Corvith's expression doesn't shift, but I've known him long enough to read the question in his silence.
"She's not a prisoner," I say, because that has to be clear. "She has full run of the castle. No locked doors, no guards trailing her. If she wants to leave—" The words stick in my throat. "If she wants to leave, she can try."
We both know what I mean when I saytryand how futile it truly would be. The mountains would kill her before she made it halfway down, but the choice matters—the illusion of freedom, at least, even if true freedom is impossible.
"And if she asks for weapons, my lord?"
The question hangs between us.
"She won't ask." I'm already walking away. "She'll just take them."
-
I spend the day watching her from a distance.
The bond we formed during the claiming gives me her emotions—flickers of feeling that bleed through the connection whether I want them or not. Irritation. Curiosity. The sharp focus of a survivor assessing her surroundings. But emotions don't tell me what she's doing, where she's going, what she's planning.
So I follow her through the shadows of my own castle like a ghost, keeping to corridors she's already passed through, watching from doorways and balconies and the dark corners that three centuries have shown me. My beast wants to be closer, wants to step into the light andbe seen, but I deny it.
She needs to believe she's alone. Needs to map this territory on her own terms, find the exits that don't exist, discover for herself that there's no escape from this mountain or from me.
She goes to the kitchens first. I watch from the servant's passage as she takes food without asking—bread, cheese, dried meat—while the kitchen staff freeze in place like rabbits who've spotted a wolf. She ignores their stares, eating as she walks, practical and efficient. No shame in this one, that's for sure.
She explores the eastern wing next, and I shadow her through corridors I know better than my own heartbeat. I watch her test windows—too high, too narrow, nothing but a killing drop to the rocks below. Watch her find the eastern gate and stare at the sheer cliff face beyond, her shoulders tightening with frustration I can feel echoing through the bond. No escape there. No escape anywhere. Not for anyone who can't shift to a dragon and unfurl their wings.
She takes more food from the kitchens on her second pass and disappears into an empty storeroom. When she emerges, her hands are empty—a cache secured somewhere I'll pretend not to know about. She has survival instincts, this one. If shecan't escape now, she'll be sure she's ready when the moment comes.
Then she finds the training hall where my warriors and guards spar with each other.
I watch from the gallery above as she moves through the space like she belongs there, her fingers trailing across weapon racks with the ease of someone who's held blades since childhood. Through the bond I feel her sudden comfort, her recognition—this is familiar territory for her, the weight of steel and the promise of violence. She's more at home among weapons than she was in my bed.
She lingers at the hunting daggers, and my pulse quickens.
Her hand closes around one—six inches, leather-wrapped hilt, the kind that disappears into a boot—and I watch her test its weight, its balance, the sharpness of its edge. Satisfaction bleeds through the bond as she slides the blade into her boot, settling it against her calf like it belongs there.
I could stop her. Call the guards, have them confiscate the blade, remind her that claimed omegas don't carry weapons in civilized places, especially around their powerful and protective mates.
I don't move from my hidden perch.
Let her have it, I think.Let her plan. Let her try.
The truth is simpler and sadder than anything: I've been waiting for someone capable of ending my life for three hundred years, and if she's the one who finally manages it, I won't complain. Gods know that I've tried myself to end this torment, only to discover that one side affect of the curse is that it won't let me die by my own hands. But an omega's hands... well, that would be a fitting way to end it all.
The sun tracks across the sky while I follow her through my fortress, learning her patterns as she learns its shape. She's thorough, methodical, not easily deterred from her goals orprone to despair. Even in a simple nightgown and her mud-splattered boots she manages to move like a huntress, a warrior born and bred. By late afternoon she's covered most of the castle, and I've memorized the way she moves—quick and quiet, always aware of her surroundings, always ready to fight or flee.
When evening falls, she returns to my chambers and settles into the shadows near the wardrobe. Waiting.
I feel her emotions through the bond—anticipation, resolve, a cold determination that sits like iron in my chest.
She's going to try to kill me tonight.
-
Night falls, and I can't avoid her forever.
The bond drags at me with every breath as I climb the stairs toward my chambers, my beast pacing and snarling beneath my skin.Ours. Go. Now.She's in there—near the wardrobe, pressed into the shadows where I won't see her until she wants to be seen. Waiting with steel in her hand and murder in her heart.
She's going to try to kill me.
