Pain was the first thing that greeted me. It wasn't a sharp cut, but a rhythmic, heavy throbbing behind my eyes that felt like a drumbeat.
I inhaled sharply, my lungs burning. My palms met cool, expensive silk. These weren't the damp leaves of the forest. I opened my eyes to see black stone walls where roses were carved into the rock, their stems twisting upward like thorns.
I turned my head and my heart stopped.
Castel was lying beside me.
He was asleep. His silver hair spilled across the black silk pillows like spilled moonlight. One arm was thrown lazily across the bed, fingers twitching in his sleep as if he were reaching for me even in his dreams. He looked peaceful—which was the most terrifying thing about him. He looked as if I had always belonged here. As if the bed were mine as much as his.
A scream tore from my throat before I could choke it back.
Castel moved with the speed of a predator. He rolled from the bed and hit the floor in one fluid motion, his eyes snapping open. The air in the room exploded outward. The pressure was so violent that the candles shattered and the stone walls groaned.
"Who touched you?" he roared, his presence crushing the very oxygen from the room.
I scrambled backward, hitting the headboard. "No one!" I shouted, my voice cracking. "You kidnapped me! You monster!"
The pressure vanished instantly. The air went still, though it remained charged with his heat. Castel's gaze locked onto mine, his mismatched eyes—blue and gold—tracking every breath I took.
"You're awake," he said. His voice was lower now. Focused.
I lunged off the bed, desperate to get to the door, but a wave of dizziness slammed into my skull. My knees buckled. Before I could hit the floor, he was there. He didn't catch me; he simply appeared in my space, a wall of obsidian I couldn't bypass.
"I brought you here," he said evenly.
"You dragged me here," I spat, clutching my head.
"I removed you from danger."
"You are the danger."
A flicker of something dark moved across his face. I snapped my fingers, calling for the Void, reaching for the time-fractures that were my birthright.
Nothing.
The silence where my power should have been was deafening. My breath hitched. Castel's gaze dropped to my wrist.
The gold bracelet gleamed in the dim light. It was heavy, etched with his blood, and it felt like it was fused to my bone. I clawed at the metal, but the gold only tightened, responding to my panic.
"What did you do to me?" I demanded, my voice shaking with rage.
"You are still breathing," he said quietly, stepping closer. "That is more mercy than most receive."
"You think this is mercy? Keeping me like a trophy?"
He didn't answer with words. He moved into my space, pinning my wrist to the stone pillar beside the bed. It wasn't meant to bruise, but it was absolute. I was a bird in a hand that could crush me at any second.
"Careful," he murmured, his lips far too close to my ear. "You're very brave for someone currently wearing my blood."
My stomach dropped. I felt it then—the heat beneath my skin. The pulse. It wasn't just my heart beating; it was his blood coiling through my veins like liquid fire, answering to the man standing over me.
"You think you own me because you marked me?" I whispered.
"I don't think," he said, his breath warm against my neck, sending a shiver of pure disgust and unwanted heat down my spine. "I know."
He leaned in, his eyes searching mine. "You crossed into my world, Arastella. You do not get to walk back out."
"Watch me."
The challenge sparked between us like flint hitting steel. For a second, his lips curved. "I intend to."
He stepped back, and the air finally let me breathe. "You may walk the palace," he said, turning toward the door. "You may curse my name. You may test the walls. But you will not leave."
"Karapalo," I whispered—the Varack word for please.
His stride faltered. Just for a second, his expression softened into something that looked like regret. Then the mask slammed back down. He didn't look back as he spoke.
"You look better in my bed than bleeding on stone."
The door thudded shut
I didn't let myself cry. Fear is a waste of oxygen, and I needed every bit of it to think.
I pressed my hand to the bracelet. It was alive. It moved when he moved. It was a tether, a spiritual leash that proved Castel hadn't just restrained me he had infiltrated me.
I stood up and tested the room. Locked. Guards everywhere. I could feel the palace humming with his energy. Every corridor was an extension of his nervous system.
He wants a Queen.
A slow, bitter realization settled in my chest. To leave, I have to let him believe he's winning.
The thought tasted like ash. I would rather tear my own scales off than smile at him. But my people, they need me alive. If I fight, he enjoys it. If I run, he drags me back.
So, I will do something far more dangerous. I will play along.
I will be the Queen they expect. I will learn every exit, every guard's patrol, and exactly where his weakness hides. Every tyrant has one. He thinks this bracelet makes me small? He doesn't understand dragons. We endure. We adapt. We wait for the moment to strike.
I looked at my reflection in the darkened mirror. My violet eyes were cold.
"You want a Queen?" I whispered to the empty room. "You'll get one. But you'll never have me."
The council was already on their knees when Castel entered. He wasn't the brooding shadow from before; he was smiling, a sight that made the veteran noblemen tremble.
"I am to be married tomorrow," he announced.
The room froze. "Sire—" one began.
The pressure descended like a falling sky. Bones cracked against the marble.
"Beg," Castel said pleasantly.
"S-spare us—!"
"I am tired," Castel whispered, his eyes glowing with a toxic light, "of you believing you have a say in what is mine. She will be Queen, even if I have to decorate the altar with your severed heads."
"Stop!"
The pressure vanished instantly. Castel turned.
I stood in the doorway, barefoot and unyielding. I didn't look at the half-dead men on the floor. I looked at him.
Castel crossed the room in a blur, wrapping his arms around me. It was possessive. It was a claim in front of his entire court. "Why save them?" he murmured into my hair. "Their deaths were my gift to you."
"Because no one deserves this," I said, keeping my voice steady. "Spare them. And I will be your Queen."
Silence.
Then, Castel laughed. It wasn't the laugh of a man; it was the roar of a conqueror who had just been handed the sun. He lifted me into his arms, spinning me once in a state of pure exhilaration.
"Get out," he ordered the council. They fled like rats from a burning ship.
When we were alone, he set me down against a pillar. His hand slid up, pinning my wrist above my head once more.
"You are all mine," he whispered against my skin.
The air shivered. And deep beneath my skin, the King's blood pulsed—stronger, louder, and terrifyingly familiar.