I want to brush them aside, to write them off as another attempt at control, but I can’t. The look in his eyes won’t let me. It clings to me, burning brighter than any violence I’ve seen from him. There was honesty there, and it unsettles me more than all his threats put together.
When I finally collapse back onto the bed, I find that I am trembling. Not just with fear or rage, but with the memory of that impossible confession. For the first time since my captivity began, I am not sure what scares me more: the monster I thought he was, or the man I’ve just glimpsed beneath the mask.
Sleep is a long time coming. I lie awake in the deepening dark, staring at the broken door, heart still beating in wild, confused rhythms. I know I should be plotting escape, planning how to keep myself safe. Instead, I replay his words over and over, the secret burrowing deep into my chest.
I don’t know if I believe him.
I don’t know if I want to.
I stay curled on the bed, the silence around me thick and raw. The broken door stands open, letting the hall’s chill creep in, but I make no move to close it. I can’t. I’m afraid that if I move, I’ll shatter into anger, into tears, into something far more dangerous.
His words won’t let me go. You’re the only thing keeping me human. I mouth them in the darkness, uncertain whether they’re meant as a curse or a gift. It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t mean anything. I remind myself of the blood, the ruthlessness, the empire built on fear. Yet it does matter. I feel it deep, unsettling, a seed planted in the bruise of my heart.
I hug my knees tighter, pressing my face into the pillow, desperate to drown out the chaos inside my chest. I want to hate him, truly, fully.
Now, hate feels complicated, hollowed out by something softer and far more frightening. Curiosity. Pity. Even, in some twisted way, a flicker of hope.
I squeeze my eyes shut, as if I can will myself into numbness, into forgetting. Yet his confession thrums inside me, echoing with every breath. I wonder if he feels it too. Feels this quiet, impossible thread between us, fraying at the edges but refusing to break.
Chapter Eighteen - Miron
The corridor is still after I leave her. Her voice lingers—a shiver in the air, a tremor I cannot shake. I walk its length alone, each footfall a dull drumbeat, the broken edge of her door marking the space between us.
Sera’s words gnaw at me, echoing sharp and bright as steel:Heartless. Monster.
She looked at me and saw through everything—layers I’ve built from bone and caution. She didn’t shrink. She didn’t flinch. She saw the man beneath, the one I’ve hidden from the world for years.
She stripped me bare without even trying, and I let her. That’s the part I cannot forgive. Worse, I told her too much—words that have no place in this world, between a captor and the woman he keeps caged. I said them anyway. Now they follow me, restless as regret.
I try to busy myself, papers and ledgers scattered across my desk. Names, numbers, city blocks—none of it sticks. The world outside moves in clean, predictable patterns, but I cannot make sense of the disorder in my own chest. Sera’s defiance follows me. Every blink is a memory: her jaw tight, her back to the wall, the flash in her eyes when I spoke the truth she never asked to hear.
“You’re the only thing keeping me human.”
It wasn’t a plea. I’d meant it as a warning—an edge to remind her, remind myself, that I could become something far worse. Still, she stared back and saw the man, not the threat. No one has done that in a long time.
I pour a drink, the vodka icy and clear, the glass sweating in my hand. I sip, letting the burn cut through the clutter of thought. It doesn’t help. All I see is the way her mouth parted, the way her eyes dropped to my lips, uncertain whether to spit venom or beg for distance. She didn’t beg. She just watched, waiting for me to break.
Outside, the house is quiet. Too quiet. I hear the wind rattle against the window, the faint shift of a guard’s boots outside my study. The rest is silence. I wonder if she’s sleeping. I wonder if she’s awake, turning my words over and over as I am.
By midnight I am pacing the hall outside her room, not sure when I arrived or what excuse I would give if anyone found me. The splintered door stands open a crack, as if the fight from earlier still shivers through its hinges. I don’t go in. I stand in the darkness, listening. My hand finds the frame. I press my palm to the wood, feeling the tremble still left there, the echo of her voice and mine.
It’s a mistake to linger, but I do. I try to imagine what she is doing now. Curled on the bed, arms tight around herself, refusing sleep. Maybe she’s counting the cracks in the ceiling, or watching the night for some sign that I’ve left, that she might be free to run. Or maybe she’s simply waiting, as I am, for the ache to fade.
There’s work I should be doing. The city doesn’t rest and neither do my enemies. I try again to lose myself in lists and warnings, in rumors and threats. Every name blurs to nothing. I see only her, red hair tangled on the pillow, lips bitten until they bleed.
I force myself to the window, cold glass against my forehead, city lights flickering in the distance. I built all this: power, security, loyalty paid for in blood. Every wall, every rule, every cruel lesson has kept me safe, has made me what I am. And still, a single woman’s pain unravels me more than a bullet ever could.
The memory of her touch—her fists against my chest, the heat of her breath, the tremor in her body as she pressed herself to the wall—comes back in waves. She’s fury and fire and the threat of something I can’t control. I told myself I wanted her obedience. Truth is, I crave the way she resists, the way she challenges every line I draw.
I think about the way I shielded her from the blood.
“Don’t look.”
I hadn’t planned it. It was instinct—selfish, maybe, but real. I didn’t want her to see me that way, not just because of what it would do to her, but because of what it would do to me. Her gaze is the only one that unsettles me. The only one that makes me wonder if the man I am is worth the empire I’ve built.
I tell myself this is weakness. I tell myself it’s a luxury I can’t afford. The lie is thin. I know it now. The truth is a hunger, raw and dangerous, clawing its way up every time I see her.
I pour another drink and don’t finish it. The house is too still. I step into the hall again, letting the chill bite at my skin, and drift toward her door without meaning to. I stand there for a long time, listening to the quiet. I almost knock. I almost go inside, to see if she’s awake, to hear if her voice will shatter or soften when she sees me.
