Layla
The castle was a labyrinth of hallways with twists and turns, beautiful and sparsely furnished. Some of the hallways were bathed in shadows that looked tangible. It felt less like a building and more like a living, breathing entity steeped in power and forgotten secrets.
She walked beside him, his fingers curled possessively around the nape of her neck, anchoring her, as if afraid she was going to disappear in a poof of smoke.
They moved like ghosts through the hallways, taking turns she never noticed until they took them.
Guards stood like sentinels, their gazes fixed forward, giving stiff, precise salutes as their king passed, most had wolf glinting eyes in different colors; green, purple, yellow but never gold.
Servants bowed low. No one dared meet his gaze. No one dared meet hers. That made her uneasy.
The silence was thick, heavy and suffocating, woven through with an undercurrent of palpable fear. It pressed in on her from all sides.
He stopped before a door. Heavy iron banded across ancient wood, iron shot through into its surface in intricate, beautiful patterns. Power wafted faintly from within, like a sleeping beast.
It opened with a touch of his hand , the room within was bare, brutal. Not a chamber meant for rest or luxury, but a war-den.
A place stripped down to bare necessities.
Maps were laid bare across the ironwood table, marked with jagged lines and harsh symbols. Blades were hung on the walls, what was with him and blades? She thought as she traced their sharp edges with her eyes.
The massive hearth crackled, spitting flames that cast the room in a golden cast. The only concession to luxury was the magnificent ironwood bed and the sunken quartz bath that could accommodate three fully grown adults and the golden deer hide strewn on the floor.
Steam wafted off the bath in waves. it was set in the corner, scenting the air with jasmine and vanilla, soft, delicate things, meant to soothe, a stark contrast to the brutality of the room. A dress waited on a stone bench. Linen. Oils. Simple comforts in an unimaginable place. It was a start.
He stood there, a dark silhouette against the firelight. One hand braced against the table, head lowered.
Still.
Too still.
Not the coiled quiet of a predator ready to pounce.
Worse, it was the stillness of someone coming to terms with something.
She removed the crown, setting it on the bench, added the oils and scents, stripped down to her skin and wade into the bath, the hot water easing away the aches.
Muscles that hadn't been used for months relaxed under the waters' magic, washing her hair, the grime and tensions caused by the court but not the memory of his claim. Never the memory of his touch.
She got out when the water turned luke warmed, watching as the water flushed down itself. Baffling, this world was both rough and sophisticated.
Wrapped her hair up to dry. Wipe herself dry.
The dress was simple. Black velvet trimmed in black lace, high-necked, sleeveless, soft against her skin. It had laces at the sides that when pulled made it snug against her ribs, like a second skin. Swirling around her ankles as if whispering in adoration. She let her hair down, combing it with her fingers. Comfortable leather sandals that add inches to her height.
It was the most beautiful thing she ever wore. She loved it despite the circumstances.
When she turned back, clean and dressed,
He was still there, hadn't moved an inch.
For a breathless moment, she thought he was carved from shadow, a statue of despair.
And then he spoke;
"You think I chose you," he said, the words low and rough as if scraped unwillingly from his soul, raw with something she couldn't name.
He turned slowly then, like the movement cost him something vital, something precious.
God.
His eyes.
Just.... bright. Too open. Soul of the man behind the animal, shining in the dark, beautiful and breathtaking.
"You chose me," he said, crossing the room to her in two prowling strides that ate up the distance between them, like it was not there at all.
His gaze locked on hers, inescapable.
She stared back at him, lost, caught in the intensity of those eyes, in the sudden shift in his presence.
"You chose me long before you ever saw me," he continued, his voice a low, fierce murmur, the sound vibrating between us.
"Long before you knew my name.Before I had a chance to stop it. It was irreversible when your feet touched this soil."
He reached for her, his hands lifting, stopped, freezing in mid-air. His fingers trembled at his sides, curled into fists. As if touching her even now, would shatter him into a million irreparable pieces.
"I will protect you," he whispered, the words a fierce, desperate vow, tainted with the dark edge of a curse. "From them. From this place."
" Even from myself, if I could."
That last part was whispered bitterly. And the fool that she was, aching and bruised and utterly lost, said nothing.
He lifted his hand again then, so slow she could have stepped into it. Could have mend the broken space between them.
But she didn't. She couldn't.
Not yet.
His knuckles brushed the fabric just over her collarbone. A phantom touch. Not quite skin, but close enough to send a jolt through her.
And still she trembled with the fire he awakened beneath his gaze, beneath the weight of his unspoken vulnerability.
"You see me," he whispered, the sound raw, like it hurt him to admit it. "As I am. Not the king. Not the monster. Just… me."
Then he dropped his hand like the truth burned him, like the connection was too much to bear.
Turned away again, back to the maps, to the silent blades.
And she saw the tension in him, drawn tight. All that power, all that fury, all that savage control—held together by sheer will.
"You hate me for it," he continued, voice softer now, directed at the deer skin, at the fire, at the shadows. Like the confession itself might undo them both, might break the fragile thing that was possibly budding between them.
She didn't answer. What could she say?
That she dhould hate him, every logical, rational part of her screamed that she should. So why didn't she?
That somewhere between the bruises and the silence, between his brutality and the honest vulnerability in his eyes, something inside her heart had cracked further, and he'd slipped in?
Something wild and unwanted that answered back in howls in answer to his own untamed soul.
He exhaled, a low forlorn sounded like defeat.
"Come," he said at last, voice rough, no longer an order, but a whisper that held the weight of a plea, scraped raw with something he still refused to name. "There are things you must see.
"Truth this kingdom hides."
Then he opened the iron-bound door and led her out, not back into a throne room of power, but out into a kingdom already burning from within, its wounds hidden beneath a veneer of dust and weariness.