Oberon shakes his head once, already moving. “We need to set up where we’re sleeping in her room.”
“You don’t have to—” I start again, the protest automatic.
“We do,” Oberon cuts in, not even looking back.
Cassius’s gaze snaps to mine, sharp but not unkind. “This place isn’t safe. I don’t care how polite that lord is.”
Sylvian nods immediately. “He’s right.”
Cassius doesn’t take his eyes off me. “We’ve already seen how the labyrinth operates. There’s no reason to assume this is any different.”
Oberon nods once, like that settles it. “We’ll gather what we need.”
Ashton pushes off the wall, already moving. “Blankets, pillows… whatever passes for comfort in this place.”
Oberon glances at me one more time before turning toward the door. “We’ll be back. One of us will stay stationed outside your door while we take turns gathering our things. Don’t leave your room without us.”
I don’t argue. I can’t. Because a part of me, maybe the biggest part, doesn’t want them to go at all. The room feels too large without them the moment the door closes.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I pace once, twice, trying to calm the whirlwind inside me.
They love me. All of them.The thought should terrify me. It should feel wrong. Instead… it feels like something I’ve been falling into for longer than I realized.
The door opens again before I can spiral too far, and they return one by one, arms full of blankets and pillows, the space filling quickly with warmth and movement.
Ashton drops his pile with a soft thud. “It sure beats our thin blankets and the cold wind.”
Sylvian sets his things down more carefully, already smoothing one blanket out across the floor. Oberon doesn’t say anything, just moves to position himself near the door, like it’s the most natural place for him to be. Cassius lingers near me for a moment longer before stepping back to help.
Within minutes, they’ve turned the floor around the bed into something almost… intentional. A barrier. A circle. Around me.
I swallow, my chest tightening again for an entirely different reason. “You’re serious,” I murmur.
Ashton glances up at me, a softer version of his usual grin tugging at his mouth. “Completely.”
My throat tightens.
I nod before I can second-guess it. “Okay.”
It feels like stepping into something I don’t fully understand. But I don’t pull away. They settle in around me, each taking a place without discussion, like this has already been decided somewhere deeper than words. Oberon near the door. Sylvian closest to the bed. Ashton stretching out with an ease that feels almost forced, like he’s pretending this is normal. Cassius last, positioned where he can see everything.
And me… in the center of it all. Protected. Watched over.Wanted.
I climb onto the bed slowly, pulling the blankets up around me, my heart still racing but softer now, steadier. Safer. The fire crackles quietly in the corner, casting flickering light across the room, shadows dancing along the walls.
For the first time in what feels like forever, the fear doesn’t follow me into the dark. But something else does. Something I don’t have a name for yet.
And as my eyes drift closed, surrounded by them, one thought lingers longer than the rest… I’m not alone anymore.
10
Alette
The storm hasn’t stopped. If anything, it sounds worse. Rain lashes against the windows in relentless waves, the wind howling through the stone like it’s trying to claw its way inside. The sky beyond the glass is a constant, churning gray, flashes of lightning cutting through it just often enough to remind me how trapped we really are.
We slept through all of it. I’m still not entirely sure how. But when I woke, the light hadn’t changed. The storm hadn’t eased. And somehow, that made everything feel… suspended. Like time is waiting for something.
Then, after sleeping for nearly a full twenty-four hours, we’d had servants come and let us know that dinner would be served in just a short time, so we’d hurried to get ready. Starving after so long, but also, finally, fully rested.
