Castiel
The night was not silent.
It never is, not truly. The palace breathes—its halls filled with whispers, its walls echoing old feasts, old betrayals. But tonight the sound was louder. Her heartbeat.
It thrummed through me like a second pulse, strong and defiant. Mortal hearts should not sound like that after a feast in the Crimson Court. They should falter, quail, grow thin with fear.
Hers did not. Hers burned.
I had not meant to reach for her. I had sworn, again and again, to hold the bond at bay. But in the aftermath of the feast, after her words had cut through Selvara's traps, after she had lifted her chin beneath a hundred hungry eyes and refused to break—
I had wanted to know if the fire still burned when she was alone.
So I listened. Get out, she whispered into the silence.
A command. A plea. Both.
I did not obey.
I should not have lingered. Each breath I took through the bond tangled deeper, threads winding tighter, drawing me closer to something I could not afford.
She was mortal. She should not echo like this. She should not hum in my blood like a second song.
Yet she did.
And I—King of the Crimson Court, breaker of vows, maker of law—felt myself falter.
I closed my eyes and saw her as she had been at the feast: lips red, eyes steady, chin lifted in defiance. Saw her as she had been in the Mirror Walk, fire hidden but not extinguished. Saw her as she had been tonight, in her chambers, whispering get out even as her pulse betrayed her.
Not prey.
Not pawn.
Something else.
Something that pulled at me, dragged me toward the flame even as instinct told me to turn away.
I pressed my hand against the stone wall, the veins of silver biting cold into my palm.
Not yet.
Not yet.
But soon.