The Smile Beneath the Sand

Chapter 13

Kael

Valerius summoned me near dusk.

That, too, was wrong.

He preferred daylight for business, preferred to see the men he owned clearly when he spoke of blood and profit. Evening summons meant something else—something private, something edged.

I waited outside his office with my back straight and my gaze fixed on the stone opposite the door. The guards stood farther down the corridor than usual, deliberately distant. Another sign.

Then I heard her voice.

It reached me through the heavy wood—muffled, but unmistakable. Soft, usually. Careful. Now it was fractured, the restraint she wore so well splintering under pressure.

“—you never asked me what I wanted.”

Her words struck like a blade between the ribs.

I did not breathe.

“I am your father,” Valerius replied, his voice measured, firm. “I know what is best for you.”

“What is best for the house,” she snapped, anger bleeding through at last. “For your reputation. For your alliances.”

Silence followed. Thick. Dangerous.

“You will marry,” he said at last. “Someone worthy. Not a slave. Not a dream. A man who can stand beside you without shame.”

The world tilted.

My fingers curled slowly at my sides, nails biting into my palms. I had faced death with less fear than I felt standing there, rooted to the stone, listening to her future being carved without her consent.

“You would rather stay alone?” he asked.

The question was quiet now. Exhausted.

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation, “than choose poorly.”

Another pause.

“I prefer it,” she said.

Something in my chest cracked.

I had to fight the urge to laugh—to bark out something wild and broken—because of course she would say that. Of course she would choose solitude over a life built on lies.

Valerius exhaled sharply. “You speak like a child.”

“No,” she said. “I speak like someone who knows herself.”

Footsteps shifted inside the room. I imagined her pacing, hands clenched, eyes bright with unshed tears she would never allow to fall in front of him.

“There is someone else,” Valerius said slowly. “Isn’t there.”

The words froze my blood.

“You will stay alone?” he repeated, pressing. “Or is there someone who interests you?”

My heart stopped.

I pressed my shoulder more firmly against the stone, as if the wall itself might anchor me, might keep the truth from tearing free of my ribs. I could not hear my own breathing. I could barely hear anything at all.

Time stretched.

A long, merciless pause.

Then—

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

Her voice was steady again. Too steady.

“You would never accept him,” she continued. “And if you did—if you tried to change him, shape him, cage him—he would be hurt.”

Her breath caught, just once.

“And that would be unbearable.”

I closed my eyes.

There it was.

Not my name. Not a confession that would doom us both.

But worse.

Love disguised as protection.

She was choosing pain over destruction. Choosing to carry this alone rather than let him suffer for it.

For me.

Valerius did not speak for a long moment.

When he did, his voice was colder. “Then the matter is settled. You will marry as planned.”

“I won’t,” she said.

“You will,” he repeated. Final. Unyielding.

The door opened.

I snapped upright instantly, face blank, body obedient, the Wolf called back into existence as if I had not just watched my heart be dismantled word by word.

Livia stepped out first.

She did not look at me.

She could not.

Her face was pale, her expression composed with brutal effort, grief and fury caged behind her eyes. She passed me like a ghost, silk whispering against stone, leaving behind the faint scent that had haunted my dreams and my waking hours alike.

I did not move.

Only when Valerius stood before me did I remember how to breathe.

“You heard nothing,” he said.

“No,” I replied truthfully.

He studied me for a moment, as if measuring something unseen, then turned back into his office.

“Come.”

I followed.

But a part of me stayed in that corridor—

frozen, burning, smiling like a fool—

Because even as the world closed its fist around us again, I knew one thing with brutal clarity:

She would rather be alone than belong to anyone but the man she was never meant to love.

And if memory was all we were allowed—

Then I would bleed to keep it alive.