I don’t look back at Lev.
Because if I do, he’ll see it.
He’ll see the one truth I’ve spent five years forging over, erasing, burying beneath layers of discipline and ink.
Sienna Roth was never finished with me.
And apparently, neither was fate.
I remember my betrayal with brutal clarity.
The way she looked at me after she published that review—after she praised my work, elevated my name, believed I had wanted her. Chosen her. Cared for her. All while she was nothing more than a strategic seduction to me. A lie I used to manipulate an influential critic into reshaping my trajectory in a dangerous underground art world.
She gave me softness.
I gave her ruin.
And then I walked away without a backward glance.
I force my breathing to slow, to settle back into something that resembles control.
“Tell the council I’m not marrying her,” I say.
Lev doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to. The steel beneath his tone is unmistakable. “You don’t have a choice. This alliance secures two territories and neutralizes a threat. You will wed her.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.”
I push to my feet, heat climbing beneath my skin. “Lev, I won’t. You can’t change that. Even the Pakhan can’t change that. There’s nothing any of you can do to change my mind.”
Silence descends between us.
“She accepted already,” Lev says finally.
My jaw locks.
She accepted.
The words scrape against something raw inside me.
Why?
The question doesn’t leave my mouth, but it burns all the same.
Revenge? Desperation? Obligation?
Or maybe she wants access—to the Rusnak name, to money, to power—
No.
Sienna Roth has never been that kind of woman.
I know her. Even after five damned years, I know her. She is fire wrapped in civility. Intellect hidden behind lipstick. Rebellion tucked beneath designer white. She doesn’t bow. She doesn’t barter herself for politics or protection.
If she accepted this marriage…there’s a reason.
And I don’t like the weight that settles in my gut as possibilities begin to form.
