All Chapters of Bound to the Hybrid King: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

What followed, she did not, afterward, allow herself to remember in full. She had grown skilled, over the years, at permitting herself only fragments. The particular pressure of his hand at her wrist, the low murmur of his voice close to her ear, saying things that dissolved, later, into a formless unpleasant static she could not translate back into words without feeling ill. The long, terrible patience with which he took his time with her, inside her, unhurried by any fear of discovery, secure in the knowledge that no one would come, that no one ever came, that this small, forgotten wing of the palace was his and hers alone and had been for years.He was, as ever, careful of her face. He had explained this to her once, in the calm, instructive tone of a man teaching a valuable lesson, that a bruised cheek asked questions a bruised wrist did not, and Theia had understood, even then, that this carefulness was not kindness but strategy, the meticulous housekeeping of a man tending his o

She stood where she had been positioned and watched the negotiations of her own fate pass over her head in language too formal and too swift to truly believe they were talking about her life as if she wasn’t standing right here. She watched her father and this stranger discuss terms and timelines as though she was an object, and felt, not for the first time in her life, entirely and thoroughly absent from her own existence.Once both kings were happy enough, everyone but her father, Nikolai, his commanders and the general, were dismissed.Then the priestess arrived. She was an old woman in grey robes who set a shallow silver bowl upon a low table before the throne and Nikolai glanced at his two commanders briefly with an unreadable look and stepped up to the table. It was comical how large he was next to the priest.She sensed her father's gaze and found it funny how, when she was small, she used to yearn for him to just look at her, to just remember she existed. Now she’d give anythi

The stables at Iskeld sat at the far edge of the palace grounds, beyond the ornamental gardens where the paths turned to gravel and then to bare packed earth, as if the palace itself had decided that whatever happened out here was no longer its concern. Theia had always liked that about the stable grounds. There was no one to watch her walk the last stretch of path, no lords idling near windows, no spying servants to note where the quiet princess was going and why. Only the smell of hay, horse and leather, and beneath it, that unique smell that belonged only to Hels. It was something like storm air, sharp and clean.She had told herself, the whole walk down to the stables, that it was to say goodbye. Nothing more. She had not let herself hope for anything else, because hope, in her experience, was a costly thing indeed. She had learned long ago to leave it at the door before she asked for anything at all.She had come to say goodbye to her precious, beautiful horse. That was nothing m

She thought about the two days remaining before she would climb into a carriage and be carried away from everything she had ever known. She thought that if she did not ask now, whilst there was, however improbably, a man standing in front of her who commanded wolves and packs and seemed, for reasons she did not understand, disposed to be kind to her, she would never have another chance. Then Hels would be gone. Put down, quietly, tidily, the way her father liked things done. She couldn’t bare it. She couldn’t survive that loss too.The fear of asking sat in her chest like a stone. But the fear of not asking, she found, when she weighed the two honestly against each other, was heavier.'I don't know,' she said at last, to the mare rather than to Koda, 'what will happen to her. Once I'm gone.''What do you mean, what will happen to her?'Theia's hands stilled in Hels' mane. She made herself look at him. 'My father has no use for a horse only I can ride. He'll either have her sold off to

Koda led her to a small side kitchen near the stables where the staff somehow already clearly knew who he was. Theia found that both impressive and a little sad. She’d lived here her entire life and never seemed to be able to make a particular impression on any of the servants.The kitchen staff didn’t blink at Koda and his tall, broad shoulders wandered in demanding bread and cheese and whatever fruit hadn't already been claimed for the evening's dinner table. He talked while he assembled it, easily, about nothing, the weather for the ride ahead, a story about a horse that had once thrown him into a duck pond, and she found herself laughing before she'd quite meant to.Goddess, when had she last allowed herself to laugh out loud? Let alone around another living being? She couldn’t remember, couldn’t remember the last time she had something to laugh about.It was a strange thing, sitting across from him on an overturned crate with bread in her hands, to feel something loosen in her c