I don’t respond. I’m still staring at my hand. At the ring. At the weight of it. At everything it means and everything it cost.
Finn frowns. “Róisín?”
Nothing.
His tone shifts—just a little. Less sharp. “Are you alright?”
He steps closer. That’s the mistake. I move before he finishes the step. Steel flashes into my hand—small, familiar, hidden where it always is. I’m in front of him in a heartbeat, the blade pressed to his throat so precisely it’s almost tender. The edge bites just enough to draw a thin line of blood.
Finn freezes. Not fear.Recognition.
“Do not,” I say quietly, voice deadly calm, “ever touch me again.”
His pulse jumps beneath the knife.
“I hate you,” I continue. “For this. For all of it. For taking something that was meant to be mine and turning it into a cage.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t move.
“I would rather die,” I say, pressing the blade a fraction closer, “than lie in your marital bed and pretend this is love.”
The words land like gunshots. I pull the knife away cleanly, already stepping back. He reaches for me instinctively—I turn before he can. I walk out of the room with my spine straight and my blood roaring, the ring heavy on my finger, my necklace cold against my throat. I don’t look back.
The hours pass and I don’t leave my bedroom again. When staff knock, I don’t answer. When someone murmurs about lunch, I finally speak through the door, voice sharp and absolute.
“Bring it here.”
Silence follows. Then footsteps retreat. I lock the door. And for the first time since this nightmare began, I let myself breathe—knife in hand, heart in pieces, fury the only thing holding me together.
Chapter six
A Possession Performed
Finnian
Istandoutsideherdoorlonger than I should. That’s the first mistake. The second was giving her the ring.
I knew it the moment it left my hand—knew exactly what it would do. Knew it would rip something open that I’d spent years burying under orders and blood and discipline. I should’ve kept it locked away, should’ve let the wedding bands do the talking. Clean, practical, impersonal. But I needed to see it.
Needed to seeherreact to something that wasn’t rage sharpened into a weapon. Anger, I can handle. Anger is familiar, anger means she’s still standing. What I can’t stomach is emptiness.
So aye—maybe it was selfish. Maybe it was cruel, maybe I handed her a ghost and watched it bleed all over us both. Butwhen her hand shook, when her voice cracked just enough that she couldn’t hide it, something in my chest loosened like I’d been holding my breath since the chapel.
There’s still something there and that matters.
I drag a hand down my face and stare at the wood grain of the door like it might give me absolution. I feel the sting at my throat where she nicked me earlier—nothing serious, just enough to remind me who she is, who we are.
She hates me,good. Hatred means she feels. Hatred means she hasn’t gone numb. Hatred means she’s still mine in the only way that’s ever counted between us—tight, violent, impossible to sever without killing something vital.
Are we toxic?Probably.Do we destroy everything we touch when we’re together?Almost certainly.
But I don’t back down, I never have. She was raised in knives and silence. I was raised in power and consequence. Whatever we are, we were always going to be sharp, always going to cut. And if giving her that ring reminded her—remindedboth of us—that this wasn’t just a deal stitched together by old men and bad blood… Then I’d do it again, even knowing she’d put a blade to my throat for it.
I don’t knock, I open the door like I’ve always opened doors in this house—like what’s on the other side already belongs to me. She’s sitting on the window seat, not pacing, not plotting, just… there. Knees drawn up slightly, hands folded in her lap, staringout at the sky as the sun bleeds itself out over Belfast. Gold and red streak the glass, catching in her hair, softening the hard lines she’s worn all day like armour. She doesn’t move when I enter, doesn’t flinch. After everything today, that alone should tell me how far gone she is. Then she looks up and something in my chest caves in.
For a split second—just one, brutal second—she isn’t the woman who put a blade to my throat this morning. She isn’t Lady Malloy with blood in her voice or my future wife bristling with knives and fury… She’s the girl I fell in love with.
Young, unguarded, sitting in the same light, years ago, when the world hadn’t sharpened itself against us yet. When it was just the two of us and stolen hours and whispered plans that felt indestructible. Before violence taught us new languages, before betrayal rewrote everything we thought we knew.
