Why doesn't it feel like that?
Why did her instincts, those same instincts forged in exile and betrayal and blood, pull in the opposite direction?
Lucavion's smirk was still visible from across the hall. Casual. Detached. As if the chaos he'd unleashed was nothing more than another page turning in a story only he had read.
But something in it—something—refused to sit cleanly beside Isolde's venom. There was calculation, yes. But not cruelty. There was power, yes. But not that aching hunger for dominance that defined her.
Elara exhaled, slow, controlled. Her eyes narrowed.
Was it because of the time they shared?
The moment in the snow-drowned corridor. The first confrontation. The flicker of something too vulnerable beneath his composed armor, so fleeting she almost doubted it had existed. The way he looked at her—not as a threat, not as a pawn—but like she was a storm he could respect.
