I smile, sharp, pleased. “Good. I’d hate to think you’d stopped fighting.”
Her breath hitches when I step closer, my thumb brushing her cheek, my mouth almost at her ear.
“Remember who you’re with tonight,” I whisper. “Remember what happens when you defy me.”
She stares at me, trembling with something that is not quite fear. “What does happen, Miron?”
I let her question hang, savoring the tension. “You find out just how much I want you.”
She flushes, but doesn’t look away. The heat between us crackles, undeniable, before I force myself to let her go. The evening is not over, and the eyes of my world are everywhere.
We return to the ballroom, the crowd parting around us. I hold her arm a fraction tighter, my own mask of authority back in place. Tonight, everyone will see her at my side—see that she is not just another possession, but the only one I cannot control.
***
Later, as we step out onto the balcony, I watch the city with her, knowing the world is watching us. She is both prisoner and queen, and the line between them blurs more every time she looks my way.
“I hope you’re ready for what comes next,” I say quietly.
Sera’s reply is soft, defiant: “Are you?”
The crowd parts for Markian Sharov as easily as if parted for a king. He enters, tall and broad-shouldered, his wife Jessa on his arm—sharp green dress, clever smile, radiating a different kind of power. But it’s the two little girls who really break the scene: Liana and Sofia, their laughter bubbling over, silk bows askew, cheeks flushed with excitement.
They spot me from across the hall and make a beeline, weaving through adults with careless speed, unafraid. Liana hurls herself at my knees.
Sofia grabs my hand, her tiny fingers sticky with icing from some dessert she’s stolen from a tray.
For a moment, I kneel down—unbothered by the eyes that watch me, uncaring who sees. They chatter in a rush—questions about school, about their kitten, about whether I’ll take them to the zoo this weekend as promised. I listen, answering each with the kind of patience I never give anyone else. The world blurs around us; I am only uncle here, not king or monster.
The girls’ laughter softens everything. Sera stands nearby, just out of reach, watching with that careful stillness I’ve come to know. When Liana sees her, her whole face lights up. “Sera!” she squeals. “You’re here too!” Sofia tugs at Sera’s gown, eyes wide. “Will you draw with us later?”
Jessa glides over, dropping a kiss on my cheek before giving Sera an appraising, not unkind look. “Careful, Miron,” she teases, “they’ll trade you in for Sera if you’re not careful. Apparently you’re not the only favorite anymore.”
The words hang there, warm and bright, and I catch Sera’s laugh—clear, unguarded, different than anything she’s given me. The sight shakes me more than it should. I watch the way she kneels to the girls’ height, the way she listens, how easily she lets herself be drawn into their orbit.
For a second, a dangerous tenderness swells in my chest as I catch a glimpse of something human and gentle I’d almost forgotten.
Jessa nudges me, voice low: “She’s good for them. For you, maybe.”
I say nothing, but I file it away. Watching Sera laugh with the girls, their tiny hands tangled in her gown, I feel a strange ache, and it’s something dangerously close to longing.
Eventually, the evening winds down. The girls are collected by Markian’s security, and we slip out quietly.
In the car, the silence stretches—thick and unresolved. Pavel drives, eyes on the road, stone-faced as ever. Sera stares out the window, her hands folded in her lap, tension radiating from her in waves.
I expect her to keep silent. Instead, she turns to me, voice sharp and brittle. “How long?”
I look at her, eyebrow raised. “How long what?”
She doesn’t blink. “How long have you been watching me? Before all this. Before the market, the ball, the night you took me.”
The question is sharper than a knife. She deserves the truth, or as much as I’ll ever give anyone. I weigh the options: lie, soften it, pretend I don’t remember. But the old games feel pointless now.
“Weeks,” I say quietly. “Months, maybe. I noticed you first in the files. Your work stood out—meticulous, too clever to be just another analyst. I sent men to watch you, to track your routines. I followed you myself. You never saw me.”
She goes still, every muscle taut. “You followed me,” she echoes, voice faint.
I nod, unflinching. “I memorized everything: how you wore your hair, how you liked your coffee, how you always double-checked the locks on your door. I knew the routes you walked, the friends you called, the nights you cried when you thought no one was listening.” I say it softly, not as an accusation but as a confession.
