Silence held for a beat.
My breath went shallow again, the words sinking into me. She believed it. Not as a story she told to please her jailer. As a truth carved into her very being.
Malric’s gaze sharpened, as if calculating who she was and how to use her. A weapon. A curse. An omega hidden away for a reason.
And beneath that calculation, something else flared through our bond. Not tenderness. Not desire. Something more dangerous.
Possibility.
My chest tightened. I stared at Malric’s profile, at the way he held himself so controlled it looked like calm, and I wondered how long that control would last with her scent in the air and the king’s name hanging between us like a blade.
I couldn’t lose him.
Not to her. Not to the war. Not to the promise of a future that didn’t include me.
“Aveline,” I said again, steadier now, forcing my voice into the shape of reassurance even as my storm churned under my ribs. “We need to understand what this place is. What you are to him.”
Her eyes widened with fresh fear. “I’m not—” She cut herself off, breath catching. “I don’t want to be anything. I just want you to leave. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Malric took another step, and the air tightened immediately, the tower humming louder beneath our feet. Aveline flinched hard enough that she nearly stumbled.
I moved without thinking, stepping between Malric and her line of sight, not blocking him fully, but forcing him to slow.
His gaze snapped to mine, irritation sharp and immediate. “Move.”
“Not like this,” I said quietly. “If you push her, she’ll shut down, or she’ll scream, and if her father truly is the king?—”
Malric’s eyes narrowed. “If he’s the king, then she’s the reason this tower exists.”
“And if she’s terrified, then she’s not your enemy,” I shot back, then immediately regretted the edge in my voice because it carried too much of my desperation.
Malric’s stare held mine a moment longer, the bond taut between us, strained by the new presence in the room.
Behind me, Aveline’s breath came in shallow bursts. The scent in the air warmed, thickened, and my body reacted again, heat curling low and urgent, a reminder that no matter how hard I tried to keep my head, my instincts were already awake.
I forced myself to breathe through it, to stay steady.
Aveline’s voice came soft, shaking. “Please.”
The word wasn’t directed at either of us specifically. It was aimed at the room, at the tower, at anything that might listen.
Malric’s jaw worked, then he stepped back half a pace, the smallest concession, but enough that the tower’s hum eased.
His gaze cut back to Aveline. “You said the king put you here.”
She nodded quickly.
“Why?” he demanded.
Aveline’s eyes darted to me, then down. Her shoulders curled inward as if the answer hurt. “He said I’m dangerous,” she whispered. “That I hurt someone when I was young.”
“Who?” I asked, softer.
Her breath shuddered. “My mother.”
The words filled the chamber, their gravity causing my skin to tingle. Malric went still again, and his attention shifted in thebond. Not softness. A recalibration. The war mind taking in a new fact, placing it carefully.
Aveline’s eyes lifted, shining with something she refused to let fall. “He said he couldn’t protect anyone if I did it again,” she added. “He said I couldn’t leave.”
