The Wolf and The Wilted Rose

Flinched

“I’m here for dinner, Mr. Alaric.”

She said formally and settle down the chair opposite him.

A low, rich rumble of laughter escaped Elvan’s throat, vibrating off the dark wood and stone walls of the study. Her formal, utterly unbothered tone—as if she were a business associate arriving for a mundane evening audit rather than a captive bride sharing quarters with the most feared man in the realm—was equal parts maddening and intoxicating.

He didn't immediately follow her to the table. Instead, he stood tall for a heartbeat longer, his amber eyes tracking her every deliberate movement with the predatory patience of a wolf watching its prey sit willingly inside the trap.

"Businesslike. How charmingly disappointing," Elvan murmured, his voice dipping into a low, silk-wrapped cadence.

With measured, unhurried steps, he crossed the room and pulled out the high-backed leather chair directly opposite her, though he didn't sit. Instead, he leaned over the back of it, bringing his face dangerously close to hers as a servant quietly materialized from the shadows, lifting the silver domes off a spread of rich, steaming dishes before retreating just as silently as they had arrived.

Elvan let his gaze linger on her face, noting the way her pulse didn't even stutter beneath her skin.

"You walk into the lion's den, dress like starlight, and sit across from me as if we're sharing tea at a polite afternoon parlor," he whispered, a dark, crooked smile playing at the corner of his mouth. He finally pulled his chair out and sat down, his broad shoulders blocking the candlelight, casting her half in shadow while the hearth fire painted the rest of her features in gold.

He picked up his silver fork, though he didn't touch the food, keeping his eyes locked entirely on hers.

"Eat, Fionia. Let's see if your appetite matches your defiance."

The rhythmic, quiet scrape of silver against porcelain was the only sound cutting through the heavy silence of the study.

Elvan rested his chin on his knuckles, his elbow propped against the mahogany table, completely ignoring his own plate. His amber eyes narrowed slightly as he watched her. Every movement was measured, graceful, and utterly detached—the picture of aristocratic perfection. Yet, what caught his attention wasn't her poise; it was what she left behind.

The rich, dark reduction sauce pooled on the side of her plate remained pristine, entirely untouched.

"Plain?" Elvan murmured, his voice cutting softly across the table as he tilted his head. A dark, curious glint flickered in his eyes. "No seasoning. No sauce. You eat it raw and stripped of flavor, as if you're trying to punish the food."

He reached for his own glass of dark liquor, swirling the amber liquid lazily before taking a slow sip, never breaking eye contact.

"Is this another one of your quiet little protests, wife? Or did the Nauven household train you to subsist on bitterness so long ago that you've forgotten how to taste anything else?"

The microscopic hitch in her breathing—the infinitesimal hesitation before her hand resumed its steady rhythm—did not escape Elvan’s razor-sharp notice.

His gaze dropped from her eyes down to her hands, resting neatly against the edge of the table. To anyone else, she looked a picture of unshakeable calm. But a predator learns to read the subtlest tremors of its prey. He caught the faint, telltale sheen of moisture glistening across her knuckles under the candlelight, the silent, involuntary betrayal of a nervous system reacting to a hidden wound.

Bitter. He hadn't meant it as a strike, but the word had clearly hit a raw, exposed nerve buried deep beneath her armor.

Elvan didn't mock her for it. Instead, the dark amusement in his eyes shifted into something heavier, sharper, and far more calculating. The invisible wall she had spent a lifetime building brick by brick wasn't made of stone; it was made of scar tissue.

Without a word, he pushed his own untouched plate aside, the porcelain sliding across the polished wood. He reached across the expanse of the table, his large, warm hand moving with deliberate slowness—giving her every opportunity to flinch or pull away—before wrapping his fingers firmly around her damp, tense wrist.

He didn't pull her, nor did he use force. He simply anchored her, his thumb pressing purposefully against her pulse point to feel the erratic, accelerated rhythm hammering underneath.

"Look at me, Fionia," Elvan commanded softly, his voice dropping all its previous mockery, replaced by a low, commanding timber that brooked no escape.

When she raised her eyes to meet his, the amber depths of his gaze were entirely stripped of their usual cruelty, holding a strange, burning intensity that demanded her full, unmasked attention.

"If the mere mention of your past makes your hands shake like that," he murmured, his thumb tracing a slow, grounding circle against the inside of her wrist,

"you're carrying a much heavier war inside you than you're letting on. You don't have to pretend to be made of iron around me. The monster you're trying so hard to defy isn't the one sitting across this table."

“I’m not…shaking! It’s just, hot in here…!”

She yanks her hands back. Tugged it under the table, wiping it on her lab.