"You're not a threat. You're just lost."
"I'm exactly where I've always been." But there was something in his expression—a flicker of uncertainty, of frustration at his own reaction to her. "You're the one who's lost. A human with delusions of importance."
"Then why did kissing me affect you?"
His jaw clenched. "It didn't."
"Liar."
The temperature dropped so fast frost formed on the glass walls. "Leave."
"Eliam—"
"Leave before I decide to stop being generous about your trespass." His voice was deadly quiet. "Whatever game you're playing, whatever you think you're owed, it ends now."
She stood frozen, her lips still burning from his cruel kiss, watching him walk away. At the door, he paused without turning.
"And little human? Don't come here again. The roses remember blood, and they're always hungry."
Then he was gone, leaving her alone with the hungry flowers and the shattering of her heart.
Chapter thirty-eight
The night stretched endless and hollow.
Briar lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, counting each sound from the room next door. Eliam's footsteps pacing—seven steps, turn, seven steps, turn. The scrape of a chair. The creak of his bed when he finally lay down. Every sound proof of how close he was and how utterly unreachable he'd become.
Her lips still ached from his kiss. She touched them with trembling fingers, feeling the slight swelling where he'd been deliberately rough. Her body remembered even if he didn't—the way she'd melted into him for that brief moment before reality crashed back. The way he'd made that confused sound, caught between want and rejection.
She pressed her palm flat against the wall that separated them. The stone was cold, solid, real. On the other side, he was probably sleeping peacefully, unburdened by memories of her. No dreams of gardens or moonlight or the way she'd gasped his name. Just blissful, empty sleep.
Her chest hitched with a sob she wouldn't let escape. She'd cried enough. Been weak enough. But the pain kept building, wave after wave of it, until she couldn't breathe properly. Her throat burned with suppressed sounds. Her eyes burned with tears that wouldn't stop coming no matter how many times she wiped them away.
She touched her neck where the marks used to be. The skin was smooth now, unmarked, ordinary. As if he'd never claimed her at all. Her fingers searched for any trace, any raised line or roughness that would prove it had been real. Nothing. Just soft human skin that would never bear his thorns again.
The bargain was complete. Allegra was healed. The bond was gone.
The thought kept circling through her mind as the hours crawled toward dawn. She had no reason to stay. No claim on him. No place here.
By the time pale light crept through her window, she knew what she had to do.
She found Thaine in the weapons hall, running a whetstone along a blade with mechanical precision. The scrape of metal on stone stopped when she entered. He looked up, and his expression crumbled slightly before he caught himself.
"You're leaving." Not a question.
"The bargain is complete. The bond is gone." The words came out steady though her chest felt like it was caving in. "I want to leave on my own terms."
"Briar—"
"Don't." Her voice cracked. She pressed her hand to her mouth, fighting for control. After a moment, she tried again. "He kissed me yesterday to prove a point. To show me I don't belong here. And he's right. I don't."
"He doesn't know what he's doing. If we just give him time—"
"Time for what?" The words burst out, too loud in the quiet hall. "Time to maybe remember? To watch him look through me every day? Time to see him find someone else because he doesn't know I ever existed?"
She sank onto a bench, her whole body shaking. Thaine crossed to her, crouched in front of her, his usual stoicism cracking.
"I can't do this anymore," she whispered. "Every time I see him, it breaks me a little more. He's right there, Thaine. Right there. And he doesn't know me. Doesn't want to know me. I need to leave before there's nothing left of me to save."
