THE DAY OF the wedding dawned bright and clear. Violet was determined to be optimistic.
It has been a difficult few days. Javier’s moods had been unpredictable. Some days he had been attentive, and others, she hadn’t seen him at all.
He hadn’t made love to her since the day he had given her the jewels.
They hadn’t even come close since the day in his office, where they had been thwarted by her schedule. Something she bitterly resented now.
This distance made her feel brittle. Made her feelings hard and spiky, cutting her like glass each time her heart beat.
What would it mean to be with him like this, if it were this way forever?
When she’d imagined marriage to him, she’d imagined more nights like the ones they’d shared in bed together. With passion ruling, not duty.
But if their marriage would be like this...
She didn’t know if she’d survive it.
She had bought a beautiful dress, a beautiful dress to be the most suitable bride she could be. What else could she do?
She knew that she couldn’t wear the cuffs the way that she had done the day he had given them to her. But she did put two of them on one wrist and attached the gold chain, wrapping it artfully between the cuffs to make it look like an edgy piece of jewelry, rather than an intentional statement of bondage.
The day was made better and easier by the fact that her family was present. Minerva would be Violet’s only bridesmaid.
Minerva looked radiant and beautiful in a green dress that skimmed over the baby bump she was currently sporting. She and Dante had taken to parenthood with zeal. They had been instant parents, given that it was a vulnerable baby that had brought the two of them together. They had adopted her shortly after they’d married, and then had their second child quickly after.
This third one had only waited a year.
“You look beautiful,” Minerva said, smiling broadly.
“So do you,” Violet said.
Falling in love with Dante looked good on her younger sister. Violet would have never matched her sister with her brother’s brooding friend. She would have thought that somebody with such an intense personality would crush her sister’s more sunny nature. But that wasn’t true at all. If anything, Minerva was even sunnier, and Dante had lost some of the darkness that had always hung over him.
He had maintained his intensity; that was for sure.
Of course, when he held their children protectively, when he looked at Minerva like he would kill an entire army to protect her, Violet could certainly see the appeal.
Really, what could she say? She had fallen in love with a beast of a man who was as unknowable as he was feral. She could no longer say that the appeal of an intense partner was lost on her.
“You really are happy to marry him?” Minerva asked gently.
“Yes. It’s complicated, but I think you understand how that can be.”
Minerva laughed. “Definitely.”
“How did you manage it? Loving him, knowing he might never love you back?”
The corners of Minerva’s mouth tipped down. “Well. Mostly I managed it by asking myself if I would be any happier without him. The answer was no. I really wouldn’t have been any happier without him. And the time I did spend without Dante was so... It was so difficult. I loved him so much, and I had to wait for him to realize that what he felt for me was love. He couldn’t recognize it right away because... He didn’t know what it felt like. More than that, he was terrified of it. And after everything he had been through, I could hardly blame him.”
“Javier is like that,” Violet said softly. “He’s so fierce. A warrior at heart. And he believes that he isn’t good. But that he has honor, and that’s enough. He doesn’t seem to realize that the reason honor matters to him is that he is good. And I think he’s afraid to feel anything for me.”
“Have you said that to him?”
Violet shook her head. “No. I don’t want him to... I don’t want him to reject me.” It was one thing to be uncertain. In uncertainty, hope still blossomed inside her, fragile and small though it was.
But if she did say the words... If he rejected her definitively... Well, then she would not even have hope left.
“I understand that. But you know, it might be something he needs to hear. Because until he hears it, he’s not going to know. Because he won’t recognize it.”
“I’m thankful for you,” Violet said, wrapping her arm around her sister’s shoulder. “I don’t know very many other people who would understand this.”
“My love was definitely a hard one,” she said. “But I don’t think it was wrong to fight for it. I feel like sometimes people think... If it doesn’t just come together it isn’t worth it. But the kind of love I have with Dante... There’s nothing else like it. There’s no one else for me. He was wounded. He needed time to heal. And it was worth it.”
