Bound by Curse

The Reward

Draven's POV

The throne room was empty now, but her voice still lived in my ears.

I have nothing to say.

I stood before the window of my study with both hands on the stone ledge. The guards had taken her down to the dungeon an hour ago. I had given the order myself. My own mouth had said the words.

So why did my chest feel like someone had left a knife inside it?

"You did the right thing, Your Majesty."

I did not turn. I knew the voice. Soft, sweet, and a little too pleased.

"Leave me, Isabella."

"I cannot." The door made a click as it shut. Isabella's skirts made a sound as they touched the floor moving slowly and close.

"Not when you are in pain."

"I am not in pain."

"Then why are your hands shaking?"

I looked down. My knuckles turned white against the ledge. My fingers shook. I pulled them back. Pressed them behind my own back.

She stopped beside me. Her perfume was thick and sweet filling the room. She did not look at the window. She looked at my face.

"I told you," she said gently. "Did I not tell you?"

"You did."

"And you saw it with your own eyes." She tilted her head. "If I had stayed silent, you would still be in the dark. You would be kissing her hand at feasts, and defending her before your lords, and all the while, she would be laughing at you."

My jaw tightened. "Never!."

"No?" Isabella gave a sad little smile. "She did not even cry when you called her a liar, my king. Did you notice that? A truly innocent woman would have begged. She would have fallen at your feet. Rebecca stood there like stone. Because she knew."

I said nothing.

"You are too kind," Isabella went on. She began to walk slowly around me, her fingers trailing along the edge of my desk. "That is your weakness. I see it. A man who lets a woman live in a castle after she has done this."

"I put her in the dungeon."

"For one night." She stopped in front of me. "Do not show her mercy, Your Majesty. Not a drop. She does not deserve it."

"Isabella..."

"She wears a crown she stole. She sits on a throne that was never hers. And now she carries another man's child inside her, in your house, under your name." Her voice grew low and shaking. "Think of what the lords will say. Think of how they will laugh when they learn. The great King Draven, fooled by a cursed girl."

A hot, bitter anger rose in my throat.

"She will bring shame on this kingdom. On you." She stepped closer. Her hand lifted and rested on my arm, light and warm. "A shame like that never washes out."

My muscles went tight under her fingers. I could feel my own heartbeat in my teeth.

She was right. She had to be. The test was clear. Rebecca had not denied it. She had stood before me with her chin lifted and said, I will not tell you. She had not even said no.

Who was he? The question burned me like acid. Who put his hands on her?

I thought of her white face. I thought of her eyes on mine, full of tears and something else that I could not read. Something like accusation.

Why would she look at me like that?

I crushed the thought. Anger was easier. Anger did not ask questions.

"I will make her regret it," I said. My voice came out hoarse. "She thought she could deceive a king like me. She thought she could take my name and spit on it."

"Yes." Isabella's eyes shone. "Yes, my king."

"I will make her wish she had never been born."

"She should be banished," Isabella whispered. "Sent away with that child, and with nothing."

She moved closer, until her skirt brushed my leg. Her fingers slid up my arm, over my shoulder, and rested at the side of my neck. Her skin was soft and cool. Her breath smelled like wine and honey.

"And then you should have a queen who deserves you," she said.

I stood still.

"Someone better than Rebecca. Someone who would never bring you shame." Her thumb moved slowly across my jaw. "Someone whose heart is only for you."

"There is no such woman"

"There is." She tilted her face up. Her lips were parted, her eyes half-lowered. "The woman who was meant to stand beside you from the beginning."

My eyes narrowed. "You."

"The place was always mine, Draven." She said my name for the first time, softly, like she was tasting it. "Father promised me to you. Rebecca stole my place with lies, and she did not even do it out of love. She did it so she could hide her sin behind your crown."

"You told me that."

"She wronged both of us. You and me." Her fingers curled at the back of my neck. "Do you not see? We have been robbed by the same woman. We are both her victims. It is only right that we stand together."

I looked down at her face. It was lovely. There was no doubt about that. Golden hair, bright eyes, a mouth made for kissing. She was everything the old lords had begged me to marry.

And I felt nothing.

I felt nothing. My blood did not move. My breath did not catch. When she leaned in, I thought of a girl with sad eyes, pale skin, sharp and gentle beauty. Rebecca.

Stop, I told myself. She is a liar. She is a cheat.

I stepped back. Isabella's hand slid off my neck.

"You said you wanted to reward me," she said quickly. Her voice had gone thin. "When we walked here, you said it. For finding out her secret."

I had. In the dark of the corridor, rage making me careless, I had said, You will be rewarded, Princess.

"Name it," I said wearily. "Gold? Land? A title?"

"No." She shook her head. "I do not want gold."

"Then what?"

She drew a breath. Her hands went to her chest and her eyes grew bright and wet perfectly as if she had practiced this.

"There is only one reward that is worth it, Your Majesty." Her voice trembled. "Marry me. Make me your queen."

Silence stretched.

I looked at her for a long time. Outside, the wind pushed against the window glass. The fire hissed.

"No," I said.

Her face did not change, but her fingers curled at her sides.

"I did not choose a queen because I wanted one," I said. "I told you. I do not intend to love anyone."

"I do not ask for love." She stepped close again. "Only your name. Only the crown. Let me give you what she could not. Respect. Honor. A queen your people can be proud of."

"I have no need of it."

"Then think of what it would do to her."

I stopped.

Isabella smiled, very faintly. She had seen it. She had seen the crack in me.

"Imagine it, my king." Her voice dropped to a purr. "She sits in that cold cell, and she hears the bells. She hears that her own sister wears the crown she stole. That the throne she lied for, the name she betrayed you for, is given to another woman. In front of the whole kingdom." Her eyes sparkled. "What greater punishment could there be?"

My chest burned.

I saw it. I saw Rebecca's face as she learned it. Her eyes wide. Her lips shaking. That quiet, broken look she wore when I said you are nothing.

It should have pleased me.

It made me feel sick. And somehow, that only made me angrier.

She did this, I told myself. She made me into a man who needs to hurt her. She did this to me.

"Everyone would see," Isabella whispered. "Everyone would know that no one can deceive King Draven and keep her place."

I lifted my eyes to hers. Her face was soft and hopeful. In the firelight, she looked almost kind.

I should have said no again. Some deep, tired part of me knew it. Something was wrong with all of this, with the way she had known so much, with how quickly she had come to me, with how sweet her voice was when she spoke of her own sister's pain.

But my anger was louder than my doubt.

"Fine," I said.

Her breath caught. "Fine?"

"You will have it." My voice was cold as iron. "You will be queen."

Her eyes filled with tears, real ones this time, from joy. She sank into a deep bow, and when she rose, she was smiling like a woman who had just won a war.

"Thank you, my king."

"Do not thank me." I turned back to the window. My reflection stared at me from the glass, pale and hard, a man I hardly knew. "I do it for one reason only."

"Of course."

"I will teach Rebecca what it costs to betray me."

Behind me, I heard Isabella's soft laugh. I did not turn around.

Far below, in the dark, in the cold, a girl was lying on a wet stone floor. I tried not to think of her. I tried so hard.