Then he leaned closer, his voice dropping to something only meant for me. “You’d better get used to me.” His fingers dug in harder. Not enough to break skin. Enough to remind me he could. It hurt. “Because I am your future.”
Pain flew up my arm, my pulse hammering wildly beneath his grip. “Stop it.”
“I’ll stop when I’m satisfied you’ve heard me. You’re very confused, Elariya.” His voice was dangerously calm. “That’s what this is. You’ve been sick. You’ve forgotten things. It makes you difficult to manage.”
“Difficult? Because I needed air?”
“Cut the fucking shit.”
The words landed like a slap.
“You have tested my patience for long enough.” He yanked me flush against his chest.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“You belong to me now,” he said quietly. “By law. By contract. By every rule that matters in this kingdom. And I will not have you embarrassing me with this…resistance. You are going to be my wife whether you like it or not. Whether you love me or not.”
Tears burned behind my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. “You don’t get to decide what I feel.”
He threw me a wicked smile. “But that’s just the thing, my love. I do. You don’t get to decideanything,” he whispered. “Not anymore. Not if you want your magic-born family to stay alive. I’m the one with the power here. You’d do well to remember that.”
Blessed Mother.This…
This was why Emabelle was afraid.
His hand dropped from my arm as if I disgusted him.
I stumbled backward, nearly losing my footing as the sudden absence of his grip left me unsteady.
Chills raced through my body, blooming beneath my skin.
Then, as if nothing happened, Thayden straightened and smoothed his expression, the mask sliding back into place.
If anyone had been watching, they would have seen nothing more than a concerned betrothed giving his future wife space.
“Get yourself together,” he said coolly, then turned and headed back toward the house.
I stood there shaking, my arm throbbing where his fingers had been.
The garden looked the same. The house looked the same. But something vital in my life had shifted, and I could feel it in my bones.
I took a shaking step backward, as if the ground itself had shifted beneath me.
My legs barely remembered how to hold my weight as I turned and fled.
I didn’t look back at the house. I couldn’t. If I did, I might scream. Or do something that couldn’t be undone.
My skirts caught on low branches as I ran, breath tearing from my lungs as I crossed the garden’s edge and plunged into the forest, a place I was never meant to be.
The air changed instantly, becoming cooler, damp with moss and earth, carrying the quiet, ancient scent of things that had existed long before men like Thayden decided they owned the world.
My feet carried me without thought, deeper and deeper, until the sounds of the house faded behind me.
I stopped only when my strength failed.
An oak rose before me, massive and gnarled, its trunk thick enough that I couldn’t have wrapped my arms around it if I tried. I pressed myself against it, welcoming the rough bark beneath my palms.
It gave me something different to feel, other than the desolation ripping at my soul.
