A Fire 🔥 That Shouldn't Exist
320 Words
Seraphina tried to convince herself that the sudden fluttering in her chest was nothing more than exhaustion… or humiliation… or the sting of imprisonment.
But she knew better.
No one had ever looked at her the way Prince Adrien did.
Not as a princess.
Not as a warrior.
Not even as an enemy.
But as a woman — a woman he wanted to understand.
That terrified her more than any blade.
The Prison Storm
Three weeks after her capture, a storm descended upon Valerius. Rain hammered the castle like an army of fists. Wind howled through cracks in the stone.
Thunder shook the torches in the dungeon.
Seraphina sat curled in her cloak — his cloak — and hated the warmth it gave her… because it reminded her of him.
She didn’t hear Adrien approach until he was standing in front of her cell, drenched from the rain.
“You’re soaked,” she muttered before she could stop herself.
He smiled faintly. “I came straight from the battlements. Every soldier is accounted for.”
“Why come here?” she snapped. “Don’t you have duties?”
“I do.” He stepped closer. “And one of them is you.”
Her heart slammed into her ribs.
“I don’t belong to you,” she whispered.
“No,” he said softly. “But you matter to me.”
Something inside her twisted — painfully, dangerously.
He reached through the bars, gripping the iron near her face.
“Seraphina… I know you hate me. Perhaps you always will. But I don’t intend to be your captor forever.”
His eyes were unwavering.
“I intend to earn your trust.”
She turned her face away, but his voice followed her like a flame.
“And maybe… one day… your forgiveness.”
A single tear — infuriating, unwanted — slid down her cheek.
She didn’t let him see it.
- Writer
