Chapter 2

Elowen

The room went still.

The woman draped across Adrian's lap stopped mid-laugh. Adrian himself turned his head, eyebrows raised.

My father stared at me.

"What did you say?"

My heart was hammering so hard I could hear it in my ears. That one word had taken everything I had. I'd never refused my father before — not once in twenty years. The courage that had erupted a moment ago was already draining out, leaving behind something cold and shaking.

I forced the word out again. Quieter this time. Barely a whisper.

"No."

Both their expressions changed. Father's face went purple. He grabbed my arm and yanked me forward. "You ungrateful—"

"Sterling." Adrian didn't look up. "Don't make a scene on my floor. Take your family business elsewhere."

Father swallowed his rage. He turned and bowed to Adrian — deep, practiced, humiliating — and muttered an apology. Then he seized my wrist and hauled me toward the door.

His fingers ground into the bones the whole way down the corridor, past the card tables and painted women. Men looked up as we passed — some curious, some plainly amused, one with a smirk I recognized as the kind they wore watching a servant get beaten. Nobody helped. I stumbled over the hem of my gold dress. He didn't slow down.

He didn't speak during the ride home. That was always worse than yelling.

The beating came in the front hall, before we'd even reached the stairs.

I knew how to take it. Stand straight. Keep my body loose so the blows land where they'll bruise but not break. Don't flinch. That makes it worse. Don't cry until it's over.

He struck my face. Twice. Then my shoulders, my back. His voice was louder than his fists — worthless, ungrateful, a disgrace to the Sterling name.

When he was done, two servants dragged me to the cellar and locked the bolt behind them.

Father's voice came through the door. "Your only value is marrying into the royal family. I'm giving you one night. If you won't be Adrian's mistress, then you'll marry the Regent Prince — the cripple. See how you like that."

The bolt clicked shut.

I sat on the stone floor in my engagement dress. The pale gold silk was meant for ballrooms, not cellars. Thin, sleeveless, already torn at the hem. I hadn't eaten all day. My cheekbone was swelling where he'd hit me, and the skin on my back stung through the fabric.

I pulled my knees to my chest.

I knew this room. The crack snaking across the ceiling. The damp patch in the far corner where the stone was always coldest. The ledge too narrow to lie on but wide enough to sit if I curled sideways. Father had started locking me in here when I was twelve. A wrong word at dinner. A stumble during posture lessons. A look on my face he didn't approve of. I'd learned over the years that the safest life was a quiet one. No opinions, no needs.

Was this punishment my own fault? If I'd said yes — done what I was told — I'd be in my warm bed right now. Not shivering on stone with a split lip and an empty stomach.

But I replayed the moment. Adrian's lazy gaze. The woman in his lap. My father offering me up for the prince's inspection.

I would say no again. Even knowing what came after.

The problem was that one refusal only led to the next demand. Adrian today, Kieran tomorrow. The court, the politics, the endless performance of being someone I wasn't. I didn't want any of it. I wanted to go back to the forest — the wet mud under my bare feet, the herbs I used to gather along the creek. I wanted to live among ordinary people and be a healer. A witch.

I had a secret my family didn't know about. They'd never cared enough to ask.

I could do magic.

The house went silent around midnight.

I cupped my frozen hands together and whispered the old words, the ones I'd stolen from the forest witch's book when I was seven. A flame sparked in my palm, no bigger than a match head.

It flickered. Then it jumped.

"El? Are you okay?"

A grin broke across my face before I could stop it.

"Flick."

The flame hopped on my palm like an anxious sparrow. "I heard everything. Every candle in the district was buzzing — the Sterling girl told the prince no! In his own brothel! You beautiful, reckless idiot."

Flick was a fire spirit. I'd summoned it by accident as a child, fumbling through a spell I shouldn't have known. Most spirits stayed deep in the forest and avoided people entirely, but Flick loved gossip. It traveled through candlelight, hopping from flame to flame.

The pack avoided me because of Father and Rosalind. Only Flick had been there through the long nights in this room, year after year. The only friend I had.

"Your father is a pig," Flick said, its flame burning brighter. "And that prince is worse. You should have set the whole place on fire."

"I can barely light a flame the size of my thumbnail, Flick."

"Moral support counts."

I cupped the tiny fire closer. The warmth was barely real — not enough to thaw my fingertips — but it was something. And Flick's voice, sharp and indignant on my behalf, loosened something in my chest I hadn't realized was clenched.

"Thank you for being here," I said quietly. "Seeing you makes everything feel less terrible."

The flame dimmed. "Don't talk to me in that voice, El."

"I mean it." I swallowed. "This might be one of the last times we can see each other. Father's going to send me away — to Adrian or to Kieran. Adrian's women don't last long. And they say Kieran is violent and cruel."

"Then choose Kieran," Flick said immediately.

"What?"

"Think about it. He's the Regent Prince — the only person in this kingdom with more power than Adrian. And I've listened through every candle in the royal quarter. Not one rumor about him hurting women. Not one."

"That doesn't mean—"

"It means he's not Adrian. And if you can make him care about you, even a little, your father can't touch you anymore. Adrian can't touch you. You'd have the most powerful protector in the kingdom."

"How am I supposed to make someone like that care about me?"

"Leave that to me." The flame sputtered with enthusiasm. "I've been eavesdropping on love confessions through bedroom candles for years. I know exactly what works. Step one — you look at him through your lashes while tilting your head at a fifteen-degree angle—"

I rested my forehead on my knees and listened to Flick outline an increasingly elaborate seduction strategy. Its voice rose and fell, indignant and bossy.

"— and then you accidentally brush his hand while reaching for the same cup, which requires very precise spatial positioning—"

My eyes grew heavy.

"— the key is confidence. You walk in like you belong there, you make eye contact, you show genuine interest in his—"

I fell asleep.

Morning light sliced through the gap under the door.

The bolt scraped open. Father's steward stood over me.

"Alpha Sterling is ready for you."

They brought me to the front hall. Father stood with his arms folded, looking at me the way you'd look at something you were deciding whether to throw out.

"You've had the night," he said. "Ready to go to Adrian?"

My lip was still split. My arms were bruised under the gold silk. I hadn't eaten in over a day.

I looked at him.

"I choose Kieran."