The Prince I Hated

Elara’s POV

Time did something strange at that moment. It slowed down and sped up all at once, and for one dizzying second I wasn’t a twenty-four year old woman standing in a marble hallway. I was seventeen again, standing behind a pillar with cake sliding off my plate, listening to laughter that broke something inside me I was still putting back together.

“Elara.” My name came out of him rough, like it hurt to say it.

I stepped back out of his hands, putting space between us before my body could betray me any further. “Prince Cassian.”

Something flickered across his face at the formality, some old wound I didn’t have the energy to care about. His eyes moved over me, and I watched his jaw tighten, watched something shift behind those pale gold eyes that I couldn’t name and didn’t want to.

His wolf was reacting. I could see it in the way his hands curled slightly at his sides, in the way his breathing had gone uneven, in the way he seemed to be fighting some pull I refused to acknowledge in myself.

I hated that I noticed. I hated that some traitorous part of me still felt the pull too, buried deep under seven years of scar tissue.

“You look,” he started, then stopped himself, swallowing hard. “I heard you were back. I didn’t expect that.”

“You didn’t expect me to inherit Blackthorn Territory and a council seat in the same afternoon your father’s kingdom tried to bury my grandfather’s memory in politics?” I said, my voice sharper than I intended, though I didn’t try to soften it. “Neither did I.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean, Cassian?” I crossed my arms, refusing to let him see how badly my hands wanted to shake. “Because I have very limited patience for whatever this is.”

He stepped closer, lowering his voice so only I could hear it. “I meant that you look strong. Confident. Nothing like….”

“Nothing like the girl you called a whale in front of your friends?” I finished for him, watching him flinch like I had struck him. “Say it, Cassian. Don’t dance around it now. You had no problem saying it loud enough for the entire banquet hall to hear seven years ago.”

His face went pale. “Elara,I…”

“I’d rather die mateless,” I said quietly, each word deliberate, each word a blade I had sharpened over seven long years just for this moment. “Do you remember saying that? Because I remember every single syllable. I remember the sound of your friends laughing. I remember standing behind that pillar until my legs stopped shaking enough to walk away.”

“I was seventeen,” he said, and there was something raw in his voice now, something that almost sounded like desperation. “I was scared. I panicked. I have regretted those words every single day since.”

“How convenient that your regret only shows up now that I’m standing in front of you with a territory and a council seat,” I said. “Where was this regret when I was crying myself to sleep every night for months? Where was it when my parents had to send me across an ocean because I couldn’t walk through these halls without someone whispering about me?”

He said nothing. His silence was answer enough.

“I don’t need your apology, Cassian,” I said, my voice finally softening not with forgiveness but with exhaustion. “I don’t need anything from you. I built a life without you. I became someone without you. So whatever this is, whatever your wolf is doing right now that’s making you look at me like that, you need to shut it down, because I am not the same girl who used to hope you would look at me twice.”

Something shattered behind his eyes, guilt so raw and unguarded it almost made me falter, Almost.

He straightened his shoulders after a moment, some mask sliding back into place, though his voice remained quiet. “The King has requested your presence at the palace tomorrow morning. Regarding Blackthorn’s borders, and your seat on the council.”

“And if I refuse?”

“You can’t.” His eyes met mine, steady now despite everything. “It’s a royal summons, Elara. Refusing isn’t an option, not for anyone in this kingdom, and especially not for someone who just inherited land the crown has interest in.”

I held his gaze for a long moment, my chest tight with everything I refused to let show on my face. “Fine. Tomorrow morning. Is there anything else, Your Highness?”

He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something more, something that looked like it was costing him effort to hold back, but he only shook his head. “Tomorrow morning.”

I walked past him without another word, my heels clicking against the marble, my heart pounding so hard I was certain he could hear it even through the growing distance between us.

That night, sleep came slowly, chased by exhaustion I couldn’t outrun. And when it finally pulled me under, it dragged me somewhere I didn’t want to go.

I dreamed of golden eyes, pale and glowing in darkness, watching me with an intensity that made my skin burn. A voice curled through the dream like smoke, low and powerful, a voice that didn’t belong entirely to Cassian and yet somehow did.

“Mate,” it whispered, the word wrapping around me like a chain I couldn’t break.

I woke up gasping, my heart slamming against my ribs, cold sweat clinging to my skin in the darkness of my old childhood bedroom. Terrified of how badly some broken part of me had wanted that voice to keep whispering…