Chapter 7
Alaric’s apology came far too late.
And even if it hadn’t–I wouldn’t have wanted to hear it.
After crashing through the rocks below the cliff, several of my ribs had shattered. Internal wounds stacked on fresh ones. I was dying.
It was the masked man, Ashen Drake, who saved me.
He carried my broken body out of the valley and rode south, racing against time, desperate to find someone who could keep me alive.
I’d met him years ago–bloodied, hunted, and cornered by royal soldiers. In his panic, he’d leapt over the courtyard wall and collapsed in my garden.
I hid him. Treated his wounds. Kept his secret.
When he left, he promised me his life.
And now… he’d spent it staging an assassination just to get me out.
I nearly met death that night.
Ashen knelt in the snow for two nights and two days before the hermit physician of Southwatch finally agreed to save me.
By the time I could walk again, Ashen and I had already been living deep in Southwatch for three years.
Rain season came without warning in the southern lands.
I sat in the bamboo lodge, rocking my one–year–old twins gently in my arms, listening to the soft patter of raindrops tapping against the broad banana leaves outside.
“Seraphina,” Ashen entered, carrying a bowl of dark tonic, his voice low and gentle. “It’s cool enough now. You should drink it.”
2
I took the bowl. My daughter’s tiny fingers clutched my tunic, while my son buried his face in my chest, snoring softly.
Ashen watched us in silence, his expression so tender it was hard to believe he was once a cold–blooded royal shadow guard.
Then his voice dropped even lower.
“Riders from the capital arrived today. Alaric’s men–they’re here.”
The bowl slipped from my hands, clattering to the ground. The tonic splashed across my dress like ink.
Ashen dropped to one knee instantly, pulling out a cloth to dab at the stains. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, looking up at me with eyes dark and sharp. “Even if it costs me my life, I won’t let him take you. Or the children.”
But fate didn’t ask for permission.
That night, just before we turned in, I saw a shadow flicker through the trees beyond the bamboo fence.
The front door flew open with a crash.
Ashen’s blade was already unsheathed.
Steel clashed in the dark.
Then came that voice I hadn’t heard in years–low, hoarse, and soaked in rain.
“Seraphina… I finally found you.”
My face went white.
It was as if my worst nightmare had stepped from the storm, flesh and blood and soaking wet.
Alaric stood there in black robes, rain rolling off him in rivulets. His voice was calm, but the madness
Chapter 7
BookSnap
Transforme sollte
**
his eyes
told another story.
He hadn’t come unprepared.
We were outnumbered. Ashen and I never stood a chance.
“Seraphina,” he said again, lips curling into a twisted smile as he reached out a hand. “Aren’t you tired of running? Come home. With
me.”
I slapped his hand away and moved to shield Ashen with my body, heart pounding.
“Why?” My voice trembled with fury. “Why can’t you just leave me alone, Alaric? I left everything behind–I stayed away from you, from Celeste. Why can’t you just let me go?!”
Alaric’s expression darkened as he watched me choose another man over him.
His hand trembled, fingers curling into fists at his side.
But his eyes… they softened, just
corner of this land looking for you.”
“I know what happened now.
exiled, when I nearly died
a moment. “It’s been three years,” he said. “Three damn years, Seraphina. I’ve searched every
you didn’t betray me, didn’t run off to another man. I know what you did for me when I was all of it.‘
“Celeste has paid for everything she did to you. I swear it.”
“I was blind. Consumed with revenge. I couldn’t see what was right in front of me. I kept pushing you away, kept hurting you because I didn’t want to admit what I felt.”
“But I love you. I always have.”
He took a step forward. “Come back with me. If you want to punish me, hit me. Hate me. Just don’t leave again.”
“For three years, I’ve sent men to every province, every mountain pass, every coastline. Do you know what it’s like–hoping, only to be crushed again and again?”
“I’ve gone mad without you.‘
I clenched my hands until my nails dug deep into my palms. The pain helped me focus.
I had imagined this moment so many times. I thought I’d scream at him. Curse him. Unleash every ounce of hatred I’d buried in my bones.
But now that he was here…
I was just tired.
“Alaric,” I said quietly. The past is over. Let it stay buried.”
“Please… leave. And don’t come back.”
The emptiness in my voice broke something inside him.
He would’ve preferred rage. Even hatred.
But this… this cold, foreign calm?
It gutted him.
He laughed once, soft and bitter. “Leave?”
Then his eyes turned feral.
With a sharp flick, he drew his sword and pointed it at Ashen. “So you can keep playing house with this bastard’s dog
“If he hadn’t dragged you over that cliff three years ago, we wouldn’t be here!”
Ashen unsheathed his curved blade with one smooth motion and stepped protectively in front of me. “And if I hadn’t, she’d still be rotting under your boot.”
The room snapped tight with tension.
Two blades. One grudge.
And a storm just beginning to break.
