24

Fingers curled around the collar of the jacket he’d thrown over me earlier... his jacket. With one smooth motion, he yanked me to my feet and spun me around, slamming my back against the nearest tree.

The impact stole the air from my lungs. Bark dug into my spine. "Ah..." I panted.

I tried to shove him back, but he caught both my wrists in one hand and pinned them above my head, his body pressing into mine before I could move again.

He was too close.

Too strong.

“Get off me!” I spat, struggling against him, but it was like fighting a wall of iron. 

My hips twisted, my legs kicked, but he moved in tighter, using the weight of his body to trap mine against the tree.

“Keep squirming,” he whispered, his mouth just beside my ear. “It makes the chase worth it.”

My body betrayed me... my skin flushed, heat rising where it shouldn’t. My breath caught in my throat, and I hated it. I hated that my pulse raced for reasons that had nothing to do with fear.

“I will never submit to your filthy kind.” I hissed, breathless.

His hand slid lower, from my wrist to my forearm, then down along my side, slow and deliberate, not touching bare skin, but close enough to make my stomach clench.

I growled. “You wolves are nothing but monsters!”

That made him pause.

His eyes found mine again. “I do not want your submission,” he said slowly. “I just love it when humans prove they're more than dirt.”

I shoved my shoulder forward, trying to break his hold, but he did not budge. Instead, he used my own momentum to spin me around, pressing my chest to the tree this time, his body flush against my back.

What the f...

One hand gripped my wrists again, holding them high above my head, while the other flattened against the tree beside my cheek.

“You hate me,” he whispered. “I can smell it.”

“I hate everything about you,” I snapped. “Your voice. Your touch. Your entire cursed race.”

"I saved you from spending the rest of your life as a whore," he grunted. "I gave you a comfortable place in my home. I did not owe you that, you ungrateful human."

"And I never asked for it!" I shot back. The words Romeo had told me earlier echoed in my mind. "You want all of humanity to kneel at your feet, and you blame it on the monster inside you. Sorvane, right? But maybe… maybe the real monster isn’t him."

He froze.

I felt it. His entire body tensed behind me, not in a shudder, but in that eerie, lethal stillness that comes when something wild is about to strike. 

Then he moved.

His fist shot past my face and collided with the tree beside me, the impact echoing through the forest. 

"Ah!" I screamed. My body jolted against the tree, but with my chest pressed to the wood and my hands still trapped above me, there was nowhere to go.

Bark exploded outward in a spray of sharp fragments, and the deep, sickening crack of wood splitting filled my ears, louder than my own breath. The tree trembled beneath me, its trunk groaning from the force as his knuckles sank into the ancient bark.

My knees buckled as instinct screamed to flee, but his presence held me frozen.

The crater his fist left was mere inches from my face, still smoking with torn splinters, and all I could do was breathe through the panic clawing up my throat. My heart pounded so violently I could feel it echo in my fingertips. 

I did not dare turn my head. 

Behind me, his breathing was steady, measured in a way that made my skin crawl. It wasn’t calm. It was controlled. Like he was holding something back with every ounce of restraint he had left.

I had never felt fear like this before, not in Black Moon, not even in Nora’s brothel. It was as if every monster I had faced until then had been nothing more than a pup compared to the greater one. And by the Goddess, every legend that spoke of the King’s mortality was true.

And then I felt his hand.

It moved slowly down my back, trailing with a heat that made my stomach twist. It slid over the curve of my waist, then, it shifted... and he reached for his belt. The metallic hiss of leather sliding free sent a jolt through me more violent than the slam of his fist.

He leaned in, his breath hot against my temple, and for a moment I thought he might speak. But instead, his hand gripped my wrists and yanked them forward. In one fluid motion, he wrapped the belt tight around them, binding me with practiced ease. The buckle clicked shut, metal biting into leather, and my arms were trapped.

“Bastard,” I hissed.

His arm hooked beneath my knees, the other catching me around the waist, and he hauled me up effortlessly, throwing me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing. 

My bound wrists pressed into his back, my hair falling like a curtain down his spine.

I kicked, struggled, but his grip was unyielding. “Put me down!”

He did not answer.

Each step he took through the forest was steady. I could feel the tension in his body, the restrained violence thrumming beneath his skin. I had wounded his pride... and poked at whatever demon he claimed lived inside him.

**

The next morning, I woke with a start, wrists burning where coarse fabric bound them tightly to the headboard. 

The moment I opened my eyes, I knew I wasn’t dreaming... I was in the castle. The room was dim. I tugged once, testing the ropes, then again, harder. They did not budge. Whoever tied them knew I’d fight.

I closed my eyes and tried to connect with the old magic. If I truly was a witch, I should be able to free myself.

I focused on my wrists, on the place where the ropes dug into my skin. The fabric scratched when I shifted, rough and unforgiving. I slowed my breathing, ignoring the ache in my shoulders, the way my hands were already going numb. 

I searched for something inside me: a spark, a pull, anything that felt different from fear and exhaustion.

Nothing answered.

I tried again, harder this time. I pictured heat gathering beneath my skin, pressure building where the knots rested. My pulse throbbed against the bindings, loud in my ears. 

Sweat slid down my temples as I strained, willing the magic to rise, to push outward, to burn or tear or do something.

The ropes stayed exactly where they were.

My wrists burned now, not with power, but with friction. The only sensation was pain. The room remained silent, unchanged. No hum in the air. No shift. No response.

I opened my eyes, breath shaking, and stared at the ceiling. That was my sign. I had never been a witch!

The door creaked open, and the slow sound of boots on stone made my jaw tighten. I did not need to turn my head to know who it was. Romeo stepped inside with the casual grace of someone who did not consider me a threat. 

He did not even look at me at first, just took in the room with a kind of lazy inspection. “Good morning, pet,” he said finally. “Hope the accommodations weren’t too... restrictive.”

I lifted my head enough to meet his gaze. “Untie me!”

He gave a soft laugh, not mocking exactly, more like indulgent. “That fire. Gods, I see now why he’s keeping you around longer than the others.”