“I’m not questioning your power,” he says evenly. “I’m questioning your priorities. You’re letting her become the center of everything.”
“She’s in danger,” I growl.
“Yes,” he agrees. “And you can’t protect her if you lose yourself.”
The words land harder than I expect. I look away, unable to meet his eyes.
He’s right; the anger isn’t at him, or my men. It’s at myself.
She’s becoming my undoing, piece by piece.
I grip the edge of the table, breathing hard.
Nikolai watches me with something like sympathy and something like concern.
“I’ve seen men fall apart over less,” he says quietly. “Don’t let her be the reason you lose the empire you built.”
I lift my gaze to him, the truth bleeding through the cracks I’ve tried to seal.
“I don’t care about the empire,” I admit. “Not like I care about her.”
He exhales, long and low. “Then God help you,” he murmurs.
Nikolai leaves me in the wreckage of my own anger, the office still and heavy with everything I can’t say aloud. My knuckles bleed quietly onto the scattered papers. I stare at the door long after it closes, wrestling with the admission that scares me more than any enemy ever could.
She is my weakness. My obsession. I would raze everything I’ve built if it meant keeping her safe, if it meant she’d look at me with anything but hatred.
Down the hall, I hear her voice, a sharp reply to a maid.
It draws me like a flame draws a moth. I want to see her, to touch her, to remind myself she’s real and mine.
Still, I stay where I am, surrounded by broken glass and splintered wood, knowing she’s already done what no rival ever managed: she’s found the heart I thought I’d buried.
Chapter Seventeen - Clara
Days pass, but nothing inside me settles. If anything, the longing and the shame twist tighter. Every time I catch Lukyan’s gaze across a room, heat flares in my cheeks, and I have to look away, remembering the weight of his body, the sound of his voice in the dark, the way my body surrendered even as my mind screamed for distance.
My skin prickles when he’s near; my thoughts spiral when he’s gone. It feels like I’m living on the edge of a fever.
I hate how easily he consumes my thoughts. I hate how every deep voice in the hallway makes my heart lurch, how even the sound of his measured footsteps sends a rush of anticipation and dread straight to my chest.
I keep telling myself it was just loneliness, just weakness, just survival instinct… but every night, I remember his hands, his mouth, the way he looked at me like he could see the parts of myself I’d never shown anyone.
Every morning, I wake up wanting him, hating him, and hating myself for both.
I spend my days avoiding him. I read in the conservatory, hide in the library, wander the gardens under the watchful gaze of guards who never speak unless they must. Even the air in this house is heavy with secrets and expectation.
My only solace is the routine, the sense of something I can control—meals at certain times, walks along the same stone path, the steady, silent company of the housemaids.
One afternoon, as rain patters softly against the windows, I find myself sitting at the kitchen table, hands wrapped around a mug of too-strong tea. The kitchen is warm and smells faintlyof bread and soap. It’s the closest thing to comfort I’ve found in weeks.
Irina, one of the maids—a woman in her forties with kind eyes and a thick braid—moves around the room with practiced efficiency. She pauses when she sees me, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Is something wrong, Mrs. Sharov?” she asks, voice soft but certain.
I almost laugh at the name. It still feels like a joke, a costume I can’t shed. I shake my head, then realize how ridiculous it is to lie.
“I’m fine,” I say, voice thin.
