I reach for her wrist before I can think, fingers closing gently over her skin. Her pulse jumps under my thumb. She doesn’t pull away.
“I’m not your problem, Clara.”
She holds my gaze, unflinching. “Maybe not, but you’re still bleeding on my floor.”
A laugh escapes me, soft, surprised, almost helpless. The sound cracks something inside my chest. For the first time in years, I let someone care for me, and it doesn’t feel like weakness. It feels like surrender. Like trust.
I let go of her wrist. She stands, wiping her hands on a towel before glancing at the ruined desk, the blood on her palms.She looks so tired, but so alive. For a moment, I almost reach for her again. Instead, I lean back, exhaustion dragging me under.
“Thank you,” I murmur, the words unfamiliar, foreign on my tongue.
She gives a small, bitter smile. “Don’t thank me. I don’t even know if I hate you right now.”
I watch her leave, closing the door softly behind her. The office is silent again, but the ache in my arm is nothing compared to the ache she leaves in her wake. I stare at the bandage, at the smear of her touch on my skin.
She’s not afraid of me, not really. Not the way everyone else is.
That’s what makes her dangerous. That’s what makes me wish I was still the kind of man who could push her away.
Chapter Thirteen - Clara
Days pass after the night I tended his wound, and the mansion settles into a strange quiet. Not peaceful—never that—but different. The silence between us no longer cuts like a blade. Instead, it hums. Heavy. Charged.
Every time I turn a corner, I expect to see him. Every time I don’t, I feel the ghost of him anyway. A presence that lingers like heat in the walls.
I avoid him, but it does nothing. His shadow follows me through the library. The conservatory. The halls where the floorboards remember the sound of his boots. Even my dreams refuse to let me forget the brush of his fingers on my waist, the near-kiss we almost shared.
I hate how my breath catches when I think about it. I hate the questions that rise up in me—what I felt, what I wanted, what I still want.
I try to focus on escape instead. On reality. On the world beyond these massive walls.
One afternoon, while pretending to look for tea in the kitchen, I corner a guard by the back entrance. Not Nikolai—a younger one whose name I don’t know. His hand rests on his holster even when he’s just standing still. I force my voice to stay steady.
“When will Lukyan let me go? I’ve been here for weeks.”
He stiffens, eyes flicking toward the hallway as if expecting someone to appear. “You shouldn’t be asking that.”
“Why not?”
“Just… stop. Don’t make this harder.”
My pulse jumps. “Harder for who?”
He doesn’t answer. His grim expression—the pity in it, the resignation—says more than words ever could. I step back, cold seeping into my spine.
I’m not leaving. Not soon. Maybe not ever.
That night, I lie awake, staring at the ceiling. The storm has passed. The house is too quiet. Sleep refuses to come. My heartbeat feels too loud in the dark. I press my palms to my eyes, trying to breathe through the panic clawing at the edges of my chest.
Eventually, I get up. I slip a sweater over my shoulders and tiptoe through the hallway, drawn to the one place I shouldn’t be.
His office.
The door is cracked just enough for voices to spill out—low, urgent, tense. I freeze, pulse hammering, then edge closer until I can make out the words.
“…Ivan’s men were spotted again near the west fence,” one voice says. “They know you brought someone here.”
A pause. Papers rustle. Someone exhales sharply.
