A Normal Day Part Four
1308 Words
Ravenna.
No one rejected Ravenna Selka.
That was not arrogance.
It was history.
Kings had betrayed kingdoms for my smile. Queens had invited war for the honor of hating me up close. Saints had cursed my name and watched my mouth while doing it. Assassins sent to kill me had apologized before dying because even they understood beauty deserved manners.
I had been desired by people who loved me.
Desired by people who feared me.
Desired by people who wanted to ruin me, worship me, dethrone me, or become me.
Desire was easy.
It was power dressed in silk.
I knew how to use it.
A touch on the arm. A glance held too long. A smile sharp enough to make a man wonder if he was prey or chosen. I flirted when I liked someone. I flirted when I hated someone. I flirted because the moment a person wondered whether I wanted them, they stopped wondering whether I was dangerous.
That was the trick.
That had always been the trick.
Then Ashen Frostveil Drakewood told me to leave.
And my body obeyed.
I slammed the door to my stolen room hard enough to rattle the frost-glass lamp.
The room was beautiful.
Carved bed. Blue blankets. Silver basin. A window overlooking snow-drowned trees.
I hated it.
I hated the cottage.
I hated Frostveil.
I hated wolves.
I hated the blood contract burning around my wrist like a bracelet made from humiliation.
Most of all, I hated that my skin still remembered the way Ashen’s arm had flexed beneath my fingers.
Not desire.
No.
Absolutely not.
It had been tension.
Discomfort.
Warning.
He had not leaned into my touch.
He had not looked at my mouth.
He had not given me the stunned, greedy little pause people always gave when Ravenna Selka stepped too close.
He had wanted distance.
From me.
My reflection in the frost-glass mirror looked offended on my behalf.
“As it should,” I told it.
The red-frost mark pulsed.
I gripped my wrist.
“You are quiet,” I snapped toward the empty room. “Stay that way.”
The mind-link did not answer.
Good.
I did not want him in my head.
I did not want to know that he was still outside with his moon princess, likely looking guilty and noble and tragic over bread.
I did not want to feel the shape of his apology lingering through the contract like cold pressure.
I did not want to remember the way he had stopped immediately when I stepped back.
That was the worst part.
A cruel man would have been easier.
A tyrant would have been familiar.
A wolf who enjoyed obedience would have made sense.
But Ashen looked horrified by the power he had over me.
As if commanding me had wounded him too.
Ridiculous.
Offensive.
Unfairly compelling.
I paced the room.
“He is not attractive,” I said.
The room did not agree.
“He is symmetrical. There is a difference.”
The lamp flickered.
I pointed at it. “Do not develop opinions.”
My wrist burned again.
Not pain exactly.
A pull.
Toward him.
No.
I stopped pacing and pressed my palm against the window, staring down at the snow.
Through the glass, I could see them beneath the pine.
Ashen and Moon.
Sitting close.
Too close.
Moon handed him bread. He accepted it like it was something precious.
He was careful with her.
Not performative.
Not greedy.
Not trying to own what he touched.
Careful.
That, unfortunately, was worse than charm.
Charm was cheap. I had used it for centuries.
Care was rarer.
And much more dangerous.
Moon said something. Ashen looked down, then almost smiled.
There it was again.
That quiet, restrained face. Like every soft thing in him had to ask permission before showing itself.
Pretty trauma eyes.
I had meant it as an insult.
Mostly.
My fingers tightened against the window frame.
No one rejected Ravenna Selka.
And yet he had.
Not because I lacked beauty.
Not because he lacked blood.
Because he wanted her.
Because he was loyal in a way that looked almost painful.
Because desire, to him, was not a room he wandered through for power.
It was a door he guarded.
Annoying.
Honorable.
Deeply inconvenient.
The contract pulsed again.
This time, a thought slipped through before I could stop it.
I am sorry.
His voice.
Inside my head.
Soft.
Careful.
Furious heat rose in me.
I sent my answer back like a blade.
Do not apologize at me through the leash, Snow Prince.
Silence.
Then:
I do not want it to be a leash.
I closed my eyes.
That was the problem.
I believed him.
And I hated that.
I opened my eyes and looked at the mark on my wrist.
“I am not falling for a werewolf,” I whispered.
The room remained silent.
I lifted my chin.
“I am not even leaning.”
Outside, Moon laughed softly at something Ashen said.
My fangs pressed against my lower lip.
Fine.
Maybe I was leaning.
A little.
But only because the contract had poor balance.
And because no one rejected me.
And because Ashen Frostveil Drakewood had looked at me with discomfort instead of hunger, guilt instead of pride, and somehow made refusal feel less like insult and more like a locked door I suddenly wanted to open.
I hated him.
Obviously.
With interest.
A knock came at my door.
I stiffened.
“Go away.”
“It’s Solan.”
I paused.
Then opened the door halfway.
The moon prince stood there leaning against the frame, pale but irritatingly alive.
“What do you want?”
He glanced at my wrist.
Then at my face.
“You slammed the door loud enough to wake the dead.”
“I am the dead.”
“Then it was redundant.”
I narrowed my eyes.
He smiled faintly.
“Are you all right?”
The question was so unexpected I almost shut the door in his face.
Instead, I said, “You are terrible at being casually concerned.”
“I nearly died yesterday. My social skills are recovering slowly.”
I stared at him.
He looked past me toward the window, where Ashen and Moon were still sitting under the pine.
“Ravenna.”
“No.”
“I have not said anything.”
“You were about to be wise. I dislike that in men under a thousand.”
Solan’s mouth curved.
“Do not make Ashen your proof that you still have power.”
The words landed too cleanly.
My smile sharpened.
“Careful, moon prince. The life Veyra gave you may not protect you from me.”
“No,” he said. “But I think your pride will. It hates owing anyone.”
I hated that he was right.
So I shut the door.
Gently.
Which was worse than slamming it.
I returned to the window.
Ashen looked up.
For one second, his eyes found mine through the glass.
He did not look away.
Neither did I.
Moon noticed.
Of course she did.
Her shoulders straightened slightly.
Possessive little moonbeam.
I smiled despite myself.
This journey was going to be unbearable.
The contract tugged warm and cold around my wrist.
In the distance, beyond the royal guest house and the blue lanterns, a wolf howled from the deeper woods.
Not a hunter.
Not warning.
A summons.
Prince Kaelor, perhaps.
The uncle.
The next disaster waiting to unfold.
I touched the frost-glass window and watched Ashen rise beneath the pine, instinct already moving through him before anyone explained the danger.
Beautiful disaster.
No.
Royal disaster.
Mine to obey.
For now.
I bared my fangs at the thought.
Then I smiled.
Because if fate insisted on humiliating me, I would at least make the humiliation entertaining.
- Writer
