“She is not a servant,” he continues, his voice steady, unyielding.
A murmur rises—cut short before it can fully form.
“She is not expendable.”
The words land harder this time, pushing against the boundaries of what this room is willing to accept.
“And she is not negotiable.”
Now the reaction comes, sharper, more fractured, nobles shifting, exchanging looks that carry more urgency than before.
“You’re making a mistake,” someone says, the words tight, controlled, but unable to hide the strain beneath them.
Verr doesn’t look in their direction.
“No,” he says.
Then his hand finds mine.
The contact is firm, deliberate, impossible to misinterpret, his fingers threading through mine with a certainty that anchors the moment in something no one in this room can dismiss.
“She is mine,” he says.
The word doesn’t carry possession.
It carries choice.
“Not as property,” he continues, tightening his grip slightly, grounding the distinction in something real. “As my mate.”
The chamber reacts all at once, not loudly, not chaotically, but in a sharp, contained surge of sound that breaks and reforms under the weight of what that means.
I don’t pull away.
I lace my fingers with his.
Let them see it.
Let them understand.
“You cannot—” a voice starts, sharper now, pushing against the boundary he just set.
“I can,” Verr cuts in, turning his head just enough to acknowledge the challenge without yielding to it. “And I have.”
The silence that follows crashes down harder than before.
Because now it isn’t uncertainty.
It’s reality.
His thumb shiftsagainst my hand, subtle, grounding, and I glance up at him just long enough to catch the edge of something in his expression that isn’t meant for them.
“You good?” I murmur.
He exhales quietly.
“Working on it.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “You are.”
