Chapter 5: The Masked Wife
1154 Words
Every morning since the gala, Aria woke to the heavy scent of roses.
Nico had ordered fresh arrangements in every room she entered — white, crimson, pale pink. Their delicate beauty felt like a mockery of her captivity.
On the fourth day, she snapped.
She ripped the bouquets from the vases in the dining hall, tearing petals and scattering them like ashes across the polished floor. The guards watched with blank, trained indifference — as if they’d witnessed a thousand failed rebellions.
Nico appeared in the doorway moments later.
His gaze swept the scene: the ruined flowers, the trembling woman standing defiant among them. His eyes fixed on her — dark, sharp, searching.
“Feeling poetic today?” he asked softly, stepping forward, his voice smooth and dangerous as silk.
“I’m not your pet,” she spat, her chest heaving. “I won’t purr for you or curl at your feet.”
A flicker of amusement touched his eyes. “But you already do,” he murmured. “Even your rage is another kind of performance for me.”
She lunged, shoving at his chest with a force that startled even her. He stumbled back for a heartbeat — surprise flashing across his face.
But then he caught her wrists, twisting them behind her back and pinning her against the table. Her breath hitched at the brutal contact — part pain, part something deeper that she despised herself for feeling.
“Don’t touch me!” she hissed, struggling, her hair spilling wildly over her shoulders.
“You crave it,” he growled into her ear, his breath hot against her neck. “Even your hatred… it binds you to me more than love ever could.”
“Let me go!” she spat, her voice raw.
“You surrendered that right the moment you signed yourself to me,” he snarled, tightening his hold until her gasp sliced the air.
She jerked her head back, her eyes burning. “I would rather die than belong to you!”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. His grip slackened, enough for her to break free and stagger back.
They stood frozen, a charged silence crackling between them. Her wrists were red, her breath jagged and shallow.
His hand rose as if to strike or to touch — she couldn’t tell. It hovered there, trembling faintly, betraying something wild and unsteady inside him.
“You think your hatred protects you?” he whispered, his gaze devouring her. “You think you’re untouchable inside your mind? But even there… you are mine.”
“I will never be yours,” she said, her voice hoarse, each word a blade. “You can shatter my body, but you will never claim my spirit.”
Something flickered in his eyes then — a flash of pain, quickly masked by icy anger.
“Get ready,” he snapped. “Tonight, we will dine with the ambassador. You will wear the red velvet gown.”
In her dressing room, Aria stood in front of the mirror, the red gown lying out before her like a bloodied offering.
She slipped it on slowly, her fingers trembling. The fabric clung to her curves with sinister elegance, every line designed to display power disguised as beauty.
As the seamstress fussed at the hem, Aria’s mind churned. She needed a moment — a breach in the performance. Something to reclaim, no matter how small.
You are not gone yet, she repeated to herself. You are not his completely.
At dinner, she sat rigid beside Nico. Laughter and crystal clinks filled the golden room.
The ambassador’s wife leaned close, smiling very brightly. “You are simply glowing tonight, Mrs. Moretti. Marriage must be such a dream for a woman so… spirited.”
Aria’s lips curved into a razor-thin smile.
“Yes,” she purred, her voice dipped in poison. “He owns me so thoroughly, I hardly think for myself anymore.”
A ripple of uneasy laughter ran around the table.
Nico’s fingers dug sharply into her thigh under the tablecloth, leaving ghostly bruises.
She turned to him, her gaze like a blade. “Am I performing well enough for you, darling?”
“Perfectly,” he murmured, though his jaw was set tight enough to c***k.
After dinner, he didn’t wait for polite farewells. He dragged her into a deserted corridor, his grip bruising, her heels clicking wildly across the marble.
“Are you trying to humiliate me in front of them?” His voice vibrated with dangerous restraint.
She laughed — sharp, unhinged. “You humiliated me first. You paraded me like a trophy you stole, dressed me up, fed me lies. Now watch me bite back.”
He shoved her against the wall, pinning her there with his body. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her lips parted in defiance and fear.
“Careful,” he snarled, his face inches from hers. “You’re playing with fire you can’t control.”
“Then burn me,” she spat. “Prove to me that your power is more than empty threats.”
His hand hovered at her jaw, trembling as though torn between striking and caressing. His eyes roved over her face, as if searching for the last shred of the woman he had tried to destroy.
Instead of stepping back, he pressed closer, his forehead grazing hers. His breath washed hot against her lips, a painful, magnetic pull neither could deny.
“I should lock you away,” he whispered harshly. “Break you piece by piece until there’s nothing left but devotion.”
Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “Do it. Because as long as I draw breath, you will never truly own me.”
Their gazes clashed like swords — violent, unyielding. In that instant, the air between them felt electric, a dangerous collision of hatred and something darker neither would name.
His hand finally dropped. He spun away abruptly, as if afraid of what he might do next.
Later that night, Aria stood at her bedroom window, her breath fogging the glass.
She traced the outline of her reflection, her lips still tingling from his nearness. She hated it — hated the way her body betrayed her with every erratic heartbeat.
She pressed her forehead onto the glass, closing her eyes.
One day, she vowed, each word a silent scream echoing through her bones. One day, I will set fire to every cage you’ve built. You will watch me rise from the ashes, beyond your reach, beyond your grasp.
Outside, guards rotated beneath moonlight, indifferent and unyielding.
Behind her, the door clicked shut. Nico’s scent still lingered in the hall, like a ghost haunting her skin.
Her fingers curled against the window ledge.
You can have my body, my face, my public smile. But my soul? That is mine. That is the battlefield you will never win.
- Writer
