Not the comfort I expected—not the gentle absolution ofit's not your fault. Something harder. Something that expects more from me than endless suffering.
Something that sounds almost like hope.
"I don't know how to be anything else," I admit. "This is what I've been for three centuries. The guilty king. The monster in the mountain. The curse that kills everything it touches."
"Then learn." She says it like it's simple. Like three hundred years of self-hatred can be unlearned over dinner. "You have time. We have time. Unless you're planning to carve my name on one of those stones."
"Never." The word comes out fierce, absolute. "I will never carve your name on those stones."
"Then figure out how to live with yourself. Because I'm not interested in being mated to a man who's already decided he deserves to suffer forever."
The wordmatedhangs in the air between us, and I feel it land in my chest like a brand.
She flushes, the color spreading down her neck to the exposed skin above her neckline. "I didn't mean?—"
"Kess."
"Forget I said that."
"Kess." I wait until she looks at me again, those amber eyes wide and uncertain. "I don't want to forget you said that."
The flush deepens, and I watch it spread across her collarbones, disappearing beneath the dark green fabric. I want to follow it with my mouth. Want to taste the heat of her embarrassment on my tongue, feel her pulse jump beneath my lips.
She looks young suddenly, uncertain in a way I've never seen her—not the feral omega who tried to kill me, not the warrior who matches Carter blow for blow. Just a woman who said more than she meant to and doesn't know how to take it back.
The bond pulses between us, and I feel her want bleeding through it like heat through thin cloth. Feel her fear tangled up with desire, her uncertainty warring with something that tastes like hope.
I should let her off the hook. Change the subject. Retreat to safe ground.
Instead I push back from the table and stand, my chair scraping against stone. Her eyes track me as I move around the massive oak, closing the distance between us step by step. Her breath quickens—I can hear it, can smell the spike of arousal underneath her uncertainty—but she doesn't move away.
I stop beside her chair. Close enough to touch. Close enough that her scent wraps around me like silk, like smoke, like something I could drown in happily.
"I'm trying," I say, and my voice comes out lower than I intended, rougher. "To be better. To be someone who deserves—" I stop, not sure how to finish.
"Deserves what?" She has to tilt her head back to look at me, and the motion exposes the line of her throat, the claiming mark I left there. My mark. My teeth in her skin.
"You."
The word falls into the silence, and I watch her pupils dilate, watch her lips part on a sharp intake of breath. The bond sings between us, demanding, insistent, and it takes everything I have not to bend down and take her mouth, not to haul her up from the chair and press her against the table and remind us both what we are to each other.
She stands abruptly, and suddenly we're too close—her chest nearly brushing mine, her breath warm against my jaw. I canfeel the heat radiating off her skin through the thin fabric of her dress.
"I should go," she says, but she doesn't move away. Her voice has gone husky, and I can smell how much she wants to stay. "It's late. I need to—the tea. I should drink my tea before bed."
The mention of the tea is a blade between my ribs, cutting through the haze of want.
"Wait." I'm on my feet before I realize I've moved. "I'll bring you your tea. Stay here."
I don't give her a chance to argue, just turn and walk out of the dining hall. The tea is already prepared in my chambers—I make it fresh each morning, keep it ready for her. A small thing. A necessary thing.
The walk through the castle is quick, purposeful. I know what I'm doing. Know why I'm doing it. The bond puts strain on her changing body, demands resources her transformation needs. By weakening it, I'm giving her the best chance to survive.
The cost is mine to bear. The fraying connection, the dulled sense of her presence, the growing distance between us—that's my burden, not hers. She'll live. That's what matters.
I retrieve the tea and carry it through the quiet corridors to her chambers.
Her door is open a crack, warm light spilling into the hall.