Minerva put her hand on her rounded stomach and smiled. “It was so worth it.”
Violet smiled, determination filling her. This would be worth it too.
The love that she felt for him was so intense, it had to be.
It had to be enough.
Javier waited at the head of the aisle. The church was filled with people. Some who were from Violet’s world, and many from his. Though he realized he didn’t actually know any of the people in attendance.
He was disconnected from this. From the social part of his job. A figurehead.
It had been interesting going out into town with her. She drew people to them like a bright, warm flame drawing in moths. He had never experienced such a thing, because he was the sort of man who typically kept people at a distance simply by standing there.
But not Violet.
Everyone seemed to want to be around her. To be near her. He could understand why she had managed to build an empire over the internet. With people who wanted to look like her, be like her. People who wanted to experience a slice of what she was.
She was compelling.
And after today she would be his.
He gritted his teeth, curling his hands into fists and waiting.
She would come.
And the momentary hitch of doubt that he had was assuaged by the appearance of her sister, who walked down the aisle with a small bouquet of flowers.
He had met her sister for the first time this morning. The other woman had seemed cautious around him, and a bit wary. Her husband had been more menacing. As had her brother.
Her father had seemed shamefaced, and Javier felt that was deserved. Her mother had simply seemed excited to be in a palace.
Javier had no concept of a family like this. Large and together, even though they disagreed on things, and it was clear that they did.
Though, he imagined that most families that appeared dysfunctional disagreed on small things, and not whether it was appropriate that one of them sold another into marriage. But at this point, what was done was done.
And she would be here.
She wanted him.
And she seemed committed to serving her role for the country.
That was her primary motivation. She had made that clear in the flower shop.
And it was a good thing. Because he could not afford distractions. He could not afford to start thinking in terms of emotion.
The music changed and he turned his focus again to the doorway. Watching with great attention.
And then, there she was.
The sight of her stole his breath.
She was...
She looked like she did for him. Only for him. Her dark hair was long and loose, the veil that she had soft and flowing down her back. She looked almost as if she didn’t have makeup on at all. Rather, she glowed. Her lips looked shiny and soft, her cheeks catching the light. It was magic. And so was she.
He had held himself back these weeks, because it had felt like something he should do until it was done. But now, here she was. Now she was his.
There would be no turning back.
When she reached the head of the aisle, she took his hand. And he pulled her to him. It was all he could do not to claim her mouth then and there. Not to make a spectacle of them both in front of the congregation.
And that was when he noticed the bracelets.
She had them both on one wrist. But the chain was there as well.
And when she looked into his eyes, he felt the impact of it all the way down to his gut.
She nodded slowly.
An affirmation.
She was choosing to give herself to him. And she was saying that she understood. The bond, the loyalty that traditionally existed here in this country between a royal husband and wife.
But he did not know where ownership fit into that. He did not know where duty and responsibility fit in.
He had told her about it. Mostly because he had wanted to see her wear those for him. Those rubies and nothing more. But also he had... He hadn’t understood. But suddenly, here, with those bracelets on her wrist, in a church, where they were about to make vows... Where she had brought the carnal into the sacred and blended them together, made them one, he could not understand how this bond could remain just another promise he decided to keep.
Because as she spoke her vows, low and grave in a voice that only he could hear, he felt them imprint beneath his skin. Down to his soul. And when he spoke his in return, they were like that gold chain on her wrist. But they wrapped around them both, binding them in a way that he had not anticipated.
He had thought he knew what this meant.
Because that day he had discovered the sorts of treachery his father protected. That day that he had realized that the orders he had taken for years had been in service of an insidious plan, and nothing that protected or bettered his people, he had sworn that he would uphold a set of principles. That he would not be led by his heart.
That he would not be led by anything other than a code of honor.
But now he had made vows to another person, and not an ideal.
When it came time to kiss her, it took all of his self-control not to claim her utterly and completely right there in front of the roomful of people. He touched her face, and he exercised restraint he did not feel, kissing her slowly but firmly, making sure that she knew it was a promise of more. A promise for later.
