“It was like being struck by lightning. I remember thinking, ‘How dare she?’ Me. Dominic Blackwood. I’d never been denied a single thing in my life.” His mouth twists into a rictus. “But beneath the fury, it was the first time someone actually sawme. Not the heir, not the polished monster, just me in all my fucked-up glory.”
The words stir a memory of that first year, watching him prowl the Academy halls like a caged beast. Everyone else saw power, danger, privilege . . . but I noticed what they missed. The smile that never reached his eyes, the tension threading through his shoulders when no one was watching, the slight flinch whenever his father’s name was spoken.
“I told myself I hated it,” he continues, thumb tracing slow circles over my hand. “Spent months trying to dismantle you. Wanted towatch you bend like the rest. But every time you didn’t, every time you met my cruelty with that unshakable defiance . . .” His eyes lift to mine. “You became an obsession. The only real thing in a world built on performance.”
Those months of warfare rush back. His calculated insults, the cold smiles, the way he’d pin me in a hallway only to let something venomous slip. I’d thought he wanted to humiliate me, to grind me down, never realizing he was begging me to prove I was different.
A part of me still wants to reach for him, to believe this, at least, is real. But the new darkness in my blood whispers doubt, twisting every shared moment—every touch, every confession—into something poisoned. My fingers clutch the sheets, torn between the urge to comfort him, and the voice in my mind that screams to pull away.
“You never tried to please me or play the games everyone else did. When I was cruel, you called me on it. When I pushed you away, you shoved back. Even when you finally saw the rot beneath the charm, and the blood on my hands, you didn’t run or pretend I could be saved. You just . . .” His voice fractures. “You saw it. All of it. And you stayed.”
“Dom—”
“It might’ve started as one of their schemes. Maybe I was supposed to be their perfect weapon against you. But the moment you looked at me like I was just a man—flawed and broken and real—everything changed.” He shakes his head. “For the first time in my life, I wasn’t acting or playing the role they’d written for me. With you, I finally existed.”
My heart clenches painfully in my chest because I remember those moments too. Moments when his carefully constructed walls would crack, showing glimpses of the wounded boy beneath. The tremble in his hands after nightmares he wouldn’t speak of. How his voice would soften when it was only us in the dark. Heat pricks behind my eyes as I realize even the most intimate pieces of him might have been built on lies.
“This is so fucked up,” I whisper, letting my head fall against his chest. “I feel like my whole life was never truly mine. I was a specimen raised in a cage and didn’t even know it.”
“You’re not alone in that.” His arms wrap around me, pulling me closer. “We were both groomed for roles we never agreed to play.”
I breathe in his familiar scent, trying to ground myself. “What happened after I passed out?”
His entire body stiffens beneath me. “You died. For a full minute, your heart stopped. It was enough to ruin me.” His grip tightens until my ribs protest, but I don’t pull away. “Then the Vale’s team arrived with some treatment, and hooked you up to blood and potions I’d never seen before. You were breathing but completely unresponsive. Father said you’d wake up eventually, but . . .”
“He planned it,” I whisper against his shirt. “Him and Alexander both.”
Dom nods once slowly. His chin lowers to rest against the top of my head.
After a moment, he asks softly, “Did you see it happen? Raze?”
“No.” My voice breaks. “But it was my fault. I told him to give us privacy. To wait outside. If I hadn’t—” Guilt punches through me, merciless and immediate.
“Shhh.” Dom’s lips press to my hair, his breath shuddering against my temple. “He died protecting you. That’s . . .” A faint tremble runs through his grip. “That’s who he was.”
I let silent tears fall on his shirt.
“Remember the time he took a knife for me in that fight?” Dom asks. “Didn’t even hesitate. Just stepped right in front of it and had the audacity to laugh about ruining his favorite shirt while he bled all over the tiles.”
The memory perforates my chest, Raze’s gravel-warm laugh breaking free as the medics struggled to hold him still.
“He loved you, you know.” Dom’s words come out rough. “You were the little sister he never had. Used to tell me I better treat you right or he’d kick my ass, Blackwood heir or not.” His fingers glidesoothingly over my back. “He would’ve chosen this. Dying to protect someone he loved? That’s the only ending Raze ever would’ve accepted.”
Silence stretches thick between us. Full of regret, and with all the words we never said to Raze. The ones we’ll never get to say.
After a while, Dom shifts, and his voice is quieter now, more afraid. “Will we be okay?”
“Yes.” The lie slices my tongue on the way out, but I let it stand. “Just hold me, please?”
He exhales as if I’ve granted him mercy. Then pulls me down, curling around me until his body is a shield against the world. His fingers begin their slow, wordless pilgrimage—mapping the curve of my shoulder, the slope of my arm. Each touch is an apology, a quiet plea to undo tonight’s anger with reverence.
“I’ll fix this,” he whispers against my hair, thinking I’m drifting off. “Whatever it takes. Whatever you need.” His lips brush my temple, my cheek, the corner of my mouth. “We’ve survived worse. We’ll survive this too.”
I steady my breath, keeping my face tucked into the warm space beneath his collarbone, but inside, I’m unraveling.
The girl I was might have believed him; could’ve let those touches quiet her doubt, even mistake devotion for safety. But something fundamental has shifted inside me, and been replaced by a quiet knowing . . . that even his sweetest promises can ring hollow.
Dom’s hand spans my back, pulling me closer until I’m tucked against his chest. “I love you.” His voice is barely audible now. “Please don’t leave me.”
