The sound his fury made was silence.
Not shouting. Not roaring.
Silence.
Every torch seemed to flatten as Kaedan walked deeper into the hall, gaze locked on Queen Rhaelle’s hand resting on Ariaxa’s thigh.
Rhaelle’s smile faltered. Just a flicker.
“Emperor,” she purred smoothly, trying to recover. “We were entertaining ourselves in your—”
Kaedan moved.
One heartbeat he was at the doorway.
The next, he stood at the table.
His hand shot out, iron-fast, fingers clamping around Rhaelle’s wrist.
Her eyes widened. “Kaedan—”
He didn’t answer.
He slammed her hand down onto the obsidian table.
The crack echoed.
Bone.
Not stone.
Rhaelle screamed, collapsing to one knee, clutching at the table with her free hand. Nobles flinched back. A goblet toppled and spilled bloodwine like fresh blood across the polished surface.
Ariaxa froze, breath catching in her throat.
Kaedan leaned over Rhaelle, voice low and terrible.
“Touch her again,” he said softly, “and I will break more than your fingers.”
Whispers died on contact.
No one moved.
Rhaelle’s eyes burned up at him with poisonous hatred. “You injure a Triarch queen over a slave?”
Kaedan’s gaze turned lethal. “I injure whoever forgets their place.”
Rhaelle laughed once, breathless from pain. “And who is forgetting their place now, Kaedan?”
His jaw flexed.
He released her wrist with contempt, flicking his fingers as if she were ash. “Get out of my sight before I decide your hand is not sufficient payment.”
Her guard rushed forward, helping her to her feet. She clutched her broken wrist to her chest, eyes glistening not with tears—but fury.
As she passed Ariaxa, she hissed under her breath, “You are not worth this.”
Ariaxa didn’t answer.
She couldn’t.
Her pulse thundered as Kaedan straightened, turning to face the court.
His eyes swept the room once. Every noble who’d watched with hungry curiosity now stared at the floor.
The Emperor had spoken.
The Emperor was unhinged.
“Feast is over,” Kaedan said, voice flat. “Leave.”
Chairs scraped. Robes whispered. No one complained.
In moments, the hall emptied.
Only Ariaxa remained.
And Kaedan.
And his rage.
He did not look at her at first.
“Come,” he ordered.
Her legs moved before her mind caught up. She followed him out, heart slamming against her ribs. The corridors were dark, quiet, lined with statues that suddenly felt like witnesses.
“Kaedan,” she whispered, “you shouldn’t have—”
His pace quickened. “Do not speak.”
“But Rhaelle—”
“Ariaxa.” Her name came out like a growl. “I said. Do not speak.”
She swallowed her words.
They reached his private chambers.
He pushed the door open, walked in, and waited for her to cross the threshold.
The moment she did, he shut it behind them with a low, final thud.
The world shrank.
No court.
No nobles.
No guards.
Just the two of them and the storm between them.
He turned, eyes still burning with the afterglow of fury. “Come here.”
“I am right here,” she replied, trying for steady, failing.
“Closer.”
Her feet carried her forward until her chest almost brushed his.
She had to tilt her head up to meet his gaze. He looked… caged. Wild. Dangerous in a way she recognized now not as pure cruelty, but as something caught between breaking and holding on.
“Why did you do that?” she whispered. “In front of everyone?”
His voice was hoarse. “Because she touched you.”
“That doesn’t justify—”
“You don’t understand what you look like when you’re afraid,” he snapped, stepping forward, forcing her backward. “You don’t see the way your eyes go wide, the way your breath stutters, the way your body goes rigid when someone lays hands on you.”
Her back hit the wall.
He planted his hands on either side of her head, caging her in. She gasped, heart pounding.
“Kaedan—”
“I told you not to speak,” he breathed, eyes searching hers like he was trying to ground himself in them. “Because if you speak, I forget I’m not a monster.”
“If this is you not being a monster,” she whispered, “I would hate to see the alternative.”
His head dropped, forehead almost touching hers, breath hot between them. She could feel the tremor in him.
“That,” he said quietly, “is exactly why I can’t trust myself around you.”
He pushed away suddenly, making her flinch, and stalked across the room to a carved pillar where a set of supple black ropes hung.
Her pulse skidded.
“No,” she said, shaking her head once, already bracing. “Kaedan, don’t—”
He grabbed them and turned back to her, expression carved in conflict.
“This is not a punishment,” he said roughly.
Her laugh came out broken. “You expect me to believe that?”
He stepped toward her again, rope coiled in his hand like a living thing.
“If I lay my hands on you in anger,” he said quietly, “I will break something I can’t repair.”
He lifted her wrist, slowly, giving her time to pull away.
She didn’t.
Her body trembled.
Her mind screamed.
Her pulse pounded so hard she felt it in her burned throat.
He guided her arm up, resting her sleeve carefully so it wouldn’t pull her healing skin, then tied the rope around her wrist—firm, but not cruel.
“You don’t have to do this,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
His voice shook.
He raised her other wrist. She swallowed, staring straight into his eyes, trying to read him.
“What are you afraid of, Kaedan?” she asked softly.
His fingers tightened around her skin. “That I will hurt you like they hurt me.”
The honesty stole her breath.
He bound her second wrist and looped the rope through an iron ring above their heads. Her arms stretched up, shoulders tight, body lengthened. The position left her exposed, vulnerable—
And yet she could see it: the distance he created between his hands and her skin.
He stepped back from her, chest heaving once like he’d just survived a battle.
“Look at me,” she said quietly.
He did.
“Did you break Rhaelle’s hand because she is a Triarch,” Ariaxa asked, “or because she touched what you think belongs to you?”
His jaw flexed. “Both.”
He started pacing, dragging a hand through his hair. “When I saw her hand on you, I wanted to tear her arm off. I wanted to rip the throne room apart. I wanted to—”
“Lose control,” she finished.
He stopped.
“Yes,” he whispered.
He came back to her slowly, every step thick with tension. Standing in front of her again, he lifted a hand—but stopped it just beside her hip, fingers curling into a fist rather than resting on her.
“It drove me to madness,” he said. “Seeing her touch you. Seeing you sit still and endure it because I had not been there to stop it.”
Her throat tightened. “I didn’t sit still. I was about to shove her away.”
A ghost of a smile passed over his lips. “You should have. Next time, do not wait for me.”
“You think there will be a next time?” she whispered.
“I have too many enemies,” he said. “There will always be a next time.”
He stepped closer. The wall was at her back, the ropes tugging lightly at her wrists, his body heat pressing forward, surrounding her, not touching—not quite.
Her breath stuttered.
“This is not about your crown,” she said, voice almost lost in the space between them. “Not really.”
His eyes darkened.
“This is about you not knowing what to do with the fact that I said no.”
“You said no to my throne,” he murmured. “You refused the crown of Vharon.”
“I refuse to be a symbol of everything you’ve done,” she said, anger flickering through her fear. “I refuse to pretend I approve of what you are.”
His lips curved, just barely.
“And yet,” he said softly, “you are still here. Bound in my chambers. Breathing my air. Wearing my mark around your throat.”
Her heartbeat thundered.
He lowered his head until his mouth hovered near her ear, his breath warm and coaxing shivers from her spine.
“You refuse my crown…” he whispered, each word a slow intrusion beneath her skin, “but you cannot refuse me.”
Her lungs forgot how to work.