I stepped closer, savoring the space between us like the last inhale before a plunge.
“You should rest,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, just loud enough to curl around the edge of her mind. “Tomorrow, everything changes.”
Her head turned, emerald eyes blazing. “Because I’ll be your wife?”
A bite in her voice. A line in the sand.
I leaned in—close enough for her to feel my breath, for her skin to remember my kiss. “Because now,” I murmured, “I don’t have to pretend anymore.”
She didn’t speak. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t fight.
Just turned.
And walked.
Each step a protest written in silence.
Each sway of fabric a vow she hadn’t said out loud: you don’t own all of me.
But oh, how wrong she was.
I watched her vanish into the house, that gown catching moonlight like a blade.
She thought the wedding was the end.
The climax.
The trap springing shut.
No.
That was just the spark.
Now?
We burn.
Chapter 11
Persephone
I entered first, my pulse thrumming like war drums beneath my skin.
The door slammed behind me—a petty act of rebellion, the only one I still had.
I didn’t expect peace.
But I wanted the illusion of it.
A single breath without him.
“Did you think the vows bought you solitude?” His voice slid beneath the crack of the door before it clicked shut.
No knock. No pause.
Just him, walking in like he owned the room.
Owned me.
