“I’m not your guest,” she said. “I’m your prisoner.”
“No,” he said softly. “You’re my chance to save everything I love.”
She stilled and for just a moment, she saw something in him. Not just power. Not just arrogance. But grief. Hope. A desperation that mirrored her own.
Still, she turned away.
“I’ll listen,” she said, “but I won’t forgive this.”
“Fair,” he murmured, voice low. “But you will understand it, soon. I promise you.”
Serenya sat back in her chair, her hands clasped in front of her.
Outside, the sea howled against the cliffs, and a distant storm crawled over the horizon like fate on blackened sails.
-Alarik-
She stood before him like a fallen star.
Not broken, but burning — wrapped in Kael’s scent, his bond, and his mark.
Alarik wanted to rip it from her.
The thin white band and moonstone on her finger shimmered faintly with the same magic that laced her aura now. He could feel it, barely-there tendrils of that cursed temporary tether binding her to the monster who’d murdered Elenwe. It pulsed faintly in her emotions, coloring them, dulling what should have been confusion and fury with something… warmer. Longing.
The taste of it soured in his mouth.
And yet, she was beautiful.
More than in dreams, more than the stolen glimpses he’d caught through scrying glass and moonlit visions. She was flushed from waking, skin kissed with the soft shimmer of her own power, her nightbound blood fully awakened now. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in thick black waves, her eyes glowing with residual stardust, and the silk of the night dress clung dangerously low on her frame.
Tasteful, yes.
But barely.
Alarik swallowed hard.
She was everything the seer had hinted at and more. A spark. Potential. The thread that could unravel the gods’ weaving. And yet, all he could focus on in that first moment wasn’t prophecy or war.
It was her.
Her strength.
Her fury.
The way she looked at him like she might rip him open with her bare hands and he’d let her if it meant she looked at him like that again.
And the tether…
It tugged now. Not the cursed ring she wore, that was Kael’s doing. No, this was older. Deeper. The dream-thread he’d sewn between them, however recklessly. The one that let him hear her thoughts in half-whispers, feel her confusion, taste her nightmares like ash on his tongue.
He wondered if she could sense it too— that connection pulling her toward him even now.
He felt himself respond, not with magic, but with need.
When his gaze drifted down to her hand again and that ring caught the light, his breath hissed through his teeth. He wanted to break it. Smash it. Shatter every thread Kael had tied around her.
She didn’t belong to him.
