All Chapters of When I’m Gone, You Love: Chapter 61 - Chapter 67

Beatrice's POVMartin was telling me about a coastal town he'd visited as a boy, when I suddenly felt a slight chill in the air. I stopped laughing immediately,My wolf went taut inside me, every muscle locked, her ears swiveling toward the door a full second before it opened. The scent arrived next, leather, iron, flooding the room and drowning everything else.Cedrick stood in the doorway.He wasn't alone. Two guards flanked him, though they hung back near the corridor as if they already knew they wouldn't be needed. He wore a dark coat over his usual attire, and his expression was the one I had learned to fear most, amusement.His gaze moved across the scene with the unhurried precision of a man cataloguing details for later use. "Well," Cedrick said. He stepped inside, and the room seemed to shrink around him. "Am I interrupting a date?"Martin set down his glass, "Not a date," he said evenly. "We're simply sharing a meal. Beatrice hasn't agreed to be my girlfriend, though I've

Beatrice's POVHis lips were still on mine when he stiffened. His hand dropped from my face and when he pulled back, the warmth that had been in his eyes moments before was gone, replaced by his usual coldness."Well," he said, straightening. "At least I know you haven't lost your ability to respond."The shift was so abrupt it gave me whiplash. One second he'd been kissing me like I mattered, and the next he was back to being an ass."That had nothing to do with—" I started."With your suitor?" He leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed, perfectly at ease. "Tell me, Beatrice. Does Martin know what he's pursuing? Does he understand what comes attached to that pretty face?"My stomach tightened. "There's nothing between Martin and me.""Then you won't mind telling him that.""I just said—""You said it to me." He pushed off the wall and took a step closer. The corridor felt narrower than it had a moment ago. "Now say it to him publicly so there's no room for misinterpretation."

Beatrice's POVI was home.The field stretched out in every direction, golden wheat rippling under a sky so wide it made my chest ache. My brother rode beside me, his horse a full length ahead because he always had to win, always had to be first, and I was laughing at him for it. The wind tore at my hair and pressed against my skin like warm hands, and the hooves beneath me struck the earth in a rhythm that felt like a heartbeat."Keep up, Bea!" Callum shouted over his shoulder. His grin was wild and bright, the grin of a boy who hadn't yet learned what a prison cell looked like."I'm letting you win!" I called back, though we both knew I wasn't.The field narrowed into the path that led to the eastern ridge, where the archery range overlooked the river. Our bows were already strung—mine lighter, his longer—and we dismounted in a tumble of elbows and competition. I nocked first. Drew. Released. The arrow punched the outer ring of the target, and Callum howled with exaggerated disappoi

Cedrick's POVThe door to her room was unlocked. I pushed it open slowly, stepping inside on silent feet, and let my eyes adjust to the dark.Moonlight fell through the window in a wide, silver wash, pooling across the bed and the woman in it.Beatrice lay on her side, one hand curled beneath her pillow, the other resting loosely near her face. Her breathing was even and deep. The bruising along her cheekbone had faded to a dull yellow-green, and her hair spilled across the white linen in dark waves that caught the light and held it.I stood at the foot of the bed and looked at her.In all the kingdom and in every court I'd visited, every alliance ball I'd attended, every room full of women who had been trained from birth to be looked at, none of them had ever held my gaze the way she did. And she wasn't even awake. She was lying in a hospital bed with a shattered leg and bruises on her face, wearing a plain linen shift, and she was still the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.My