CHAPTER 46: HER NAME FROM HIS LIPS

Lorraine could have asked. She wanted to ask why he did it. He revealed it to her, and he must have a hidden motive behind it.

But this was a public place.

And she was supposed to be mute. Deaf. Powerless. A curse. A secret.

And that prince, her husband, was watching from across the room, his gaze a blade pressed to the back of her neck.

The space between her and Damian had grown dangerously narrow. Too narrow for strangers. Too narrow for royalty. Too narrow for someone like her to be seen standing that close to someone like him.

She stepped back. A gentle, measured movement.

"Did you say something? I didn’t catch that," she signed, her fingers graceful, face blank with feigned confusion.

She will not let him know she’d heard him. She will let him see she wasn’t rattled.

Yes, her pulse was racing, but she’d lived thirteen years under this mask. She’d danced through courts and conspiracies, donned the silence like a second skin. Prince Damian wasn’t going to be the one to make her crack.

If anything, he’d just confirmed what she already suspected.

He had secrets. Perhaps as deep as hers.

Lorraine’s mind moved quickly. She’d always assumed she was the only monster hiding in plain sight in this jeweled prison of an empire.

But Prince Damian?

He wore his secrets with the grace of a crown and the smirk of a man who knew exactly how dangerous he was.

Did he do it for her, though?

Or was murder simply... his hobby?

Could he be dangerous to her?

Lorraine studied him through the veil of her innocent façade. The wide, trusting eyes. The soft breath. The silence.

Damian’s lips curved into a knowing smile. He glanced over her shoulder.

She didn’t need to turn to know who was coming.

She could feel Leroy’s presence behind her. The scrape of his boots on polished stone. The weight of his jealousy, sharp and simmering. He had just finished paying and was returning with the possessiveness of a man unsure of what he owned.

Damian leaned forward again, his breath brushing her cheek.

So close.

Too close.

Like a lover. Like a man about to kiss her in plain view of her husband.

Lorraine’s heart skipped a beat; not out of affection, but calculation.

She took a subtle step back, putting air between them. Her expression didn’t shift. Her hands stayed folded like a good, quiet bride.

Damian only smiled wider, his eyes glinting with amusement. "See you later, Lazira..." he hissed.

Then, without another word, he turned and vanished into the crowd with the same elegance he always wielded, like a dagger dressed in silk.

Lorraine stood frozen for half a breath too long.

Her lips parted slightly.

Her pulse thudded in her throat.

That name.

Lazira.

How did he know?

Leroy approached her, quiet but resolute, like a tide creeping in—slow and unyielding.

Lorraine felt him before she saw him. Her spine straightened instinctively, the way one does when sensing a predator watching from the trees. Not because she feared him, but because he was unpredictable, and that made him dangerous.

The ghost of Prince Damian’s whisper still clung to her ear like smoke. Lazira. That name. That cursed name.

She needed to move carefully now. Whatever this was, whatever this game, this maze was, it was growing sharper. More layered.

She shook off the lingering chill in her bones and pasted the most convincing expression of pleasant indifference she could manage. When Leroy reached her side, she turned and offered a mild nod of acknowledgment. Nothing more. Just enough to be polite.

He stared at her, mouth slightly parted, as if he was about to ask something. What did Damian say to you? She could read it in his eyes—stormy, suspicious, searching.

But the words never came.

Maybe he didn’t ask because he didn’t expect a real answer. Maybe he didn’t want to hear her lie. Or, he simply didn’t care.

Instead, he took her hand.

It wasn’t a romantic gesture. At least not for her. It wasn’t warm or possessive. It was... grounding. Like anchoring a kite before it flew too high.

Lorraine didn’t resist. Not because she trusted him. Oh no, it far from it. She didn’t resist because the warmth of his skin was a strange comfort after the icy chill Damian had left behind.

And perhaps, deep down, because the touch reminded her that for all his silence and mistakes, Leroy was still hers. Even if he didn’t deserve to be hers, he was better than most men she had known.

Behind them, Aldric watched with narrowed eyes. A man like him noticed too much. He said nothing. But his silence, like a blade sheathed at the belt, carried weight.

By the time they reached the carriage, Lorraine had composed herself. Her expression smooth, her steps even. But inside, she was already calculating.

Prince Damian had revealed too much. Slipped up. Deliberately or not, she didn’t know.

But she would find out.

Just then, her eyes caught a quaint wine shop tucked between two boutiques. Without a word, she veered toward it. She needed something to lift her mind. And what else could do it better than good wine?

Leroy followed, silent and curious.

Inside, the scent of oak and fermenting fruit curled around them like old memories. Lorraine didn’t waste time. She moved with ease, selecting, smelling, sipping like a queen choosing her perfume.

Leroy stood aside and watched. No questions. No remarks. Just watching.

There was something reverent in his gaze, though he’d never admit it.

She didn’t look like a princess at that moment. She looked like a general choosing her rations before war. Every bottle a weapon, every barrel a shield.

In the end, she pointed at five barrels.

Leroy blinked.

Five? his raised brow seemed to ask.

She didn’t sign. She didn’t need to. Her expression said it all: You can march off to war. I’m stocking up for my kind.

He didn’t argue. He paid for the wine without complaint.

Perhaps he saw the exhaustion behind her sharpness, the quiet fatigue in her shoulders, too. She had run the estate like a soldier holds a fortress. Alone, in silence. And now, she was tired.

And maybe, just maybe, Leroy was starting to understand that.

He watched as she brushed her fingers over the labels of the wine jars with delicate precision. Not like someone treating herself, but like someone paying tribute to something hard-won. Something earned.

Leroy, for the first time in a long time, wondered: Had it been a mistake to marry her? Or had it been the only thing he’d done right?

She, meanwhile, was lost in thought. Planning. Plotting. Damian’s face, that cursed name, and the blood in his voice haunted her like the echo of war drums just beyond the hills.

But tonight... tonight she would drink. And pretend, just for a while, that the battlefield was behind her.

Even if she knew the real war was just beginning.