He had been restrained these past weeks.
But it was over now.
The vows were made. His course was set.
There was no turning back. Not now.
Whatever would become of this. Of them... It was too late.
You chose this.
He gritted his teeth against the truth of it.
It had been easy to say that he had done it for Matteo. That he was doing it to atone for the sin of taking her in the first place. But the fact of the matter was he was far too selfish to turn away from her.
The idea of giving her to another man had been anathema to him. An impossibility. Had his brother insisted on marrying her, he would have...
He would have betrayed him. He would have stolen her. Secreted her out of the country. Abandoned his post. Abandoned all that they had built.
The truth of that roared in his blood.
Like the beast that he was.
But there was nothing to be done about that now. She was his, so it didn’t matter. She was his, so it couldn’t matter.
He pushed it all away as he continued to kiss her, and when he was through, the congregation was clapping, and they were introduced.
But he didn’t hear any of it.
There was nothing.
Nothing but the pounding of his blood in his veins, the demand that burned through his body like molten lava.
He would endure the reception for as long as he had to. For as long as he had to pretend to care about flowers and ice cream and all manner of things that were only stand-ins for what he had truly wanted all along.
He didn’t care to touch the petals of an alarmingly soft purple flower. He wanted Violet. Her skin beneath his hands. He didn’t wish to lick an ice-cream cone. He wished to lick her.
And he would play the game if he had to, but that was all it was to him. A game. A game until he could get to her. Because that was all that mattered.
She talked to her family, and he knew that he could not rush her away from them. She was speaking, even to her father, and though there was cautiousness between them, he wondered if she might make amends with him. Javier didn’t know how.
He asked her that very question once they got back to their room. In spite of the fact that his blood roared with desire, he had to know.
“I don’t know if it will ever be the same as it was,” she said. “But it was never easy. It was never perfect. I can always see those sorts of tendencies in him. Those beliefs.”
“But you will forgive him.”
“Yes. I think sometimes... If you value your relationship with another person enough, you have to be willing to accept that they are flawed. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to make my father see the world, or me, the way that I want him to. I can keep showing him, though. And in the meantime I can live my life. But cutting him out of it completely wouldn’t fix the wound. It wouldn’t heal anything.”
“It might teach him a lesson,” Javier said.
“I think having to watch me join with you might have begun to teach him a lesson,” she said.
“What does that mean?” he growled.
“Only that you are a bit more feral and frightening than I think he imagined my royal husband might be.”
“The beast, remember?”
“Yes. I think... We are husband and wife now. And I would like to know... Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you become the beast? The sins of your father. We talked about that. But it’s deeper than that. I know it is. Because you changed when you found that little girl...”
“What do you think I was doing all those years before? I was seeing to his orders. Arresting men when he demanded that I arrest them. And women. Separating families as he commanded. And he would tell me it was for a reason. Because they were traitors. Because it was upholding the health of the country. But I realize now they were freedom fighters. People who wanted to escape his oppressive regime, and it was oppressive. That innocent people were put behind bars, tried and... I helped. I upheld his rule of law, and I regret it.”
“You didn’t know.”
“Maybe not. But when you have believed so wholeheartedly in a lie, you can never trust yourself again. You can never trust in the clarity of your own judgment because you have been so fooled. Because you were a villain and all the while imagined yourself a hero. And you will never, ever be able to walk through life without wondering which side you’re on again. You will never be able to take it for granted.”
“It takes such courage to admit that. You are brave. And I can see that you’ll never take the easy way. You can trust yourself.”
He shook his head. “No. I can’t. I love my father and I allowed those feelings to blind myself to his faults.”
“Well. So did I with mine.”
“Your father is not a maniacal dictator. As challenging as he might be.”
“No. I suppose not.” She put her hand on his face, and he closed his eyes, relishing the feel of her delicate fingers against him. “You saved that girl, Javier.”
“But so many more I did not save. So many I harmed myself. Arrested. Sent to a prison run by my father, where they were undoubtedly tortured. There is no salvation for such sins. My hands will not wash clean. But I can use them to serve.”
