Chapter 12: The Lighter Shadow
1253 Words
POV Beatrice
The house had changed. Or maybe it hadn’t—and I had. Either way, I could feel it in the walls. In the way the servants no longer made eye contact. In the way conversations died the moment I entered a room. In the way the silence lingered like perfume long after I left. They weren’t avoiding me. Not exactly. They were waiting. Watching. Like I was a storm with legs and no one wanted to be the first to speak above the wind. Even Leia wouldn’t meet my gaze this morning. She set down my tea and left the room without a word. No smugness. No smirks. Just distance.
Dorian was worse.
He’d gone cold.
Not cruel, not harsh—just distant.
We hadn’t spoken since I came back from the woods. He passed me in the hallway like I was a stranger in his own territory, and I hated how much that bothered me. How much I wanted him to pull me aside, shove me against a wall, say something. But he didn’t. He didn’t touch me. Didn’t look at me longer than necessary. And that silence hurt more than his anger ever could have.
So I walked.
I left the house through the back gate just past noon and followed the river out toward the southern edge of the woods. Not the sacred clearing. Not the Ritual grounds. Just forest. Deep and quiet. Real.
I needed space.
I needed something that wasn’t layered in memory and heat and him.
The trees opened into a narrow path lined with thorns and ash. I walked it slowly, dragging my fingers along the bark, letting the quiet fold around me like a second skin. The birds were louder here. The wind was softer. It felt like a place no one else had touched in a long time.
So, of course, I wasn’t alone.
“Should’ve known you’d sneak off again,” came a voice behind me. Familiar. Tired. Dry.
Zane.
I didn’t turn.
“You following me now too?”
“No,” he said, stepping beside me. “I just know where people go when they’re trying not to fall apart.”
I looked at him then.
He was wearing a thin shirt, sleeves rolled up, dirt on his hands. No armor. No posturing.
“You look like s**t,” I said.
“You look worse.”
We both smiled.
It was the first time I had in days.
We walked in silence for a while. No tension. Just steps. Just air.
Finally he said, “You feel it, don’t you?”
I didn’t ask what he meant.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“It’s changing you.”
“I’m letting it.”
“I know.”
I stopped walking.
“So what now?”
He leaned against a tree, crossed his arms, and gave me a long look. Not assessing. Just seeing.
“Now you decide what kind of monster you’re willing to be.”
I flinched. “That’s a little dramatic.”
“You think?”
He tilted his head.
“The wolves are scared of you.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I knew what you were before you did.”
That stopped me.
He pushed off the tree and stepped closer.
“Everyone talks about power like it’s a weapon. But sometimes it’s just weight. And you’re carrying it better than most.”
I looked at him, unsure what to say.
“You know Dorian’s unraveling, right?” he added.
“He’s hiding it well.”
“He doesn’t hide it from me.”
I swallowed.
“He’s trying to control something he doesn’t understand. That’s dangerous.”
I nodded. “You think I should run?”
“I think you should stop waiting for him to let you breathe.”
That hit too hard.
Zane saw it.
Didn’t apologize.
“I’m not saying I’m better for you,” he added. “I’m just saying—if you’re going to burn, make sure it’s your fire.”
We stood there, the wind shifting between us, thick with something that hadn’t quite become attraction—but was getting dangerously close.
I stepped back first.
He let me.
But I saw it in his eyes.
He wouldn’t stay back forever.
And maybe… I didn’t want him to.
By the time I reached the house, the sun had slipped behind the treetops and left everything bathed in gray. The light didn’t feel soft. It felt indecisive—like the day wasn’t sure if it should stay or let the dark take over. I stepped inside without thinking, my fingers still tingling from the last thing Zane had said. Make sure it’s your fire.
I wasn’t sure if it was.
But it definitely wasn’t his.
The hallway was empty. The air hung heavy, thick with the scent of smoke and pine and something I couldn’t place—something that was his.
Dorian stepped out of the shadows near the stairwell.
I didn’t stop walking.
“You went out again,” he said.
I didn’t answer.
He moved to block my path, slow, silent, like a wolf circling something it wanted to devour and didn’t know if it should.
“I told you not to leave alone.”
“I didn’t ask for permission.”
His jaw clenched. “That’s not how this works.”
“It is now.”
Silence.
He studied me. But this time it wasn’t with heat. It was with calculation. Like he was trying to solve a puzzle and didn’t like the pieces.
“Where were you?”
“With Zane.”
The words hit harder than I meant them to.
He didn’t flinch. But something in his eyes turned to steel.
“Why him?”
“Because he doesn’t try to hold me by the throat every time I breathe.”
“I’ve never—”
“No, but you would, if I let you.”
He stepped closer. “You think this is about control?”
“I think you don’t know how to want someone without trying to break them.”
His breath caught.
I didn’t stop.
“I think you see power in me and mistake it for a threat. I think you’re scared I might outgrow you.”
“I’m not scared of you.”
“No,” I said. “You’re scared of yourself around me.”
That landed. Hard.
He turned his head slightly, jaw tight, fists clenched like he wanted to punch something that wasn’t me but was me.
“You don’t understand what I am,” he said.
“You’re right,” I whispered. “And maybe I don’t want to.”
His eyes snapped back to mine.
“Maybe I don’t want to spend the rest of my life deciphering the difference between your silence and your rage. Maybe I want someone who speaks without making me bleed to hear it.”
“Zane,” he said, flatly.
I didn’t respond.
We stood there, two storms pressed into skin, neither willing to crack first.
Then I stepped around him.
He let me.
But I felt it—the tension in his body, the tether trying to tighten, trying to drag me back. This time it didn’t. This time, I didn’t feel pulled.
I felt done.
I climbed the stairs without looking back.
And he didn’t follow.
For once, he didn’t follow.
- Writer
