The latch turned, and Kathrin entered without knocking, breath clouding in the candle-thick air.
Alistair jerked back from me like I'd branded him, his fangs retracting, face snapping human in an instant. His hand shot to his cuffs, adjusting them with mechanical precision.
"Did I interrupt something... intimate?" Kathrin's gaze dissected us—my throat bared, his body coiled to strike, the space between us charged with unspent violence.
"No." The word cracked out too fast.
"Discussing the pregnancy, were you?" She glided deeper into the room, fingers skating the table's edge. "With such passion?"
"Mother—"
"Your wife looks flushed, Alistair. And you—" Her eyes narrowed. "You look hungry."
The accusation hung like a blade. Alistair's jaw locked. I stepped back, needing distance, air, escape from whatever Kathrin had seen or guessed.
"Excuse me." I pushed past them both, noting how Alistair twisted to maintain space, how his mother tracked every movement like a hawk sighting prey.
The corridor hit like a slap of ice. January wind hammered the windows, rattled iron latches. I seized my fur-lined cloak from the antechamber, yanked leather gloves over shaking fingers.
Nicholas materialized at the terrace door, lantern raised. "My lady, the grounds aren't safe—"
"I don't need safe."
"At least take a footman—"
"I said no." I wrenched the door open. Winter crashed in, savage and clean.
His disapproval radiated like heat. "The lit paths, my lady. Stay to them."
Frost shrieked under my boots as I plunged into the skeletal gardens.
The parterres stretched like cemetery plots, their summer glory murdered by winter. Ice armored every surface—branches became glass weapons, benches turned to frozen thrones. Each breath crystallized and fled.
Two months pregnant. The swell hidden under winter wool, but not for long. Soon, the whispers would start. The counting. The questions.
Metal rang against metal ahead. That damned whistle—careless, mocking. My feet moved before sense could chain them.
Nathaniel crouched by the hedge maze, sleeves rolled to the elbows despite the cold, fingers working wire and spring with violent efficiency. The trap gleamed like teeth in moonlight.
"Back already?" He didn't look up. "What's tonight's payment—another kiss to buy my silence? Or something warmer?"
"Would you be pleased if I left him for you?"
The question detonated between us. He rose slow, dangerous, wiping blood from where the wire had bitten his palm.
"You won't."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're addicted to the castle, not me." He gestured at my pearl clasps, my fur, my everything. "I'm just the medicine you take when the lord grows cold."
"You're a handsome bastard with good hands and nothing else."
His face went stone. "That's what I am to you?"
"That's what you've always been."
"Then stop." He stepped forward, close enough that earth and iron filled my lungs. "Stop appearing at my door. Stop using me like a cure for your failed marriage."
"I don't—"
"The pattern never changes." His hand shot out, caught my wrist. "You fight with him, you find me. You take what you need, then run back to your castle."
"Let go."
"That's low, even for the nobility." He released me with a shove. "Playing with a man's feelings like coins."
"I wish I'd never met you."
"Mutual." The word snapped like breaking a bone. "I'd sleep better not knowing your touch, not wanting what you'll never truly give."
"This ends tonight." My voice cut through winter air like a blade. "No more meetings. No more anything."
"You've said that before." He bent to retrieve his trap, movements violent. "A lot of times."
"This time—"
"This time's different?" He laughed, ugly and sharp. "You'll be back within the month. Another cold night, another empty bed, and you'll remember how I made you feel wanted."
"You're nothing to me."
"I'm everything when he won't touch you." He stood, trap gleaming in his fist. "When he looks through you like glass. When you need to feel alive instead of merely existing."
The truth of it burned. "You don't know—"
"I know enough." He stepped closer, close enough to touch. But he didn't. "The baker's daughter wants me. Pretty thing, she brings me bread every morning. The miller's widow too—she's got soft hands and softer promises."
Jealousy spiked, hot and shameful—the baker's daughter with her soft bread and softer smiles, the widow with promises I couldn't match. My nails bit crescents into my palms.
Did he burn like this when I returned to Alistair's bed?
Did he pace his cottage, wondering if my husband touched me the way he did, if noble hands felt different than common ones? The thought that he might not care at all cut deeper than if he did.
"Then go to them."
"I will." He gathered his tools with sharp movements. "I've wasted enough time on a woman who'll never choose me."
"I never promised—"
"No. You just took." He shouldered his pack, turned away. "Don't come looking again, Helena."
"I won't."
"Liar." He paused at the maze entrance. "But next time, I won't open my door. Not for you. Not anymore."
He vanished into the hedge walls, swallowed by shadow and ice. I turned toward the castle and didn't look back. Behind me, wind screamed through the maze, hunting for prey that had already fled.
My breath feathered white; the fox-trap’s snap echoed like a pistol. I cupped my belly, whispered a promise, and climbed the steps toward candlelight.