IRIS
I don't know how long I sat there on the floor, a trembling mess on the wolf-skin rug. The fire in the hearth had burned down to embers, casting long, dancing shadows that made the room feel like the belly of some great, sleeping beast. The stone wall at my back was cold, a stark contrast to the lingering, phantom heat of Kaelen’s body. My heart had finally slowed its frantic rhythm, but the thrum of the bond remained, a low, steady hum beneath my skin, a constant reminder of his presence, just beyond the heavy oak door.
Every time I closed my eyes, I felt it again—the press of his hips against mine, the hard line of his chest, the searing intensity in his silver eyes. And my body’s treacherous response. The shame was a bitter acid in my throat. I was a puppet, and he, the Restorative Bond, was the puppeteer, pulling at my strings with an expert, cruel hand. I pushed myself up, my muscles protesting, and began to pace the room like a caged animal. I needed to get out. I needed to breathe air that wasn't saturated with his scent.
The heavy oak door opened without a sound. I spun around, my heart leaping into my throat, expecting to see Kaelen returning to finish what he started. But it wasn't him. A man stood in the doorway, tall and broad-shouldered, with the same predatory grace as the king, but without the suffocating aura of power. His hair was a shorter, lighter brown, and his eyes were a warm, intelligent hazel that held a flicker of wry amusement. He wore similar dark leathers, but they were scuffed and worn, the marks of a warrior, not a ruler.
"Ronan," the man said, by way of introduction. His voice was a low baritone, calm and steady. "I'm Kaelen's Beta. And you, I presume, are the witch who's been causing all the commotion."
I crossed my arms, a defensive posture I knew was transparent but couldn't help. "I'm the witch who was dragged here in chains and forced into a magical marriage. I'd say 'commotion' is an understatement."
A small, genuine smile touched his lips. "Fair enough. He's in the war room. We've had an incident." His expression sobered. "A skirmish at the eastern border, with one of Marius's covens. It was… messy. They hit a civilian convoy. Humans."
My anger at Kaelen momentarily cooled, replaced by a prickle of alarm. "Lord Marius? The Vampire Regent?" I had read about him in the forbidden texts Elara had given me, a purist who saw interspecies alliances as a disease.
"The same," Ronan confirmed. "He's been pushing the boundaries for months, testing the Accords. This is the first time he's spilled this much human blood. Kaelen is… not pleased."
I could feel it through the bond, even from a distance. A cold, hard wave of fury, so sharp and focused it was like a shard of ice in my gut. It was an emotion far more familiar to him than the chaotic lust from before. This was his element: rage, strategy, war.
"He told me to stay here," I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. I hated being confined, hated being treated like a delicate, explosive artifact.
"He's worried about you," Ronan said, surprising me. "Or rather, he's worried about the bond. If you get hurt, he gets hurt. It's a tactical vulnerability he's still adjusting to."
The way he said it—so pragmatic, so direct—was disarming. He wasn't making excuses for Kaelen's behavior, merely explaining the logic behind it. It was the first time anyone had spoken to me like I was a rational part of this equation, not just a problem to be managed.
Before I could respond, a scent drifted into the room from the hallway. It was a cloying, overly sweet floral scent, like roses left too long in the vase. Underneath it was something else, the faint, sharp tang of Fae magic. It was a scent that didn't belong here, a discordant note in the symphony of pine, rain, and stone.
A woman appeared in the doorway behind Ronan, leaning against the frame with an air of practiced nonchalance. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with hair the color of spun gold cascading in perfect waves over her shoulders, and eyes the color of ancient amber. She wore a gown of deep emerald silk that clung to her slender curves, a garment designed for seduction, not for the rugged practicality of a Lycan stronghold. Isolde. The woman from the Council Hall.
Her eyes, when they found me, were not warm. They were cool and assessing, taking in my disheveled state, the silk nightgown, the raw marks on my wrists. A slow, venomous smile spread across her lips. "Ronan. Always so busy playing the king's right hand." Her voice was like honey laced with poison, smooth and sweet and utterly deadly. She glided past him, her movements fluid and silent, into the room. "I came to see if our new… addition… needed anything. It must be so terribly frightening, being torn from one's life and thrust into a world of savagery."
Every word was a deliberate, calculated insult. She wasn't offering comfort; she was staking her claim, marking her territory. I could feel the shift in the air as Ronan tensed beside me, his easygoing demeanor vanishing, replaced by a wary alertness.
"Isolde," he said, his voice flat. "This isn't a good time."
"Nonsense," she purred, her gaze sweeping over the room, a gesture of ownership that made my skin crawl. "Kaelen is occupied, and the poor girl looks positively lost. I, of all people, know what it's like to be new to his world. To his… attentions."
She stopped by the grand, four-poster bed, her fingers trailing lightly over the dark wood post. Her gaze met mine, and in her amber eyes, I saw a world of shared history with the man who was now my bond-mate. A decade, she had said. A decade of nights in this bed, of whispers in the dark, of knowing his body, his moods, his secrets.
"He can be… intense, can't he?" she continued, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "All that barely leashed power. It can be overwhelming at first. But you learn to appreciate it. You learn what makes him purr." Her smile widened, a predator showing her teeth. "Did you know he has a scar, just here?" She lightly touched the small of her own back, a spot just above the curve of her hip. "From a fight with a griffin when he was a boy. He hates for anyone to touch it. But I… I always knew how to make him forget the pain."