“I’m sorry, but I know you, Javier. You’re not a monster.”
“I must assume that I am,” he said, moving away. “The better to protect the world from any harm that I might do.”
“I don’t think you are,” she said.
“This is not a fairy tale. The things that I have done cannot be undone. I can only move forward trying to do right now that I understand. Now that I have the power. It is not about being transformed by magic. Such a thing is not possible.”
She moved to him and she bracketed his face with her hands.
He had no chance to respond to that, because she kissed his mouth, and he was dragged into the swirling undertow of desire by the softness of her lips, the slow, sweet sweep of her tongue against his. She was inexperienced, his beautiful goddess, but she had a sort of witchcraft about her that ensnared him and entranced him.
That made him fall utterly and completely under her spell.
How could the magic fail here? Because of him. That had to be it.
She was made entirely of magic. Glorious soft skin and otherworldly beauty wrapped around galaxies of light. She was something other than beauty. Something more.
Something that made his heart beat new and made him want to defy a lifetime of commitment to honor.
He had devoted himself to believing only in a code. A list of principles that helped him determine what was right and wrong because he knew full well that his own blood, his own heart could lead him in the direction of that which would destroy him and all those around him.
His belief in that had been unwavering.
When he looked at her, his Violet, his wife, he knew that he could believe entirely in her. In her magic. In the way her soft mouth rained kisses down over his skin, in the way her delicate fingertips brushed over his body. The way that she undid the buttons on his shirt and tackled the buckle on his belt. Yes. He could believe in that.
He could drop to his knees and pledge his loyalty to her and her alone, seal his utter and total devotion by losing himself in her womanly flavor. By drowning in the desire that rose up between them like a wave, threatening to decimate everything that he had built.
And he didn’t care.
Just like he hadn’t cared that first time they had kissed in the ballroom those weeks ago, when she had belonged to another man and his loyalty should have stood the test of time but crumbled beneath all that she was.
She was magic. And she was deadly.
And now, just now, he did not have the strength to deny her. To deny them.
And so, why not surrender? Why not drown in it? She was his, after all. He had gone down this path weeks ago, and it was too late to turn back. He had made her his.
His.
And tonight he would make that matter. He would revel in it.
He stole the power of the kiss from her, taking control, growling as he wrapped his arms around her and walked her back against the wall, pinning her there, devouring her, claiming her as his own.
He had spoken vows, but they were not enough; he needed to seal them with his body. He needed her to know.
He needed her to understand.
The way that she destroyed him. The way that he was broken inside. So that she would know. And he didn’t know why he needed her to know, just like he didn’t know why he had been in the library that night they had first made love. Why he had been looking through that same book that she was, trying to read the same story and find some meaning in it.
To try to see through her eyes the way that she might see him.
And it shouldn’t matter. It never should have. Because she had been his brother’s and he had been toying with betrayal even then.
But she’s yours now.
Yes, she was his. For better or worse.
He feared very much it might be worse. Because he hurt people. It felt like a natural part of what he was. That monster.
But perhaps if it was only this, if it was only lust, he could control it.
He wrenched that beautiful dress off her body. She was an Angel in it, far too pure for him, and it nearly hurt to look at her. Burned his hands to pull the filmy fabric away from her. But it left her standing there in white, angelic underthings. Garments that spoke of purity, and he knew that he was unequal to the task of touching them. Just as he had been unworthy of touching her in the first place.
But he had.
And he would.
He tore them away from her body, leaving her naked before him. Except for those jewels. The necklace glittering at the base of her throat, the cuffs heavy on her wrist, the chain wound around them. And the ring, his ring, glittering on her finger, telling the world that she belonged to him.
He had never had her in a bed.
He hadn’t realized that until this moment. And tonight he would have her in his bed. Their bed.
She would not have her own room, not after this.
It was often customary for royal couples to keep their own spaces, but they would not.
