I settled into the wooden seat, noting how Nyx had positioned herself at the head of the table—close enough to evaluate every expression, far enough to maintain authority.
Reed sat to her right, his silver eyes tracking my every movement with unsettling intensity.
“Your technique needs work,” she said without preamble, cutting into her meat with surgical precision. “But you didn’t embarrass yourself completely.”
“High praise.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.” She took a bite, chewed thoughtfully. “Thane’s been my Beta for six years. He’s never lost a sparring match.”
“Until today.”
“Until today.” Her storm-gray eyes met mine across the table. “The question is whether it was skill or luck.”
“Does it matter?”
“Everything matters here.” She set down her knife with deliberate care. “Especially when it comes to—”
“You look sad when she’s not in the room.” Reed’s voice cut through the tension like a stone through glass. The silence that followed was deafening.
I felt my fork freeze halfway to my mouth. Nyx went completely still, her knuckles white where they gripped her knife.
“Reed,” she said quietly, her voice carrying a warning.
“It’s true, Mama.” The boy continued eating as if he hadn’t just detonated a bomb at the dinner table. “He gets this look. Like he’s lost something important.”
“That’s enough.”
“Papa used to get the same look when you left for council meetings.”
The name hung in the air like a blade waiting to fall. I saw something crack in Nyx’s carefully constructed armor, a flash of pain so raw it made my chest tight.
“Go to your room,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“But I haven’t finished—”
“Now.”
Reed stood, but before leaving, he looked directly at me. “He died protecting us,” he said with that eerie maturity that seemed far too old for his young face. “From men who thought they could take what wasn’t theirs.”
“Reed!” Nyx’s voice cracked like a whip.
But the boy was already gone, his footsteps echoing down the corridor like the ghost of a warning.
The silence that followed was suffocating. Nyx sat rigid in her chair, breathing hard, her eyes fixed on some point beyond my shoulder.
“He shouldn’t have said that,” she finally managed.
“But he did.” I set down my fork, leaning forward. “And now we both have to deal with it.”
“There’s nothing to deal with.” She stood abruptly, her chair scraping against stone. “Reed is a child. He doesn’t understand—”
“He understands more than you give him credit for.” I rose as well, facing her across the charged space. “And he’s right. I do miss you when you’re not around.”
“Don’t.” The word came out sharp, desperate. “Don’t make this about feelings.”
“Why not? Because feelings got you hurt before?”
“Because feelings get people killed!” The words exploded from her with enough force to make the candles flicker. “Because caring about someone makes you weak, makes you vulnerable, makes you—”
“Human?”
She stared at me, chest heaving, something wild and wounded in her storm-gray eyes.
“I was human once,” she said quietly. “It nearly destroyed everything I’d built.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m a queen. A commander. A mother.” Her voice hardened with each word. “I don’t have the luxury of being anything else.”
“You could be my mate.”
The words hung between us like a challenge. Her face went pale, then flushed with anger.
“Your mate?” She moved around the table, closing the distance between us with predatory grace. “I’m not some prize to be claimed, Prince. I’m not another territory to be conquered.”
“I never said you were.”
“Didn’t you?” She stopped just out of arm’s reach, close enough that I could see the gold flecks in her eyes. “Because from where I stand, it looks like you’re collecting queens like trophies.”
“And from where I stand, it looks like you’re terrified of letting anyone get close enough to matter.”
The accusation hit its mark. I saw her flinch, saw her hands clench into fists.
“I have good reason to be terrified.”
“Because of what happened to your mate?”
“Because of what I became when I lost him.” Her voice cracked with emotion she was fighting to control. “Do you know what grief does to someone with my kind of power, Prince? Do you know what happens when a woman who can command storms loses the one thing that kept her anchored?”
“Tell me.”
“I leveled half the northern cliffs.” The admission came out like a confession. “Brought down enough stone to fill the harbor. It took three other Alphas working together to contain the damage.”
The implications hit me like a physical blow. “Reed?”
“Was the only thing that stopped me from bringing down the rest.” Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “My son saved this territory from his mother’s rage. A three-year-old child had to be stronger than the woman who was supposed to protect him.”
“Nyx—”
“You want to know why I don’t trust easily? Why I don’t let people close?” She stepped closer, close enough that I could feel her breath against my chest. “Because the last time I loved someone, I nearly destroyed everything when I lost him.”
“And you think loving me would end the same way?”
“I think loving anyone is a luxury I can’t afford.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I have a son to protect, a territory to rule, enemies who would see any weakness as an opportunity.”
“What if it’s not weakness? What if it’s strength?”
“How can it be strength when it feels like dying?”
The question hung between us, raw and honest and devastating. I reached out slowly, my fingers barely grazing her cheek.
“Because feeling that much means you’re still alive,” I said. “Because choosing to risk your heart again means you haven’t let them win.”
She closed her eyes, leaning into my touch for just a moment before pulling away.
“The balcony,” she said suddenly. “I need air.”
I followed her through corridors that seemed to close in around us, up narrow stairs that led to a stone platform jutting out over the churning sea. The wind hit us like a living thing, salt-sharp and brutal.
“This is where I come to think,” she said, gripping the stone railing with white knuckles. “To remember what I’m fighting for.”
“And what are you fighting for?”
“Reed. My people. The future they deserve.” She looked out at the storm-lashed waves. “Everything except myself.”
“Why not yourself?”
“Because I died with him.” The words came out flat, final. “What you see now is just what survived.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” She turned to face me, and I saw something broken in her expression. “I haven’t felt truly alive since the day they brought me his body. Haven’t felt whole. Haven’t felt—”
“What?”
“Anything.” Her voice cracked. “Until you.”
The admission hung between us like a bridge across an impossible chasm. She stared at me with something like terror in her eyes.
“That’s why you’re dangerous,” she whispered. “Because you make me remember what it felt like to be human.”
“Is that so terrible?”
“It is when being human almost killed everyone I love.”
“And being alone? How’s that working for you?”
“It’s safe.”
“It’s not living.”
“Sometimes safe is enough.”
“Not for you.” I stepped closer, close enough to see the tears she was fighting not to shed. “You’re not built for safe, Nyx. You’re built for storms.”
“And what happens when the storm destroys everything in its path?”
“Then we build something stronger.” I reached for her hands, and this time she didn’t pull away. “Together.”
She stared at me for a long moment, something desperate warring with something hopeful in her eyes.
“I can’t promise I won’t break,” she said finally.
“I can’t promise I won’t let you.”
“Then what are we doing?”
“Taking a leap of faith.”
She laughed then, sharp and bitter. “Faith. From a woman who’s seen what the gods do to the people they supposedly love.”
“Not faith in the gods,” I said, pulling her closer. “Faith in us.”
When she kissed me, it was with eight years of stored hunger and desperation. She tasted like salt and lightning and the kind of pain that transforms rather than destroys. Her hands fisted in my shirt like she was afraid I might disappear.
“Don’t leave,” she whispered against my lips. “Don’t make me remember what it feels like to lose someone again.”
“Then don’t let me go.”
Cold fire. But fire all the same.