Chapter 27: The Prince's Rage

The stench of blood came before silence had taken possession of the screams.

I braced myself, unmoving in the dark East Wing corridor, guards on each side of me, tension locked tight in the air like weather waiting to pour out. Darkness had come for the third night, oppressive with smoke and dread.

Moments before, I had been escorted out of the holding chambers, freed from the icy cell only by Kael's insistence. No reason. No remorse. Only insistence: Come.

Now I was at the edge of madness.

Red covered the marble floors of the chamber. Bodies were broken — not human, but vampire. Guards, nobles, courtiers. Their limbs twisted at unnatural angles, their throats ripped wide, and their eyes frozen in horror.

And in the middle of it all… Kael.

Blood seeped between his fingers. His chest heaved and fell in jagged gasps. His eyes flashed with an unholy red glow, untamed and savage. He was death personified — gorgeous, pitiless, unstoppable.

My breathing caught up.

He'd done it.

For me.

"Kael…"

I stepped forward before I realized it.

He didn't turn. Didn't say anything.

I ought to have been scared. Perhaps I was. But more than fear, it was the disgusting realization that this was not an accident that held me. He hadn't lost control.

He had chosen.

One of the men stumbled towards us from the far side of the room, clutching a smeared red piece of parchment in his hand. The letter was covered in blood, but I could see even from the other side of the room the seal — the same seal that had been on those fake letters that landed me in prison.

"I discovered it in Varyn's quarters," the man gargled. "Evidence. The human was—"

They were cut off by a slobbering splutter.

Kael moved quicker than I could blink.

The soldier was upright. Next, Kael had his fist in the soldier's chest, his heart squished in his hand.

The body thudded to the floor.

"Stop!" I shrieked, voice cracking. "He was telling the truth!"

Kael's face was a mask of emotion too raw to classify as it swung around to me.

My heart raced. "You didn't need to kill him."

"He betrayed me," Kael spat, his voice jagged and cold. "I do not tolerate betrayal."

I moved forward over the shifting guards behind me. The tension broke.

"Or is it because he discovered the truth?"

I lashed out, flames burning in my chest. "That I was innocent? That Varyn betrayed you?"

Kael's jaw muscles eased. "I knew Varyn was a liar. I didn't know he'd be so bold."

"And you just stood there and did nothing while they attempted to kill me."

He didn't answer.

The distance between us grew like a canyon.

"And now?" I spat. "You shed blood in my name and pretend like it's nothing?"

"It isn't," he snarled. "It was about procedure, not feelings."

I laughed — a cold, disbelieving sound. "You think I'm supposed to accept that? After this?" I waved at the destruction. "You burned up half your court because someone had the nerve to touch what you believe is yours."

His jaw muscle creaked with tension. "You are mine."

My spine rigidified. "You don't get to claim me, Kael. Not after what you allowed them to do. Not after what you did."

He shot across to my flank, too close, his towering frame smothering. His arms wrapped around my arms, not hurting, but holding tight. His eyes scorched mine.

"I saved your life."

"You nearly didn't!" I shouted, struggling free. "You wavered. You let them humiliate me. You left me to waste away in that prison!"

"I had to know," he snarled with clenched teeth. "Do you have any concept of what it would be like if you were a traitor? If I'd defended you and discovered you to be my foe?"

I gazed at him in horror. "You think I'd do that?"

His silence said it all.

A knife of anguish cut through me.

"You feel nothing whatever, do you?" I whispered.

His jaw snapped shut. "Emotions make you weak. And weakness kills."

"Then why do you stare at me like that?" I stormed. "Why did you kill all those people who breathed in my direction without so much as a second thought? If it was nothing—why does it burn you inside?"

For the first time, Kael's eyes cracked. For one second. But long enough.

I saw it.

The truth he refused to speak.

Something between us scared him.

"I am Prince of this kingdom," he said at last, voice rasp. "I have no room for distractions."

"And you're just a distraction," I panted. "Do you tell yourself that every time?"

A cold laugh burst out of him. "You are many things, Scarlett. But a distraction?" He closed the distance, holding me in that impossibly intense gaze. "You are the flaw in the armor I've spent centuries building. You are the word that taunts me at night. You are the one thing I am unable to control." I couldn't catch my breath. Didn't.

His lips grazed mine, but he didn't in. "That's why it doesn't matter," he whispered. "Because if I say it matters. I lose."

My chest was pounding.

"You've already lost," I whispered. "When you killed for me."

He stiffened. His arms fell to his sides. The look drained out of his face like the tide withdrawing.

"Go to your rooms," he snarled. "You're no longer suspect. Your name is cleared. You're safe."

I swallowed, forcing myself to register the relief I should have been feeling. "And you?"

He didn't reply.

He turned and walked away from me, through blood and broken bodies as if they meant nothing.

As if I meant nothing.

But I watched how his shoulders sank. How his fists clenched.

He might attempt to feign all he had to.

But Kael had gone too far tonight.

And even if he attempted to conceal it with silence, blood, and deception…

It would haunt us both.

To be continued…