Castiel's POV
The throne room emptied slowly, like blood draining from a wound. The courtiers lingered as they always did, reluctant to turn their backs on me in case the silence after my words contained something sharper than the words themselves. They bowed, murmured parting oaths, and melted into the shadows of the hall, their silks whispering against the obsidian floor.
At last, only Varus remained, standing near the dais with his arms folded behind his back.
"She stood her ground," he said quietly.
I had not moved from my place, one hand resting against the carved arm of the throne, the faint scent of blood still curling through the air.
"She seem's to do that alot," I replied.
Varus tilted his head. "It would be easier if she yielded."
"Easier," I said, "has never been worth the price."
His mouth twitched, not quite a smile, not quite disapproval. "The Court already questions your restraint."
"They may question," I murmured, lowering myself back into the throne. The weight of the stone felt familiar beneath my palms, as though the throne were part of me, or I part of it. "Let them whisper. Every word they speak in doubt makes them hungrier. Hunger sharpens the blade."
Varus inclined his head. "And the queen?"
The title was deliberate. My courtiers refused to call her so; Varus wielded it like a weapon, testing me.
"She burns," I said simply, and his brows drew together.
I did not explain. Some things were better left unsaid, even to him. Especially to him.
He bowed, then departed, leaving me alone in the cavernous silence. The blood-bond should have been nothing more than law. A covenant sealed in flesh, binding her obedience to my throne, her life to my decree. But when her blood touched mine, when her palm pressed against my hand atop the Oathstone, I felt it.
The hum. Low, resonant, as if some ancient string buried beneath the world had been plucked. It has not ceased.
Even now, a week after the vows, I could feel it beneath my skin—her pulse echoing faintly inside me, a ghostly rhythm beneath my own. It should not be possible. No mortal bond had ever run so deep. I had scoured the records.
Scrolls in the oldest tongue, vellum so brittle it threatened to crumble beneath my touch. Histories of queens taken from mortal lands, bound by covenant, broken by time. None had lasted more than a year. Their blood thinned, their bodies withered, their names scratched away as though they had never existed.
But Temperance had not thinned. She had not withered. She had stood before my court with her chin high, her voice steady, and defied me before the eyes of every vampire lord who wished her torn apart. And when I looked into her eyes, I had not seen fragility.
I had seen fire. A mortal flame, yes, but one that did not dim even when drowned in shadow.
So I had withheld my hand. Not from mercy, never that. But because I wanted to see what she would become when left in silence. Whether the flame would flicker out… or blaze brighter.
I walked the palace that night, as I did most nights.
The Crimson Court did not sleep. Its halls glowed with cold lanterns, its chambers pulsed with laughter and the clink of goblets, its shadows whispered with things better left unspoken.
I passed an antechamber where a cluster of nobles reclined on velvet couches, their throats gleaming faintly, chalices of red liquid glimmering in their hands. A mortal knelt in the centre, eyes glazed, arms limp as another lowered fangs to his neck. Their heads turned as I passed. Smiles sharpened. Some bowed. Others stilled, afraid.
Let them wonder. They expected me to take her. To seal the bond with blood and flesh, to claim her not only in law but in the way our kind understood best. They hungered for the spectacle, for the weakness it would show.
Instead, I gave them nothing. Restraint unsettles more than hunger. Hunger they understand. Restraint makes them question where the knife is hidden.
Later, in my private chamber, I laid the ancient texts across the table. Candlelight gilded their edges, flickering against the runes inked in long-dead hands. Queens taken. Queens lost. None had survived. Was I condemning her to the same fate?
The thought should not trouble me. Mortals are dust in waiting, their lifespans fleeting sparks against the centuries of my reign. But when I closed my eyes, I saw her on the dais, blood bright against her skin, voice cutting clean through the hall. I belong to no one. No other mortal consort had dared speak so to me. No other had met my gaze without faltering.
The flame in her was not a thing to be snuffed quickly. And I—though I would never confess it to the hungry ears of my court—was curious to see if it might light something long thought extinguished. It was past midnight when I rose again, unable to remain caged within stone and silence. My feet carried me through the corridors without thought, my shadow stretching long across the silver-lit floors.
The palace breathed around me: the distant hum of voices, the scrape of goblets against stone, the low thrum of the river pressing against its banks. I turned corner after corner until I stood before her door. I had not meant to.
The guards flanking the threshold bowed low, their eyes fixed to the ground. Their stillness told me all I needed to know—she was within. The bond thrummed faintly inside me, steady and warm. Her heartbeat echoed through the silence, faint but certain, as though the door were no barrier at all.
I could enter. The key was mine, the covenant mine, the law mine. One step forward, and the chamber would be mine as well. But I did not. Instead, I stood there in silence, listening to the fragile, defiant rhythm of her breath. She would not know. She would not hear. But I allowed myself one truth, silent and certain, before I turned away.
Not yet.