Each word was a small, precise dagger, aimed directly at my insecurities. She wasn't just talking about a scar; she was talking about a level of intimacy I couldn't possibly compete with. A history. A life. My hands clenched into fists at my sides, my nails digging into my palms. I would not give her the satisfaction of seeing me flinch.
"Is there a point to this, Isolde?" I asked, my voice colder than I intended. "Or are you just here to air out your old laundry?"
Her laugh was a light, musical sound, but it held no warmth. "Spirited. I can see why he finds you… interesting. It's a novelty, I'm sure. He does enjoy breaking things in."
She turned away from the bed and, with a deliberate, casual movement, bent down to pick something up from the floor near the hearth. It was a piece of clothing, balled up and forgotten in the shadows. She held it up between two delicate fingers. It was a black training shirt, made of a soft, worn cotton. It was damp, and even from across the room, I could smell it. Pine. Midnight rain. His scent. The same scent that was now imprinted on my very soul.
"Oh, dear," she said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "The king is so careless with his things. He must have dropped this when he changed this morning. After he left my rooms."
The world seemed to tilt on its axis. The air rushed from my lungs. My rooms. The two words echoed in the sudden, roaring silence of my mind. It was a lie. It had to be a lie. But as she held the shirt, a small, cruel smile playing on her lips, I saw it. A fresh, dark mark on the side of her neck, just above the collar of her silk gown. A bite mark. Not the raw, angry brand Kaelen had given me, but a smaller, more intimate one. One that spoke of pleasure, not punishment.
A wave of something hot and violent crashed over me. Jealousy. It was an ugly, monstrous emotion, green and sickening, a beast I hadn't even known lived inside me. It rose up, choking me, blinding me. It wasn't just the thought of him with her. It was the timing. He had been with her this morning, hours after he had bitten me, after our bodies had been pressed together in a frenzy of forced desire. After he had looked at me with that raw, horrifying need.
The bond flared in my chest, not with pleasure this time, but with a sharp, piercing pain. It was a physical manifestation of my emotional agony. I felt a flash of Kaelen's own surprise and fury from the war room—he had felt my pain, my betrayal. But it was distant, a muted echo compared to the storm raging inside me.
Ronan stepped forward, his face grim. "That's enough, Isolde. You're overstepping."
"Am I?" she asked, her eyes never leaving mine. "I'm simply welcoming the new queen to the court. Sharing a little sisterly advice." She let the shirt fall from her fingers, letting it land in a heap on the rug between us. It was a symbol. A discarded piece of a history she and I could never share. A ghost I couldn't compete with. "He'll come back to me, you know. He always does. You're just a means to an end. A political inconvenience. Enjoy the cage while it lasts."
She turned and swept out of the room, her emerald silk whispering against the stone floor, leaving behind the cloying scent of roses and the shattered remnants of my composure.
I stood there, frozen, my eyes fixed on the discarded shirt on the floor. It was just a piece of fabric. But it was everything. It was a decade of laughter and secrets. It was the comfort of shared memories. It was the scent of him on her skin. It was a life I had stolen, and a life she was determined to take back.
Ronan let out a long, weary sigh. "She's a poison, Iris. Don't let what she says get to you."
"Too late for that," I whispered, my voice cracking. I looked up at him, the tears I refused to shed burning behind my eyes. "Is it true? Was he with her this morning?"
He hesitated, his hazel eyes filled with a complex mix of sympathy and loyalty. "I don't know," he said finally, and I knew he was telling the truth. "But Kaelen is… complicated. His past with her is a tangled mess. It's not my place to say more."
That was answer enough. It wasn't a denial. It was a confirmation that there was a mess to be untangled. A ghost in the machine.
My gaze drifted back to the shirt. I couldn't look at it anymore. I couldn't breathe in this room, with his scent and her poison mixing in the air. I turned and fled, not toward the door, but onto the large stone balcony that adjoined the chambers. The night air was cold and sharp, a welcome shock to my overheated skin. I gripped the cold stone balustrade, leaning over it, gasping for breath like a drowning woman.
Below me, the Lycan stronghold spread out, a complex of stone buildings and training grounds nestled in a deep, forested valley. Torches flickered, casting moving shadows on the walls. In the distance, I could hear the howl of a wolf, a long, lonely sound that echoed the desolation in my own heart.
I wasn't just bound to a tyrant king. I was trapped in a web of political intrigue and a very real, very sexual past. I had thought the stakes were about survival, about escaping my gilded cage. Isolde had just shown me that the stakes were so much higher. They were about sanity. About pride. About the terrifying possibility that the man who was now bound to my soul might never see me as anything more than a temporary, inconvenient replacement.
I looked back into the room, at the shirt lying on the floor like a fallen flag. It was a symbol of a history I couldn't compete with, a ghost I couldn't fight. And in that moment, I felt a despair so profound it was almost a relief. It was the despair of knowing that I wasn't just a prisoner in a cage. I was a prisoner in a story that had already been written, and I wasn't the leading lady. I was just a plot twist.
The bond in my chest throbbed, a dull, aching reminder of the man who was now my tormentor. I could feel his distant fury at the border skirmish, a cold, hard anger that was a world away from the hot, messy emotions churning within me. He was out there, playing the king, defending his people. And I was in here, a pawn in a game I didn't understand, fighting a battle with a ghost I couldn't possibly win.