Chapter Five: Heated Words In Cold Wall
979 Words
Chapter 5
Heated Words in Cold Halls
It was supposed to be a routine morning.
Briar had risen early, as she always did, tucked her hair into a low bun, slipped into her slate-gray uniform, and made her way to the west wing. Her task: dust the long, unused hall that overlooked the gardens. A corridor of cold marble and colder memories, if the whispers from the kitchen staff were to be believed.
No one went there. Not even the other maids.
But she liked the quiet. And in the quiet, she noticed things.
The way the light touched the dust motes and turned them golden. Or how one particular door — at the end of the corridor — was always locked. Always cold to the touch.
She didn’t ask about it. She didn’t need to. Instinct told her everything she needed to know.
It belonged to him.
And so did the stillness it guarded.
Today, though, the stillness shattered.
She was reaching up to dust the top of a picture frame — one of the older oil paintings, a stormy ocean beneath a burning sky — when she heard the unmistakable echo of boots.
She froze.
Footsteps. Sharp, deliberate. Coming her way.
No one else was supposed to be here.
She lowered the cloth slowly and turned — just as he appeared at the end of the corridor.
Leo.
He wore a tailored black coat over a dark shirt, the collar slightly unbuttoned, his sleeves pushed to his forearms. His hair was damp again, as though he’d just come in from the garden. His expression, as always, is unreadable.
Except his eyes.
His eyes were burning.
“Are you following me?” His voice cracked the silence like thunder.
Briar blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You were in the west library yesterday.” He advanced a step, his voice low. Controlled. “And now here. Again. Always where I am.”
She frowned. “I didn’t know the library was off-limits.”
“It isn’t. Not officially.” Another step. “But you’re not stupid. You know where I go. You know where I don’t want to be seen.”
Briar squared her shoulders. “Maybe I’m just working. Like you hired me to.”
That struck something.
His jaw tensed. His steps stopped.
For a moment, all she could hear was the wind outside and the frantic beat of her own heart.
“You’re bold,” he said quietly. “For someone who knows nothing.”
“I know how to do my job.” she replied.
“And I know when someone’s lying.” Leo retorted.
Their eyes locked. The tension was a live wire between them now — humming, crackling, and begging to snap.
Then he took another step forward.
And another.
And suddenly he was right there.
Inches away.
Too close.
The air between them turned electric. She could smell the rain on him, the faint trace of something darker — ink, or musk, or maybe just him.
Her breath hitched.
“You don’t get to provoke me,” he said, voice dangerously low. “You shouldn’t walk these halls like they belong to you.”
She didn’t back down. “Then stop watching me walk them.”
He stared at her, something feral flickering in his gaze. “You think I enjoy this? That I want you here?”
Her voice caught in her throat, but she forced it out. “Then why haven’t you sent me away?”
His chest rose sharply. The silence stretched.
Because the answer hung there between them — unspoken, unwanted, undeniable.
He didn’t know.
And neither did she.
They stood like that, unmoving, until a breeze swept through the corridor and stirred the curtain beside them.
Briar’s eyes dropped to his hands — clenched tight, as if he were holding himself back.
“I didn’t ask for this,” she whispered.
“Neither did I,” he replied, voice raw.
A beat passed. Then two.
She could have stepped back.
He could have turned away.
But neither of them moved.
Instead, Leo’s hand lifted — slowly, as though each movement cost him something — and his fingers grazed the edge of the cloth still clutched in her fist.
His touch was barely there, like static electricity. But it sent a jolt straight through her.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“Then tell me to leave,” she challenged, her breath warm in the narrow space between them.
He didn’t.
Not immediately.
Instead, his gaze dropped to her lips again.
Then her throat.
Then back to her eyes.
The heat that passed between them then had nothing to do with anger.
And everything to do with something far more dangerous.
He leaned in slightly, just enough to brush against the invisible line they’d drawn and dared to toe.
His voice was quieter now, more fragile than she thought he was capable of. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“And I don’t need your protection,” she whispered.
That broke something.
A breath escaped him — jagged, ragged — and he turned sharply away, like a man escaping fire.
“I warned you,” he muttered.
Then he walked off, his footsteps echoing down the marble hallway like a punishment.
Briar stood frozen long after he was gone.
She touched her wrist. It was trembling.
Not from fear.
From longing.
From confusion.
From the realization that no matter how many walls Leo built, he’d left a door half open.
And she was already halfway through it.
Later that afternoon, as she returned to the corridor to finish her forgotten task, she noticed something different.
The locked door at the end of the hall — his door — opened a crack.
Just enough to let her wonder if it had been on purpose.
- Writer
