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196: WHAT’S LEFT FOR ME?
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2026-01-23 00:10:13
Latest chapter
Forgive Me: Marked By The Priest 218: ACCEPTING HIM AS MINE.
VINCENT’S POVI stayed. That alone felt like a rebellion.Lila decided within seconds that I was now part of the game. She handed me a stick, apparently a sword, and declared me the villain. Mara immediately objected and said I looked too nice to be evil. Theo clapped at the argument like it was the best entertainment he’d had all morning. I played along. I chased them around the garden at half speed, let them “defeat” me dramatically, groaned when they piled onto my back. Lila crowed in victory. Mara tried to help me up and then fell over laughing instead. Theo squealed every time I pretended to roar. I laughed too. It startled me how easily it came.Out of the corner of my eye, I kept seeing Aiden. He was quiet now, sitting on the low stone edge of the garden, elbows on his knees, watching without really watching. He smiled when his siblings laughed, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.He wasn’t angry.That somehow scared me more. When the children finally tired themselves out, Ma
Forgive Me: Marked By The Priest 217: WHAT WAS ALWAYS THERE.
VINCENT’S POV I stayed rooted to the spot long after Baron walked away. The corridor felt wider somehow. Emptier. Like it had swallowed whatever momentum I’d managed to build while talking to him and left me standing there with nothing but my thoughts and a heartbeat that refused to slow. In love. The word still sat wrong in my chest. Heavy. Unfamiliar...Eventually, I pushed myself off the wall and went back inside. The fortress was quiet now, too quiet. Breakfast was clearly over. Plates cleared. Voices gone. The warmth that had briefly filled the dining room had dispersed like smoke. I scanned the space instinctively. Aiden wasn’t there. My jaw tightened. I caught one of the men passing through the hall and asked, casually, where he’d gone. “Family wing,” he replied. “With his people.” I nodded, dismissing him, but my feet didn’t move right away. The family wing. I’d avoided it deliberately since Aiden arrived. Told myself it was about boundaries. About professionalism. Ab
Forgive Me: Marked By The Priest 216: ROOTS AND RETURNS.
EZREAL’S POVMy mother watched Vincent leave the table, her eyes following him longer than necessary. “Is he alright?” she asked quietly.I shook my head once. “I’ll tell you later.”She accepted that without pushing, which was something I was quickly learning about her, she knew when to wait. Aiden stood a moment later, polite as ever, thanked her for the food, and excused himself. The chair barely made a sound as he pushed it back, but the absence he left behind was loud. Baron caught my eye from across the table.“I’ll go check on him,” he said.I nodded. I trusted Baron with Vincent’s silences more than anyone else. When they were gone, it was just my mother and me. The plates had gone cold between us, the space quieter now—intimate in a way that made my chest tighten.“Come,” she said gently, standing. “Let’s take a walk.”I rose immediately. Outside, the morning air was crisp, the fortress grounds stretching wide and green under a pale sky. Guards nodded as we passed, but no on
Forgive Me: Marked By The Priest 215: THE SPACE BETWEEN US.
VNCENT’S POVI didn’t understand why it hit me the way it did.Aiden’s voice hadn’t been cruel. Not sharp. Not dismissive. Just polite. Easy. We’re just… acquaintances.I was the one who’d drawn that line. I was the one who’d enforced distance with silence, with work, with walls I pretended were professionalism. So why did it feel like something in my chest cracked when he said it out loud?I stood there, face carefully blank, while Baron laughed and Ezreal’s mother smiled like she’d stumbled onto something charming and harmless. Like there wasn’t a quiet disaster unfolding in my ribs.You’d make a handsome pair.Baron’s laughter echoed too loudly in my ears. Not mocking—never that, but amused. Light. And somehow that made it worse. Because it meant it was obvious. To her. To him. To everyone but me.I had messed up.We moved toward the dining room not long after, Ezreal leading, his mother beside him. I followed automatically, my body doing what it always did, falling into formation,
Forgive Me: Marked By The Priest 214: THE UPPER HAND.
EZREAL’S POVMorning came without ceremony. No dreams. No nightmares. Just the steady weight of reality settling back onto my shoulders as I sat behind my desk, pen moving smoothly across parchment and paper alike. Vincent stood across from me, tablet in hand, posture relaxed but his eyes were sharp. Always watching. Always measuring. I signed the last document and slid it aside. Another acquisition finalized. Another piece moved into place.Baron wasn’t here.He’d left early with Aiden, headed to meet Aiden’s family where I had them located. I hadn’t said much when he told me. Just nodded. Let him go. He deserved moments that didn’t orbit around blood and strategy and war.Vincent cleared his throat. “We need to go through the St. Jude’s archive journals soon.” I didn’t look up. “They’re not just old records,” he continued. “They’re patterns. Timelines. There are things in there we can use to plan ahead, especially now.”Still, I said nothing. My pen scratched across the page, sign
Forgive Me: Marked By The Priest 213: SEEDS OF MALICE.
CELESTE’S POVRevenge, I had learned, didn’t always arrive screaming. Sometimes it arrived quietly, on steady footsteps, in healing flesh, in the soft laugh of a girl who didn’t yet understand the danger of where her heart was wandering.Lucien was healing.I noticed it in small ways first. The stiffness in his movements had eased. The pain no longer lived behind his eyes. The gunshot wound that should have kept him grounded and cautious was closing faster than expected.And Ashley was always there. Too young. Too open. Too obvious.She didn’t try to hide it, the way her eyes softened when Lucien spoke, the way she hovered just close enough to be useful without being asked. She brought breakfast herself some mornings, lingered when others would have left. Her sister sat on her like sunlight, warm, innocent, and completely unguarded.Lucien didn’t encourage it. But he didn’t stop it either. That worried me. He was slipping away from my grasp and I hated it completely. I knew he hadn't
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