The way he said Ferria's name carried weight. They would deal with her betrayal later. There were too many other things to process first.
She tried to sit up, needing to see him, but his arms locked around her like iron bands.
"Don't," he commanded, his voice dropping to something darker. "Don't move."
"Eliam—"
"I said don't." His grip tightened almost painfully before he forced himself to loosen it. She could feel the tremor running through his muscles, the barely controlled violence of whatever he was holding back. "Just... stay still. Let me—"
He didn't finish. His hand remained on her throat, fingers pressing against her pulse like he needed to count each beat, to confirm she was alive and whole and here.
The silence stretched again. His breathing was too controlled, too measured. The kind of control that came from holding something massive back, from keeping emotions at bay through sheer force of will.
"I fed on you," he said finally, the words coming out flat, emotionless in the way that meant he was feeling too much.
Her heart lurched. Here it was. The thing she'd been dreading. The acknowledgment of what had happened in that cell, when she'd tilted her head and offered her throat and let him drink from her.
"I know," she whispered.
His hand on her throat tightened slightly, then loosened again. "I've never—" He stopped. Started again. "Human blood. I don't take human blood."
"I'm sorry," she said, the words escaping before she could stop them.
His whole body went rigid. "What?"
"I—I didn't know what else to do. How to save you." Her voice cracked. "Malus said it made him feel stronger so I thought that it would help—but after everything he did to me, my blood was—was ruined. Tainted. I'm—"
He moved so fast she didn't have time to finish. One moment he was behind her, the next he'd turned her roughly to face him, his hands on her shoulders, his face inches from hers. His eyes were completely black, pupils blown wide with rage or anguish or both.
"Stop," he said, the word coming out harsh. "Stop talking."
She stared at him, her heart hammering. His grip on her shoulders was almost painful, his whole body tense like a coiled spring ready to snap.
"You think—" He stopped, his jaw clenching. "You think that I'm disgusted by what I tasted?"
"Aren't you?" The question came out small, broken.
His hands moved from her shoulders to her face, cupping her jaw with a gentleness that contrasted sharply with the violence she could see barely contained in his expression.
"I'm furious," he said, each word deliberate and controlled. "I'm so angry I can barely think straight. But not at you."
She blinked, confused. "Then—"
"At myself." His thumbs traced her cheekbones, his touch achingly gentle. "At my brother. At every single lord who supported his claim to the throne, the entire situation that put you in his chambers in the first place."
The rawness in his voice made her chest tighten. This wasn't the cold, controlled Forest King. This was something else entirely. Something wounded and furious and barely holding together.
"When you were there," he continued, his voice dropping lower, rougher, "I felt it. Here.” He brought her hand to his chest. “I could feel your fear. Your pain. Something was hurting you, terrifying you, and I couldn't reach you. Couldn't stop it. I was going mad trying to understand what was causing it, trying to break free, and I couldn't." Hishand tightened on her face. "And now I know. Now I know exactly what he did, what you had to endure, and I want to tear him apart. I want to make him suffer for every second of fear I felt from you, for every moment of pain."
Not at you. He wasn't angry at her, wasn't disgusted or blaming her for what her body had done, for the choices she'd made to survive.
The tears came without warning, hot and fast, spilling down her cheeks before she could stop them. Great, shaking sobs that tore from her chest and made her whole body tremble. She tried to pull away, to hide her face, but his hands held her steady.
"Briar—" His voice held uncertainty now, the kind that came from someone who didn't know how to handle this. "Don't—you don't need to—"
But she couldn't stop. The tears kept coming, days of fear and violation and shame finally breaking through the walls she'd built around herself.
For a moment he just stared at her, his hands still cupping her face, clearly at a loss. Then he pulled her against his chest. His arms wrapped around her, crushing her close, one hand coming up to cradle the back of her head.
