Let Me Marry Him

Leyla’s Pov

Alora didn’t let me finish. The moment I mentioned Lucien Vale, she went deathly pale. She grips the bedsheets so hard her knuckles turns white, her whole body trembling as if she is bracing for a physical blow.

“You can’t do this,” she rasps. “I won’t let you.”

“You don’t understand, Lora,” I say, my voice cracking. “George is just twenty. He’s still a kid who forgets to lock the front door and leaves his sketches all over the kitchen floor. He won’t survive a week in a place like Ravenlock Prison. Friday is his hearing, and if I don't give Lucien what he wants, George doesn't come home. Ever.”

The room is deathly quiet. I can hear the frantic ticking of the clock on the bedside table, sounding like a countdown.

“Are you saying this because you actually think he's guilty?” I snap, the heat of desperation rising in my chest. “That our brother, the boy who still cries over dead birds, actually killed someone?”

She looks up quickly, her eyes burning. “What? No. Never.”

That’s when I really look at her, and for the first time, my twin feels like a stranger. There’s this look in her eyes I don’t recognise, like a heavy, dark door she had kept locked for years. We always share everything; clothes, secrets, and even the blame for things we did. But this? This feels different.

"I knew him," she says, almost in a whisper.

“What do you mean, you knew him?”

She hesitates, her fingers twisting a loose thread on the quilt until it snaps. Long enough to know I'm not going to like her answer.

“Nine years ago, at summer camp. Before he became…” she dismisses the air between us as if his name is smoke, as if she can't even find the right words for what he is now. “Well, all of this.”

I blink, stunned. “Summer camp? What, was he also ruining lives back then, too?” I tease.

“No,” then softly now. “He was just… charming.”

I shake my head, confused. “Wait, when? How could I not know? I was away at boarding school, sure, but we wrote every week.”

"I didn't have words for him back then.”

The realization hit me like a freight train. “Wait a second,” I sit up straight, the bedsprings groaning. “Was he the 'Mr. Anonymous' you were always talking about? The one you used to hide in the hallway to talk to? The guy who made you giggle until you couldn't breathe?”

She nods slowly, but there is no smile.

“Wow, Alora.” I reach for her hand. “You loved him. You talked about him so much I used to feel a twinge of jealousy just hearing how happy you were.”

She lets out a short, dry laugh. “I didn't just love him, Leyla. I vanished into him," her eyes drops, voice barely a whisper. “But by the end of that year, I was already tallying up my fails. He chipped me apart. He did it so good, I thought the pieces falling off me were just... parts of me I didn't need anymore.”

She looks up, and the raw hollow look in her eyes makes my breath hitch.

“He told me if I ever spoke his name to anyone, he’d find the person I loved most and start there. I thought he meant you. I didn't realize he meant George.”

I squeeze her fingers. “Then why on earth would you want to go back?”

“I don’t want to,” she meets my eyes. “But he’s not marrying you because he wants a wife, Leyla. He wants control. And if he's still the same Lucien I remember…” a beat. “He needs something from you.”

I don't say anything, but my jaw hardens instead.

“Right now,” she continues, “you’re exactly what he wants you to be. You're cornered and desperate and he thinks you’ll agree to anything just to save George.”

“So what?” I snap. “Do we just let our brother rot in jail forever?”

“No," her voice turns cold. "We use this.”

“How?”

“By giving him a wife,” she takes a deep breath. “But not you. Let me marry him.”

“No! Absolutely not.”

“He already knows how to control you. He thinks he has the upper hand.”

"And you think he won’t do the same to you?" I shoot back.

“No, because I know where he’s careless. I know what he hides. And I know the one thing he never moved past.”

She looks at me with a terrifying level of focus. “I’ll find out what he’s protecting. By the time the contract ends, he’ll be the one losing everything, not us.”

I look at her, searching for any sign of doubt. “You know how dangerous this is.”

“I do.” she doesn’t sound brave or pretend it wouldn't be hard. She just looks resolved.

“I’m not doing this for him,” she adds. “I’m doing it so you can have a life. And so our brother can, too.”

I close my eyes for a moment, the weight of her sacrifice pressing down on me. When I open them, I see no other way.

“Fine,” I whisper. “But we’re in this together.”

We both go to bed after that, but I can’t sleep. Alora's already out cold, breathing like she’d finally unloaded a burden. Me? I just stare at the ceiling, haunted by the version of Lucien Vale my sister had hidden from me. And even more terrified about the version of my sister, I'm about to lose to him.