Ariana stood in Damian's chambers, the silk sheets still clinging to her skin, Selene's mocking smile echoing in her head.
"Should I return later… or would you like breakfast for two?"
The words were poison dressed in perfume.
Selene didn't need to scream accusations — she only needed the implication. And in a palace this cruel, implications were deadly.
Ariana's fists trembled as she stood. "I want to leave."
"You're not going anywhere," Damian said, already stepping in front of the door.
"I'm not your prisoner."
"No," he said coldly, "you're mine."
There was fire in his eyes — not lust this time, but fury. Not at her.
At the fact that Selene had nearly succeeded.
"She knew what she was doing," Ariana muttered. "She wanted me shamed."
"She wanted me furious," Damian corrected. "And it worked."
Hours later, the kingdom buzzed.
Whispers flew through the halls like wildfire — the common girl in the prince's bed, a scandal at the royal banquet, Princess Selene's broken smile.
But nothing shook the palace more than what came next.
Damian walked into court.
With Ariana.
On his arm.
Dressed in black and crimson, Ariana's presence was thunder. Heads turned. Gowns fluttered. Voices stopped.
And Selene… blinked.
Damian didn't speak to her. He didn't even look at her.
He simply stood before the king's council and declared:
"There will be no further attacks on Ariana of the Outer Provinces. She is under my protection — by oath, by choice, by flame."
Gasps followed.
Ariana's chest tightened.
This was not romance.
This was war.
Later that evening, Selene sat alone in her gold-draped chamber, a dagger spinning lazily between her fingers.
"You want to play the hero, Damian?" she whispered.
"Then I'll write her story myself… and it ends in blood."
She pressed a seal to a parchment and whispered, "Deliver it. Let them come."
A messenger took it and fled into the night.
Selene smiled.
"Let's see how your precious flame handles the past you tried to bury."