“So I’ve been told.”
They lapsed into silence once more, but Cora’s mind was racing. She didn’t know what to make of Grayson sometimes—how he could be so infuriatingly closed off yet so fiercely protective. How he could make her feel like she was the only thing that mattered, even when he insisted he didn’t want to be tied to her.
“Can I ask you something?” she said after a while.
Grayson raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to anyway.”
She rolled her eyes. “What would you be doing right now if none of this had happened? If there was no bond, no auction, no Theodore?”
He seemed to consider her question for a moment, his gaze distant. “Probably still chasing down people like him. It’s what I’ve always done.”
“Even if it meant giving up everything else?”
He met her eyes, and she saw a flicker of something vulnerable beneath his usually stoic exterior for the first time. “Some things are worth giving up.”
Her chest tightened at the weight of his words, and she looked away, focusing on the last bite of her toast. “That’s a depressing answer.”
“Reality usually is.”
Cora set her fork down and leaned back in her chair, studying him. “Do you ever wish you’d chosen differently?”
“Every day,” he admitted, his voice low.
The honesty in his tone took her by surprise, and she didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t expected him to answer at all, let alone with such raw truth.
“What about you?” he asked, breaking the silence. “Do you wish things had gone differently?”
Cora caught herself fiddling with the edge of her plate and forced her hands to still. The weight of Grayson’s question lingered in the air, and for once, she didn’t try to brush it off. If he could be honest, maybe she owed him the same.
“I didn’t want it,” she admitted finally, her voice quieter now. “Leading the coven. It was never about ability. I could’ve done it. Hell, I probably would’ve been good at it, but…it’s not what I wanted.”
Grayson set down his fork, his attention fixed entirely on her. “Why not?”
“Because it wasn’t my choice,” she said, a flicker of frustration rising with the words. “From the moment I was old enough to understand what leadership meant, my parents made it clear that it was expected of me. Not asked—expected. Therewas never any room for discussion, no moment where they said, ‘What do you want, Cora?’”
Her voice tightened, and she pushed her plate aside. “The coven meant well, I guess. They thought they were giving me this incredible legacy, this gift. But all I ever saw was the responsibility. The constant weight of being everything to everyone. Always making decisions for the good of the group, even if it meant losing pieces of myself.”
Grayson’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t interrupt. He just listened, his expression steady, making her feel like it was okay to keep going.
“I didn’t want to spend my life pretending to be someone I wasn’t. Pretending that every rule and tradition was sacred when all I wanted was to figure out who I was without all that hanging over me.” She sighed, raking a hand through her hair. “And when I told them I didn’t want it, you’d think I’d set the whole coven on fire. They said I was being selfish and reckless. That I was turning my back on my family, maybe they were right.”
“They weren’t,” Grayson said firmly.
Her gaze snapped to his. “How can you say that? You didn’t know them. You didn’t know me back then.”
“I don’t have to. I know what it feels like to be backed into a corner, to have people expect you to give up your whole life for something they think is more important than you. Choosing yourself… That’s not selfish, Cora. That’s survival.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It’s not,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean they were right. Wanting something for yourself doesn’t make you selfish. It makes you human.”
She shook her head, and a bitter laugh escaped her lips. “It didn’t feel very human when I left. I thought I’d feel free, but mostly, I just felt…lost.”
“And now?”
“Now,” she said, staring at the table, “I don’t know. Some days, I feel like I made the right choice. Other days, I wonder if I ran away from something I could’ve fixed.”
Grayson leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “You didn’t run away. You made a choice. There’s a difference.”
