Then I calmly tell him no.
I tell him Victoria is under my protection now. That she came to me of her own free will. That if he wants her back, he’ll have to come through my entire fucking empire first.
The silence on the other end of the line is worth every war this will start.
I end the call and stand there for a long moment, feeling the weight of what I’ve just done settle into my bones. There is no undoing this. No pretending this is still a game.
Victoria believes running is her only option.
She’s wrong.
I’ll let her try, because she needs to know she still can.
But when I catch her, I’ll make sure she knows exactly who she is dealing with.
Victoria
I don’t hesitate.
The decision hits my body before it reaches my mind, muscle memory snapping into place like this is what I was always meant to do. I take the back stairs two at a time, heart hammering, lungs burning already as if they know what’s coming. The house doesn’t alarm. It doesn’t shout. That’s the cruelest part. It lets me go, smooth and silent, like it’s curious to see how far I’ll make it.
Cool air slams into my face as I burst through a side door and sprint across stone that’s been worn smooth by centuries of feet that never ran this hard. Gravel bites into the soles of my boots. The estate opens up around me in sweeping late morning light, rolling ground, low shrubs tracing paths that twist away into shadow. Beyond that, trees, dense and dark clawing at the sky.
I aim for them without thinking.
Branches whip at my arms as I plunge into the woods, breath tearing out of me in sharp bursts. The forest smells damp and alive, earth and rot and rain-soaked bark. The ground slopes unevenly, roots rising like traps under fallen leaves. Somewhere in the distance, a bird shrieks. Somewhere closer, I hear the unmistakable sound of boots on stone.
He’s already moving.
Panic flares hot, but it sharpens instead of slowing me. I duck and weave, pushing deeper, following instinct over logic. The trees thin suddenly, opening onto the skeletal remains of an old structure. Stone foundations half-swallowed by moss, remnants of something medieval and forgotten. Prague doesn’t erase its past. It builds around it and lets it fade away quietly.
I vault over a fallen wall and keep going.
My lungs scream. My legs burn. Every breath tastes like iron and fear. I don’t know where the edge of his land is, only that there has to be one. No one owns forever. No one builds an empire without a boundary.
My name carries through the trees behind me. Calm. Unhurried.
My blood turns cold.
He isn’t chasing like someone afraid of losing me. He’s chasing like someone enjoying the certainty of the outcome.
The ground rises suddenly, steep enough that my pace falters. I push harder, forcing my body up the incline as my calves burn. Branches tear at my jacket, thorns catch in my hair. And then the trees break apart, and I skid to a stop so hard I nearly fall.
The wall looms out of the ground like a judgment.
Old stone, high and thick, its surface rough with age and lichen, stretching left and right as far as I can see. It isn’t decorative. It isn’t modern. It’s the kind of wall built centuries ago to keep people in when escape meant death. I run my hands over it anyway, frantic, searching for cracks, footholds, anything.
There’s nothing.
I back away slowly, breath coming in ragged gasps, chest heaving as the truth settles heavy and absolute.
This isn’t just a boundary.
It’s an ending.
Slow footsteps crunch behind me. I don’t turn right away because I don’t want him to see the moment as it breaks on my face, the instant I understand that this wasn’t a race.
It was a demonstration.
