Prison or protection
910 Words
The second Zevran’s fingers hit my wrist, the whole room went quiet. The wrong kind of quiet. Not scared quiet. Not mad quiet. Like fifty wolves were holding their breath at the same time, waiting to see who’d break first.
His touch was cold. Careful. Like I was a knife that might go off in his hand if he squeezed too hard. The second our skin touched, something shot up my arm. Not pain. Worse. Like my body remembered him before I did, like some old instinct I never asked for woke up and stretched.
His wolf woke up. Mine didn’t. I don’t have one. But my blood did. It buzzed under my skin, stupid and dangerous, and I hated that it reacted to him.
“Walk,” he said quietly. Like I didn’t have a choice. Like the word itself was a chain.
I did have a choice. If I ran, I’d prove every ugly thing they said about me. If I fought, Lord Roric would get his excuse to put a blade in my throat and call it justice. So I walked.
The hall split open for us. Wolves flattened against the walls, staring like I was already in a grave. Some looked glad. Some looked hungry. Zevran didn’t look at them. He stared straight ahead, jaw locked, and he was pissed. Not at me. At all of this. At not being in control. Good. I’d take his anger over him wanting me any day.
We hit the doors and cold air slapped my face. Clean. For one second my body leaned toward it. My legs shifted like they wanted to run. Then I felt the silver bite my ankles. One step and I’d be on the ground, blood everywhere. I locked my knees. Stayed put.
Then his smell hit me again. Cedar. Frost. And under that, something worse. Like he’d already decided I was his and the Law was just an excuse.
My stomach dropped.
“Get in,” he said, pulling open a black carriage. Valecrest sigil on the side.
I didn’t move.
“Veyra.”
Hearing my name from him felt wrong. Like a warning and a promise at the same time. I got in.
He sat across from me. Too close. The carriage started rolling and outside the world moved, but inside it felt like just us. No one else. We didn’t talk for a long time.
Then he said, “Why didn’t you run?”
I blinked. “So I could die in the yard?”
“No.” His eyes narrowed. “Before. When the cuff broke. You could’ve bolted. Made them tear each other apart.”
My throat got tight. “I don’t want them dead.”
“Liar.”
That word hit hard.
“I don’t,” I said, quieter. “If I wanted them dead, I would’ve stopped hiding years ago.”
Zevran looked at me like I was a puzzle he couldn’t fix. “You’re lying to yourself.”
“Maybe.” I stared out the window. “Maybe you are too.”
His face didn’t change. But his smell got sharper, cutting through the cedar and frost.
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t claim me for some old law,” I said. “That law’s been dead for a hundred years. You could’ve let Roric kill me. No one would’ve cared.”
The carriage hit a bump. He didn’t blink.
“But I didn’t,” he said.
“Why?”
Silence. Then, “My wolf didn’t want you dead.”
That stole my breath. His wolf didn’t want me dead. It wanted something else. Something I can’t give.
“I don’t want your wolf,” I said. “And I don’t want you.”
Zevran leaned forward. Elbows on his knees. Close enough I could see gold flickering in his dark eyes.
“You don’t get to decide that,” he said soft. “Not anymore.”
My pulse jumped. Panic came. And with it, my smell. The air in the carriage got thick and heavy. Zevran’s eyes went wide. His jaw locked so tight I heard his teeth grind.
“Control it,” he said through his teeth.
“I’m trying.”
“Trying’s not enough.”
He grabbed the seat between us. Knuckles white. I could see him holding back. Chest moving too fast. Too shallow. If I let one more wave of fear out, he’d snap. Then I’d find out what Zevran Valecrest looks like when he loses it.
I couldn’t breathe. So I drove my nails into my palm. The old bite from Ch 1 opened up again. Blood hit my tongue. Pain cleared my head. It worked. My smell faded back down.
“Stop,” I whispered.
His eyes snapped to me. “What?”
“Stop looking at me like that,” I said. “Like I already belong to you.”
For a second something real showed on his face. Not Alpha. Just tired. Frustrated at himself for wanting what he couldn’t have.
“Get used to it,” he said.
The carriage slowed. Valecrest Keep rose outside the window, black stone and iron.
Zevran stood first. Opened the door. Cold air rushed in.
“Welcome to your prison, Veyra Noctair,” he said. Then he paused. “Or your protection.”
He held out his hand.
I didn’t take it. But I followed him anyway.
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- Writer