She would be here. Under the covers, in his bed with him. Her naked body wrapped around his. Yes. That was what he required. It was what he would demand.
He picked her up and carried her there, set her down at the center of the mattress and looked at her. He leaned over, spreading her hair out around her like a dark halo, and then he stood, looking at the beautiful picture that she made. Her soft, bare skin pale against the deep crimson red of the quilt. She took a sharp breath, her breasts rising with the motion, her nipples beading.
“Such a lovely picture you make, My Princess.”
“I didn’t think my official title was Princess.”
“It doesn’t matter. You are my princess. Mine.”
He bent down, cupping her breast with his hand, letting it fill his palm.
She was soft, so delicate and exquisite, and it amazed him that something half so fragile could put such a deep crack in the foundation of what he was. But she had.
He lowered his head and took one perfect, puckered nipple between his lips and sucked all her glory into his mouth. She arched beneath him, crying out in soft, sweet pleasure, and it spurred him on. He growled, lavishing her with attention, licking and sucking, stroking her between her thighs.
His wife. His beautiful, perfect wife, who threatened to destroy all that he was.
How had he ever thought that it was possible to maintain superior connections to this country. To duty and honor when the marriage bed presented shackles that could not be seen with the human eye. Perhaps that was why the cuffs existed. Not to create a sense that they were bound to each other, but to turn them physical. All the better to remove them when one chose to.
Because the ties that existed in his heart he could not see, he could not touch and he did not know how to unleash.
It was supernatural in a way that he would have said he did not believe in.
It was strong in a way he would have told anyone such a thing could not be.
And he was linked to her in a way he would have said he could not be to another human being.
Because he had given those things away so long ago. Because he had pledged loyalty to Matteo and not love. Because he had pledged his blood to Monte Blanco, but not love.
And what he wanted to give to Violet was deeper, and he was afraid that she was right. That magic had always only ever been love, and that it could turn and twist into something dark and evil, just like magic.
All that magic that she was.
All that... He did not wish to give the word a place, not even in his mind.
And so he covered his thoughts with a blanket of pleasure, wrapping them both in the dark velvet of his desire, lapping his way down her body, her stomach, down to that sweet place between her legs. He buried himself there. Lost himself in giving her pleasure.
Got drunk on it.
Because there was nothing to do now but revel in it. Afterward... Afterward there would be time for reckonings and for fixing all of this. But not now.
Now was the time to embrace it.
The only time.
Here in the bedroom.
And maybe that was what the cuffs were for.
To create a space where the world didn’t matter. Where there could be an escape.
And maybe for other men that would have worked. But not for him.
Because he didn’t know how to create space.
He only knew how to be all or nothing.
How to be an agent of his father, or a war machine acting against him.
How to be a man, vulnerable and useless. Or how to be a beast.
But he had the freedom to be that beast with her. And somehow, with that freedom he became both. Wholly a man and wholly an animal in her arms, and she seemed to accept him no matter what. She shouldn’t.
She should push him away. She always should have pushed him away.
But she had gone with him, from the beginning.
She had chosen to be with him.
And when he rose up and positioned himself between her thighs, when he thrust into her body, and when her beautiful eyes opened, connected with his, he felt a shudder of something crack through his entire body like a bolt of lightning.
She lifted her head, pressed her soft mouth to his, and he felt words vibrating against his lips. He couldn’t understand them. Couldn’t do anything but feel them, as the sweet, tight heat of her body closed around his.
She clung to his shoulders as he drove them both to the pinnacle of pleasure. And when she released, he went with her. Pleasure pounding through him like a relentless rain.
And then, he heard her speaking again, her lips moving against the side of his neck, and this time, the words crystallized in his mind.
The words that he had been trying, trying and failing, not to hear. Not to understand.
“I love you,” she whispered. Her lips moved against his skin, tattooing the words there, making it impossible for him not to feel them. He was branded with them.
“I love you. I love you.”
“No,” he said, the denial bursting forth from him.
