CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1135 Words
House Vale returned to its usual quiet rhythm quickly.
Too quickly.
Servants moved through familiar halls. Meals were shared at expected hours. Conversations returned to ordinary matters that carried no real weight beyond estate responsibilities and neighboring noble affairs. Everything resumed exactly as it had been before the banquet. Which should have made things easier.
Instead, Kaelira found herself increasingly aware of how little interest she suddenly had in normalcy.
“You’ve been staring at the same page for several minutes.”
Kaelira looked up from the book resting open in her lap as her mother stepped into the garden sitting area. “I’m reading.”
“You haven’t turned the page once.” That immediately ruined her defense.
Kaelira closed the book calmly before setting it aside. “You’re unusually observant today.”
“I’m your mother.” Which, unfortunately, was a reasonable explanation.
Her mother sat across from her slowly, studying her for a moment beneath the soft afternoon light filtering through the gardens. “You’ve been distracted since returning from the capital.”
Kaelira reached for her untouched tea. “The capital is exhausting.”
“That isn’t what I asked.” Kaelira hid a faint sigh behind the cup. She should have expected this eventually. Her mother’s gaze softened slightly. “Did something happen at the gathering?”
The answer came dangerously close to her thoughts immediately.
A hidden library.
Dark shelves.
A prince who looked at her like restraint was physically painful around her.
Kaelira took another slow sip instead. “No,” she said smoothly. It was technically true. Nothing had happened, yet. At least nothing she could properly explain aloud.
Her mother continued watching her carefully before finally deciding not to push further. For now. “You should rest more,” she said instead while standing again. “You think too much when you’re tired.”
Kaelira almost laughed quietly at that. If only exhaustion were the problem. After her mother disappeared farther into the gardens again, silence settled around Kaelira once more and almost immediately, her thoughts drifted back toward him again. She rolled her eyes because it felt annoying, deeply annoying.
Kael Varros had somehow become difficult to stop thinking about, which made absolutely no sense considering how little time they had actually spent together. It should have faded already. Instead, every memory seemed sharper after distance.
The sound of his voice lowering near her.
The way his composure shifted whenever she challenged him.
The look in his eyes right before he kissed her.
Kaelira exhaled slowly before leaning back into the chair. This was becoming problematic because the future emperor of the Werewolf Empire was exactly the kind of complication a sensible woman avoided and Kaelira generally considered herself very sensible.
Several days away, Kael was discovering that violence was proving surprisingly ineffective at solving his own problem. The training grounds echoed with the sharp clash of steel as Kael drove another attack hard enough to force his opponent backward several steps across the stone arena. The guard barely recovered before Kael struck again. His strike was fast, precise and merciless.
Ronan watched from the sidelines with growing concern disguised beneath amusement. “Well,” he muttered lightly to another warrior nearby, “someone’s emotionally unstable today.”
The warrior wisely pretended not to hear that. Kael disarmed his opponent moments later with enough force to send the blade skidding across the ground entirely. Silence settled briefly across the arena.
The defeated guard immediately lowered his head. “My prince.”
Kael stepped back calmly despite the controlled aggression still lingering beneath his expression. “Again,” he ordered. The poor man looked exhausted already.
Ronan finally pushed himself away from the wall. “Or,” he interrupted casually, “you could stop terrorizing the royal guard because you kissed a girl.”
The arena went completely silent. Several nearby guards immediately looked away like survival instincts had activated at once. Kael turned his head slowly toward Ronan.
Ronan smiled without fear. “There he is.”
Kael grabbed a towel from nearby before wiping sweat from his hands. “You speak too much.”
“And you’re trying very hard not to think about someone.”
Kael tossed the towel aside. “I’m training.”
“You split a reinforced training post yesterday.”
“It was weak.”
Ronan looked deeply unconvinced by that explanation. Kael moved toward the edge of the arena, jaw slightly tight beneath his otherwise controlled expression. Distance had been a mistake. That realization irritated him more every day. He had expected separation to return things to normal. Expected rational thought to reassert itself eventually but instead, everything seemed worse afterward.
More awareness.
More distraction.
More curiosity.
It made no sense. Kael rarely struggled with self-control. Yet somehow one human woman had managed to disrupt his thoughts more effectively than council pressure, political threats or noble expectations ever had. That alone felt unacceptable.
Ronan studied him carefully from nearby before finally speaking again. “You’re thinking about her again.”
Kael drove the training blade into the wooden post beside him hard enough to crack the surface before releasing it. “No.”
Ronan folded his arms slowly. “You know, lying becomes less convincing when accompanied by property damage.”
Kael ignored him. Silence settled briefly across the training grounds, broken only by distant movement from the lower palace levels. Kael should have left things alone after the library. That had been the smarter decision. The safer one. Instead, distance had only made the thoughts worse, persistent, distracting mostly. Kael grew tired of pretending otherwise.
He turned toward one of the nearby royal guards. “You,” he said calmly.
The guard straightened immediately. “My prince.”
Kael’s expression remained unreadable. “You will travel to House Vale tonight.”
Ronan’s amusement disappeared instantly. The guard lowered his head. “Yes, my prince.”
Kael stepped closer slightly, voice lowering just enough to sharpen the atmosphere around them. “This message does not pass through palace servants.” He paused then continued. “Nor the council.”
The guard immediately understood the seriousness beneath those words. “Yes, my prince.”
Kael’s jaw tightened faintly before he continued. “You will ask for Kaelira Vale.”
Ronan went completely still beside him after hearing her name spoken aloud for the first time. Kael ignored the reaction entirely. “Tell her,” he said quietly, “that I’m requesting her presence at the palace tomorrow evening.”
Silence followed immediately afterward. Then Ronan exhaled slowly beside him. “That,” he muttered carefully, “is an unbelievably bad idea.”
Kael already knew that which was exactly why he couldn’t seem to stop himself from making it anyway.
- Writer
