a long moment. “That might be the first answer tonight that didn’t make me want to throw a chair.”
“There are several within reach.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
The small flash of humour disappeared quickly. She was still Bryony, but she no longer trusted me with the parts of herself she’d shared.
She stepped over the red line and headed for the door.
“I need distance,” she said. “I need to think without you watching every reaction.”
“Take whatever space you need.”
She stopped at the threshold but didn’t turn. “I’m not feeding you tonight. I’m not touching you either.”
“I understand.” Her hand settled on the stone doorframe.
“And if you follow me, I’ll test how far I can throw one of those chairs.”
“I’ll stay here.”
Bryony walked into the hall. The court opened each door ahead of her and closed it once she passed.
I listened until her footsteps faded near the royal suite.
I had wanted honesty to leave pain I could endure.
It didn’t. It took her warmth from the room and left me with the full cost of the choices I’d made.
Then her presence disappeared from my senses. The connection between us had gone completely quiet.