He moved away from her, pushing his hands through his hair. Panic clawed at him and he couldn’t say why. He was not a man who panicked. Ever. He was not a man acquainted with fear. Because what did he care for his own life? The only thing he feared was the darkness in himself, and maybe that was the problem now. Maybe it called to the weakness that he had inside of his chest.
The desire to sink into her. To drop to his knees and pledge loyalty to her no matter what.
Even if she asked him to mobilize against his brother. Against his people.
And it didn’t matter that she wouldn’t.
What mattered was losing the anchor that kept him from harming those around him.
What mattered was losing the only moral compass he knew how to read.
What mattered was Monte Blanco and it was becoming impossible for him to hold on to that.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You don’t get to tell me that I don’t love you.”
“I cannot,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Haven’t you been listening? Haven’t you heard anything that I’ve told you? Love is the enemy. You’re right. Magic. And magic can be dark as easily as it can work for good.”
“So why can’t you trust that between us it will be good?”
“Because I cannot trust myself,” he said.
She put her hand on his chest and he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and ripped it away. She stared at him, the hurt in her eyes far too intense to bear.
Because he did not have the freedom to be himself with her. It was far too dangerous. And he had been lying. Evidence of his own weakness if it ever existed.
That he had wanted to pretend that what he knew to be true wasn’t. That he wanted to give himself freedom when he knew that he could not afford it. This woman was a gift that some men could have. But not him.
Yet he had been weak, far too weak from the beginning to turn away from her. He’d been given every chance. Every roadblock in his personal arsenal had been set up. She had been intended for his brother, and if that could not keep him away from her, then nothing could.
She was dangerous. Deadly.
A threat to his own personal code in ways that he should have seen from the beginning.
Because she had been eroding the foundation that he had built from the beginning. Just a touch. A kiss. And then he had stormed into his brother’s office to tell him that Matteo could not marry her. To tell him that he could not see through the plan that he had to make their country better, because Javier had wanted Violet for himself. He had never wanted to let her go. He would have gone after her. That much he knew.
But his brother had given him options that he had liked, and so he had taken them. Made it easy to keep on going down that slippery slope.
So he had done.
And now... Now he was sitting here in the consequences of it. She loved him. He could not give her that love in return.
He had broken not only his own sacred vows, but in the end he would break her too. And that was unacceptable.
But he had married her. And that was done. Consummated. Presented before the entire world.
But they did not have to live together as man and wife. He could give her the freedom that she had wanted. But he could not give her this.
“Love is not to be,” he said. “Not for me.”
“I know that you don’t trust it,” she said. “And I understand why. But you have to understand that what I feel for you has nothing to do with the way you were manipulated into caring for your father.”
“Was I manipulated? Or did I simply want to accept the easiest thing. The easiest reality.”
“Do you think that I’m going to trick you into doing something wrong? Do you think that I’m secretly here to destroy your country?”
“No,” he growled. “No,” he said again. “It’s not that. It has nothing to do with that. But a man cannot serve two masters. And my master must be my people. It must be my country. It must be to duty, and to honor. That is where I must pledge my allegiance, and I cannot be split between a wife and a nation.”
“Then make me part of your people. Make me one of those that you have a responsibility to. Surely that can’t be so difficult.”
Except that he knew it would destroy her. It was not what she wanted. It was not what she deserved. And without it she truly would be in captivity for all of his life. And he would be her jailer. And so he was trapped. Between violating all that he needed to be for his country and destroying the life of the woman who had married him.
He reached over to her and unclasped the first bracelet from her wrist. He unwound the chain that she had wrapped there, and then unclipped the second bracelet.
Her eyes filled with tears as she stared at him, but he knew that it would be a kindness. It was a kindness whether she saw it that way or not.
“What are you doing?”
“You are not my prisoner,” he said. “And I will not make you a prisoner.”
“Now you say this? Now, after we’ve been married? After I told you that I love you? That’s when you decide to give me freedom?”
“We must remain married,” he said. “That much is obvious. My brother would take a dim view on there being a divorce so quickly. It would cause scandal. And... I do not wish to undo all that you have done for my country. But you may go back to California. To your life. There is no reason that you must stay here. You do not need to be under my thumb.”
