BLOOD DEBT BRIDE

Isabella's Warning

Kael didn't come down for breakfast the next morning.

Elena told herself it didn't matter, that whatever had almost happened in the library the night before was exactly the kind of complication she couldn't afford to dwell on, mission or not. But she noticed his absence anyway, noticed the way the house felt different without him moving through it, and hated herself a little for noticing at all.

She found Isabella in the small sitting room adjoining the kitchen, a cup of tea cooling untouched in front of her, her eyes distant in a way that made Elena pause before entering.

"May I join you?" Elena asked.

Isabella looked up, something guarded settling over her expression before she gestured to the seat across from her. "Of course."

Elena sat, studying the older woman carefully. Isabella looked as though she hadn't slept much either, though Elena suspected her reasons had nothing to do with unspoken tension in a dim library.

"How's Damian?" Elena asked.

"Recovering," Isabella said. "Angry, mostly. He hates feeling vulnerable more than he hated the attack itself." She wrapped her hands around her cup without drinking from it. "He's already talking about revenge before he can even sit upright without help."

"That sounds dangerous."

"Everything in this family is dangerous," Isabella said, echoing words Elena had heard from Kael only the night before. "You'll learn that faster than most, I think."

Elena kept her expression neutral, though something in the way Isabella said it made her chest tighten. "You said something similar to me yesterday. About being careful in this house."

"I did." Isabella finally met her eyes directly. "I meant it."

"Is there something specific I should be worried about?"

Isabella was quiet for a long moment, her gaze drifting toward the window, toward the estate grounds stretching out gray and quiet beyond the glass. "I've watched this family for thirty years, Isolde. I've watched people come into it thinking they understood what they were walking into, and I've watched every single one of them discover too late that they didn't." She paused. "I've also watched my nephew close himself off from anyone who tried to get near him. Since he was a boy. It became easier for everyone, including him, to just let it stay that way."

Elena's pulse quickened, though she kept her voice light. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I saw the way he looked at you at the wedding," Isabella said. "And I've seen the way he's looked at you since. It's not something I've seen from him before. Not ever." Her eyes sharpened slightly. "I don't know if that's a good thing or a terrible one. But I think you should know that whatever Kael starts to feel, he'll fight it harder than almost anyone I've ever met. Not because he doesn't want it. Because he was raised to believe wanting anything that badly gets it taken from you."

Elena thought of Camille's portrait, of Augustin's quiet insistence on control, of a boy forced to watch violence before he was old enough to understand what he was witnessing. The pieces fit together in a way that made her chest ache more than she wanted to admit.

"You're telling me not to expect anything from him," Elena said.

"I'm telling you to be careful with whatever this is," Isabella said. "For his sake as much as yours. If you're not serious, Isolde, if this marriage is only ever going to be a transaction to you the way he insists it is to him, then don't let him fall further than he already might be falling. He's spent his whole life building walls to survive in this house. I don't think he'd survive watching one come down for nothing."

The warning landed heavier than Elena expected, guilt threading uncomfortably through her chest. She was lying to this entire family, lying to the man Isabella was quietly asking her to be careful with, and the reminder of exactly how deep that lie ran made the moment in the library the night before feel even more dangerous than it already had.

"I don't know what this is yet," Elena said, and for once, the words weren't entirely a performance.

Isabella studied her for a long moment, something unreadable passing behind her eyes. "Neither did I, once. With someone in this family, a long time ago." Her expression closed slightly, the way it always did whenever the conversation edged too close to her own history. "It didn't end well. I'd rather that not happen to either of you."

Before Elena could ask what she meant, footsteps sounded in the hallway, and Kael appeared in the doorway, dressed for business, his expression back to the composed mask Elena had grown used to seeing him wear in front of others.

"Isolde," he said, his tone clipped, professional. "I need you ready within the hour. My grandfather wants us both at a meeting with the family's legal counsel regarding the gathering tomorrow night."

Whatever had passed between them in the library the night before had vanished completely from his face. Elena felt the shift like a door closing, and she hated how much it stung, given everything Isabella had just warned her about.

"Of course," Elena said, matching his cool tone exactly.

Kael's eyes lingered on her for half a second longer than necessary before he turned and left, and Isabella watched the exchange with a small, knowing sadness that made Elena's chest tighten further.

"You see," Isabella said quietly, once he was gone. "Hot, then cold. That's how he survives feeling anything at all in this house."

"Does it get easier?" Elena asked. "Being close to someone like that?"

Isabella's smile was faint, tired. "I wouldn't know. I never got the chance to find out."

She rose from the table before Elena could press further, leaving her tea untouched, and made her way out of the room with the same quiet grace she carried everywhere in this house, a woman who had learned long ago how to disappear into her own family's silence.

Elena sat alone for a moment, turning over everything Isabella had said, every warning wrapped inside careful concern. Then she rose and went to prepare for the meeting Kael had summoned her to, forcing herself back into the rhythm of the mission, back into the version of herself that couldn't afford to feel anything as complicated as what had almost happened between them the night before.

She found him waiting by the car an hour later, exactly on schedule, his expression giving away nothing of the man who'd sat across from her in dim lamplight and admitted he didn't have room for distraction, even as he clearly wanted one.

"Ready?" he asked, not quite meeting her eyes.

"Ready," Elena said.

They rode to the meeting in silence, the distance between them on the seat feeling far wider than the few inches actually separating them, and Elena understood with sudden clarity exactly what Isabella had been trying to warn her about.

Whatever Kael Kastellan felt, he would keep burying it beneath duty and control for as long as he possibly could.

The only question left was how long either of them could keep pretending that worked.