CHAPTER 63: HIS RESTRAINT

Lorraine gasped, not from pain, but shock. The heat of his palm seared through the gauze of her veil. His grip wasn’t cruel, not yet. It hovered on the precipice: firm, unrelenting, testing her pulse as if reading a secret under her skin. As if seeing through her.

As if... deciding whether to crush her windpipe or spare her.

His breath ghosted across the silk at her lips. Warm and slow with a twinge of possessiveness. His scent, a mixture of steel and earth, wrapped around her like a forgotten memory.

She stared up at him, her heart a storm trapped in a gilded cage. The light was dim. She could only see his silhouette, and yet, there was no fury on his face. No snarling rage. Just that quiet, unshakable storm in his eyes.

Dark. Certain. Lethal. As if killing were not a decision for him, but a language. One he could do fluently and effortlessly.

Her pulse thundered, wild and reckless. It would take him less than a breath to end her. One squeeze. One shift of muscle.

And she... was not a helpless maiden. She had a hundred ways to stop him. She had poisons nestled inside her cloak like sleeping serpents. She could paralyze him. Drug him. Kill him.

But she didn’t. She let him hold her. She let him decide.

And through it... she smiled. Mocking. Daring. As if daring Death to blink first.

"Does the truth hurt, Son of Bear?" she whispered, her voice thinning beneath the pressure of his grip.

Maybe that was all it was... wounded pride. Maybe he was only angry that someone had said aloud what he dared to think in the dark.

That his wife was a mistake.

Useless.

A ghost in his palace. A burden in his bed.

She knew. She’d heard his murmurs when he thought she couldn’t hear.

And now, like confirming her suspicion, his fingers tightened, just slightly. Enough to make her head tilt back.

If Cedric had seen this, he would’ve lost his mind. Who dares call the Princess useless in front of him? The Prince had punished men for far less, severely, brutally, without hesitation. In the battlefield, none had the right to speak ill of his wife.

So what gave the Swan Divina the nerve? Was she mad? Or just that desperate to die?

But Lorraine didn’t know any of that. She only knew the pressure at her throat and the simmering silence in his eyes.

And then, he lifted her. Effortlessly. As if she weighed nothing at all.

She choked softly, her fingers gripping his wrist. Not to claw. Not to resist. Just to anchor herself as the cold stone wall slammed against her back.

Her cloak fell open. The hood slipped down. And her long braid tumbled free like a ribbon spilling secrets.

He leaned in, closer. His face inches from hers, like a predator scenting the pulse of his prey.

Breathing her in.

Then... he reached for her veil.

She stilled.

His fingers brushed the fabric. Slid it down. The pearls clinked as they fell on the floor as he exposed her lips, her nose, and her eyes.

Can he see me? That was her only thought. Not that she might die. Not that she should reach for a dagger or a vial. No. She let him see.

And somewhere, in the heady haze of incense and shadow, she wondered...

What if I let him?

What if this was it?

The story ending where it began.

The first time she met him, she had dreamed of dying with him. Now, she entertained the cruel poetry of dying by him.

Would he cry when he realized? Would he weep with blood on his hands and her name broken on his tongue? Would he rage when he learned that his wife, the one he thought to be deaf, dull, and disposable, was the Swan Divina?

That the woman he killed could move the empire with a whisper, with power only second to the emperor and sharper than any sword, and had loved him all this time from behind veils and masks?

Would he regret it?

Wouldn’t that be divine?

His nose brushed against hers, so close her breath caught between them. His lips parted, but no words came, only a slow exhale, hot against her lips. He leaned in, close enough that the silk of her cloak whispered against his chest. The heat of him wrapped around her like smoke, like a fever she didn’t want cured.

Then his breath hitched.

The pressure at her throat eased.

And instead of pushing her away, his fingers slid up, tangling into her hair like he meant to anchor himself into her, into this madness.

"What do you want?" he asked, voice hushed, hoarse, as if surrendering something he never meant to give.

She felt the rhythm of his chest against hers, the thrum of blood beneath his skin. The hand at her waist burned through her layers, searing her down to her bones.

"I want you to kneel..." she murmured, lips grazing his, breath trembling. Her words were not a command. They were an invocation. "Kneel over me, Son of Bear."

Her hand reached for his cheek, to pull down his mask, but he pulled back... barely; just enough to deny her lips. So she rose on her toes, determined to taste him, but her mouth only reached his chin.

So she bit it... sharp, defiant.

Cursed be everything else. She wouldn’t die. She wouldn’t leave. Not before having him.

He snorted softly. A sound full of disbelief. And amusement. She could feel the tension in his muscles, winding like a spring. Resisting. Relenting.

And then, he lifted her again.

This time, it wasn’t fury that moved him, but something far more dangerous. His body radiated heat. His scent changed. It was no longer just earth and steel, but something primal, smoky, like cedar and storm.

Her cloak slipped from her shoulders. His hands, unforgiving, dragged the folds of her gown down to her waist as he pressed her against the mirrored wall. She clung to him, her legs around his waist, arms around his shoulders, as if he were the edge of a cliff she’d leapt for willingly.

Still, he denied her lips.

Still, she reached, desperate, burning.

His hand gripped her throat this time, not to silence, but to hold. To feel her pulse. Then slid down her back, a slow, delicious trail that left shivers in its wake.

And still, he didn’t kiss her.

Pleasure hummed in her veins. Heat bloomed low in her belly. Her heart pounded like war drums in a temple. Let him taste me, she thought. Let him take me. All of me.

But then... That shift.

The falter in his breath. The sudden stillness in his grip.

That terrible, familiar feeling of him pulling back. Again. Like he always did.

Her heart stuttered. Her hands tightened on his shoulders.

Don’t.

Not now.