I nodded, letting the silence stretch as the full weight of that reality settled between us. Left alone as a woman in a world where women weren’t allowed to exist independently. A woman who couldn’t inherit her father’s home or workshop. A womanwhose only value to society lay in her ability to serve men…as wife, as servant, or as whore.
The prince would know this. Would understand without me having to spell it out what happened to women like me. What choices, or lack thereof, we faced.
“So you see, Your Highness,” I said, my voice carefully neutral, “the forest wasn’t the first thing to claim me against my will. Society did that long before I ever set foot among those trees. Just like I learned my family crest being pulled from the bag hadn’t been as random as decieved.”
A moment of silence. Then the sound of the door slamming made me jump. I turned fully from the window for the first time since our conversation began, only to discover that Prince Alain had left abruptly. But we hadn’t been alone. Brigida stood near the entrance, one hand pressed to her mouth, tears glistening in her eyes.
She’d heard everything. Of course she had. The servants here probably knew more about me than the prince himself, listening from shadows, gathering scraps of my story to whisper about in kitchens and laundries.
“Who?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. The question didn’t need elaboration. Which category did you fall into? Whose possession did you become when your father was taken?
I turned back to the window, staring at the starry magic scattered across the night sky. The same stars that had witnessed every humiliation, every horror, every unexpected moment of grace in my strange journey.
“The cruelest man of them all,” I answered softly.
“His name,” she begged.
“I cannot give it without wrath finding me,” I whimpered in my sorrow.
“I’ll never share it. You have my word, miss.” Brigida knew I wasn’t lying, trying to get them to feel sorry for me. My words rang true inside her because she knew a man’s cruel touch too. And maybe, that’s why I chose to trust her.
“Gaspard Coventry.”
She left me then. Maybe she knew I needed time to collect myself, but I was grateful to be alone while my mask was down. While I couldn’t hide the protections inside my mind were beginning to crumble.
Warmth spread through my body like honey, slow and sweet, pulling me from the depths of dreamless sleep into something far more enticing. At first, I thought it was just the silk sheets against my skin, a luxury I still wasn’t accustomed to after months on cold stone. But then fingers—familiar yet strange—skimmed along my hip, and I knew this was more than simple comfort. I kept my eyes closed, afraid that opening them would shatter whatever spell had brought one of my beasts to me across the impossible distance separating us.
“You found me,” I whispered into the darkness, my voice catching on the words.
The touch paused momentarily before resuming its exploration, more confident now. Large hands slid beneath the thin nightdress, caressing the hollow of my waist where starvation had carved away what softness once existed. I should have felt self-conscious about my wasted body, but beneath these touches, I felt beautiful again. Whole. As thoughhis hands could restore what months of imprisonment had stolen.
Which beast had come to me? Marcel with his thoughtful intensity? Laurent and his gentle intellect? Or Bastien, whose fierce protectiveness had often manifested in passionate claiming? In the haze of half-sleep, I couldn’t tell. Perhaps it didn’t matter. They were parts of one another, three facets of a love I’d only just begun to understand when they were ripped away.
The bed dipped behind me as he shifted closer, his body heat enveloping me. I remained on my side, not daring to turn for fear the illusion would dissolve. His scent seemed different, less wild, more refined with notes of leather and cedar rather than forest and fur, but I attributed this to my addled mind, to the weeks of separation that had made memory unreliable.
“I’ve missed you,” I murmured, arching back against the solid wall of his chest. “Every day. Every moment.”
His response came not in words but in the press of lips against my shoulder, trailing up to the sensitive spot where my neck joined my collarbone. Teeth grazed the claiming mark there, and pleasure shot through me like lightning, a direct connection to the deepest part of me that belonged to them.
God, how I’d missed this. The sensation of being wanted, cherished, marked as theirs. In the dungeon, I’d sustained myself on memories of these touches, these moments where my body was worshipped rather than merely used. Where my pleasure mattered as much as his own.
His hands continued their reverent exploration, tracing the curve of my hip, the flat plane of my stomach, rising higher to cup my breast with a tenderness that brought tears to my eyes. My nipple hardened against his palm, and he teased it between his fingers, drawing a gasp from my lips that sounded embarrassingly loud in the quiet room.
“Please,” I begged, though for what exactly, I wasn’t sure. For more? For the completion I knew only they could give me? Or perhaps for this moment never to end, this precious reunion that logic told me couldn’t possibly be real.
The hand at my breast drifted lower, skating over my ribs, my stomach, down to the apex of my thighs. I parted my legs without hesitation, offering myself with the certainty of someone who knew her offering would be treasured. His fingers found me wet, ready, my body remembering what my mind had tried to forget during our separation.
He teased me with light touches, circling without giving the direct pressure I craved. I whimpered, pushing against his hand in wordless demand. His chest rumbled against my back, not quite a growl but something similarly possessive, and his teeth found my earlobe, tugging gently.
This wasn’t like the desperate couplings I’d endured before with Gaspard who saw only my beauty, who wanted only their own pleasure. Nor was it like the frantic passion that sometimes overtook my beasts when their animal nature demanded claiming. This was deliberate, measured. A slow build designed to drive me to the edge of sanity before granting relief.
“Don’t tease,” I gasped as his fingers slid through my folds without entering, without providing the friction I needed. “I’ve waited so long. Too long.”
He shifted behind me, and I felt the hard length of him press against my lower back, proof of his own desire. The nightdress that had twisted around my waist was pushed higher, exposing me fully to the cool air of the room. But I wasn’t cold, not with the heat of him behind me, not with the fire building low in my belly.
When his fingers finally slipped inside me, I cried out, my body clenching around the intrusion. One finger became two,stretching me gently, preparing me for what was to come. His thumb found the bundle of nerves at my center, circling with just enough pressure to make my toes curl but not enough to push me over.
“Now,” I pleaded, beyond pride, beyond restraint. “I need you now.”
