Chapter 10 #2
I gather my clothes in silence. What's left of them, anyway—torn shirts, ruined trousers. Evidence of four days where neither of us held back. She stays on her side of the bed with her back to me, the sheet pulled up to her shoulders, every line of her body screaming don't touch me.
At the door I pause. Look back at her one more time.
She's shaking.
"I'm sorry," I say.
"Don't." Her voice cracks on the word. "Just go."
I go.
-
The next week is a study in silence.
She won't speak to me. Won't look at me when we pass in the corridors—just stares straight ahead like I'm not there.
Won't eat in the same room, won't train when I'm watching, won't give me anything except cold distance and the constant hum of the bond that tells me she's furious and ashamed and hating herself for what we did.
What she let me do to her.
I give her space because it's what she needs. I even move my things to chambers in the west tower. Take meals in my study. It's what she wants.
It's also killing me.
The bond was never meant for distance. It pulls at me constantly, that invisible chain demanding I close the gap between us. My beast paces and snarls, furious at the separation, at the coldness, at the mate who won't let us near her. Go to her. Make her understand. She's ours, she can't just—
I ignore it.
She doesn't want me near her. That has to matter more than what the bond wants, what my beast wants, what I want.
Even if the wanting is eating me alive.
Eight days after her heat breaks, I find myself in the shadows of the training courtyard.
Not deliberately. I was walking to the east wing for a meeting with my steward, taking the long way around the castle. But I heard the clash of wooden swords and my feet carried me here before I could stop them.
She's sparring with Carter.
He's one of my younger guards—barely a century old, still growing into his dragon strength.
I've known him since he was a hatchling, watched him train under my weapons master, seen him develop from clumsy youth to competent warrior.
He's got a wry sense of humor and more courage than sense, which is probably why he volunteered to spar with the omega who survived my claiming when no one else would.
Right now he's laughing.
Actually laughing, his head thrown back, while she stands across from him with her practice sword raised and something that might be a smile tugging at her mouth. He says something I can't hear and she responds, and whatever she says makes him laugh harder.
Something hot and ugly coils in my chest.
Mine, my beast snarls. She's mine. Why is she smiling at him? Why won't she smile at me like that?
I force the jealousy down. Bury it deep where it can't show on my face, where it can't poison whatever fragile truce might eventually grow between us.
She's allowed to smile at whoever she wants.
Allowed to laugh with guards who aren't monsters, who didn't kill forty-seven omegas, who can offer her easy companionship without the weight of three centuries of blood.
Carter doesn't make her remember that she was supposed to kill me.
Carter doesn't make her hate herself for wanting something she's not supposed to want.
They reset their stances. Circle each other with the easy rhythm of people who've been training together for days, comfortable in each other's space in a way she'll never be comfortable with me.
She attacks first. Fast—faster than she was before the heat, I notice. Enhanced speed, sharper reflexes. The contamination changing her, making her more. Carter blocks but barely, his eyebrows rising in surprise.
"Getting quicker," he says, and there's genuine admiration in his voice. "You've been holding back on me."
"Maybe I just didn't want to embarrass you in front of your friends." She nods toward the other guards watching from the edges of the courtyard. A few of them chuckle.
She's bantering with him.
Easy. Natural. None of the walls she puts up around me, none of the cold distance and careful blankness. With Carter she's just... herself. Fierce and sharp-tongued and almost playful.
I've never seen her playful.
The jealousy rises again, hotter this time, and I have to dig my claws into my palms to keep from doing something stupid. Like walking out there and putting myself between them. Like reminding everyone in that courtyard that she's mine, bond-claimed, marked by my teeth and my seed and my—
No.
She's not mine. Not by choice And she's made her choice very clear over the past eight days.
She doesn't want me.
She tolerates me because she has to, because the bond won't let her leave, because she's trapped in my castle with a monster she was supposed to kill and instead let fuck her for four days straight.
Of course she'd rather smile at Carter.
They spar for another few minutes. She disarms him twice—quick brutal movements that speak to years of training—and he yields with good grace each time. When they finally call a break, both breathing hard, she accepts a waterskin from one of the watching guards and drinks deeply.
Then she glances toward my hiding spot.
Our eyes meet across the courtyard. Golden to amber. Alpha to omega. Monster to the woman who hates herself for not hating him enough.
Her expression goes flat. Closed. All the warmth she showed Carter draining away like water through sand, leaving nothing.
She holds my gaze for a long moment.
Then she turns her back on me and raises her practice sword again.
Dismissed.
Something in my chest cracks.
My beast howls its frustration. Go to her. Make her see us. Make her—
I leave before I can do something I'll regret.
-
Corvith finds me in my study that evening, surrounded by crumbling manuscripts and cold tea I forgot to drink.
"My lord." He bows, stiff with age but still precise. "You sent for me."
I did. An hour ago. Spent that hour staring at the wall and trying to convince myself not to do what I'm about to do.
I failed.
"The omega has been in the restricted section." I don't look at him when I say it. "Researching."
"Every day this week, my lord. She's determined, I'll give her that."
"There are texts I don't want her to find." The words taste like ash. Like betrayal. "The records from the purges. What the temples did to the warrior bloodlines. Anything about contamination."
Corvith is silent. I can feel his judgment even without seeing his face.
"Remove them," I continue, forcing the words out. "Tonight. Move them to my private vault while she's sleeping."
A long pause. Then: "My lord, she'll notice they're gone."
"Then make it look like they were never there. Rearrange the shelves. You've served this family long enough to know how to hide things that need hiding."
"I have." His voice is careful now. "I've also seen what happens when hidden things come to light."
I finally look at him. Old Corvith, who watched me grow from terrified boy to hollow king. Who stayed when my father left. Who's never once told me what he really thinks of the monster I've become.
"She's changing," I say. "The contamination—something's happening to her body. Making her faster. Stronger. I don't know what it means, and until I do—" I stop. Force myself to finish. "She has enough to worry about. I'm protecting her."
The words hang between us. We both know they're bullshit.
"I'll see to it tonight," Corvith says finally.
He doesn't bow again before he leaves.