“What if I choose to stay?”
“What you choose is up to you. But that will not alter my behavior. That will not change the fact that this place is my priority. That it is where my duty lies.”
“I love you,” she said.
She got out of bed, standing there, naked and radiant in the center of the room. “I love you, and you can’t make it so that I don’t. I love you,” she said, like a spell, like an incantation, like she was trying to cast it over him, like she was trying to change the very fabric of what he was. Destroy him, then remake him using those words to stitch him back together.
As if she might be able to use them to take the beast and turn him back into a man.
“And I cannot love,” he said. “It is that simple.”
“You can,” she said. “You can. But you’re not a beast to protect the world from you, you have to be a beast to protect yourself from the world. You’re afraid, Javier. You’re afraid of being hurt again, and I understand that.”
Her words lashed against something inside of him that felt tender and bruised. And he hadn’t thought that he had the capacity to feel such a thing.
“You don’t know what you speak of,” he said. “You are protected. Even the betrayal that your father meted out to you was not one that might put you in peril or threaten your comfort in any way. He sold you to a king. That you might be exalted. You have no idea what I am fighting against. You have no idea what real suffering is. I have seen it. I have caused it. And I have to guard against ever causing it again. Do not give me your quick and easy sound bites, Violet King. I am not one of your internet followers. I am not impressed by quick, condensed versions of truth that are easy to digest. I have seen human suffering on a level that you cannot possibly understand. And I am related to the cause of it. If my life must be devoted to the undoing of it so that those in the future can simply live, then it must be. But don’t you ever accuse me of being afraid.”
And for the first time he saw her crumple. For the first time, he saw her bravery falter, and he hated himself for being the cause of that. He had plucked the woman from her office some weeks ago and taken her off to a land that she had never even heard of, and she had remained strong. She had remained stoic. She had an answer back for everything he had said. But not now. He had finally taken that from her. He had finally destroyed some of what she was.
And there was no joy to be had in that.
It was confirmation. Of what he was.
That spark of light she had placed in him was now extinguished in her.
She had said he was not a monster, but he knew that he was.
That he would destroy her only more as the years wore on.
He hurt people.
He had caused pain under the rule of his father, and under the rule of his own heart, he would cause Violet pain as well.
“If you think that’s what I meant, if you think that’s who I am, then you haven’t been paying attention at all. I thought that we knew each other. I thought that our souls recognized each other,” she said, her voice breaking. “You saw me reading the book... And I knew that you would be reading it too. I knew it. You know the library was the first place that I looked for you that night we first made love. Because somehow I knew you would be looking at the same story I was, trying to see if you saw us in there.”
“You misunderstand. I wasn’t looking for answers because I already have them. I understand that this was significant to you. That this was a first for you. But I have lived life. I have already had all the revelations I will have. Perhaps you can think of me as a lesson learned.”
“What an expensive lesson,” she said, her tone full of venom. “Wedding vows seem a little bit extreme.”
“As I told you, the wedding vows can remain.”
“Why would I stay married to you? If you don’t want to have a real marriage?”
He gritted his teeth, fought against the terror that clouded his chest at the idea of losing her. He liked much more the idea of being able to keep her while keeping her separate.
“Do what you must.”
He gathered his clothes and began to dress.
“Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“I would never have thought that you would transform yourself into a basic sort of man. But that is very basic. Just out. No explanation.”
“Because I don’t owe you an explanation. Because you got the explanation that you were going to get already. That you thought there was more is your problem, not mine.”
He gritted his teeth against the burning sensation in his chest and he walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Closing the door on them. On temptation.
Whatever she did now was her choice.
But he had done his duty, for honor.
Whatever she said, that was why.
He ignored the kick in his chest that told him otherwise.
He ignored everything.
Because that was the real gift of having transformed himself into a beast.
When he had done that, he had taken his feelings away as well.
So why did his chest hurt so much?