I didn’t sneak out through my window that night, instead walking straight out the front door as I so often did on the evenings when I

was summoned to Lord Byron’s private library at Mistfell Manor. There was nothing to hide from my brother—not when I’d been commanded to behave inappropriately on these nights. With my heart in my throat, I tried to sink into the comfort the night usually provided and take solace in the familiarity, before everything changed.

Lord Byron had mentioned we needed to speak. He hadn’t said he intended to take my body in the way he hadn’t before, and he wouldn’t have hidden those intentions from me if he’d had them. He would’ve wanted to torment me through the day, to drive my heart into my stomach and fill me with dread.

I pushed branches away from my face as I moved through them, keeping to the trail. Eventually it would lead me toward the barracks and the manor close to the village center. Even though my walk in the night would be sanctioned if the Mist Guard brought me to the manor, I didn’t particularly want to deal with the likely brutal escort I would receive.

I looked toward the trees and the glimpses of the moon shining through the canopy overhead. The shock of amber eyes studying me from the branches made my slow steps falter, freezing me in place to stare back into the too-intelligent eyes of the blight watching me.

Similar to the crows that were common during the daylight hours, the blight were nocturnal birds said to be crafted from the magic of the Court of

Shadows itself. Born from the darkness, they were spies for the beings who could no longer cross over the Veil.

I swallowed as it cocked its head to the side while it watched me, shifting so its talons got a better grip on the branch before it blinked with a nearly-translucent eyelid, which added a misty quality to the eye that never left me. Launching into the sky, it flew back toward the Veil at the edge of the Mist, lending evidence to the rumor of its purpose.

Even though the Veil was believed to be impenetrable by any form of life, chills broke out over my skin and goosebumps raised at the very thought of a spy reporting about me to the monsters on the other side. There was no reason to believe the Fae cared in the slightest about my existence, but nothing could stop the ominous feeling from spreading through me.

Shaking my head, I continued my walk down the path even though a part of me wanted to return home. Knowing that, while I might be able to prolong the inevitable visit with Lord Byron, I couldn’t escape it altogether. It had been such a small encounter, a bird watching me in the night, but some legends were better left as whispers meant to scare children.

In my father’s words, some secrets were better left in the dark.

Through the trees to my right, the gardens next to the barrier between realms were illuminated by the shimmering Veil as it swayed in the breeze. The Mist on the other side disguised whatever lay beyond, casting shadows on the space between our lands.

I turned to the left, against the pull I felt toward the Veil, determined not to tempt fate by wandering too closely when my life seemed dominated by upheaval and change as of late. I’d hardly taken a few steps forward when an arm wrapped around my chest from behind.

It pulled me back into the hard, unforgiving body of a man that I could not see. My blood raced with the sudden shock of adrenaline in my veins. My neck stung with the cold press of a blade to my skin. Another pulse of fear coursed through me.

Any number of Lord Byron’s men would have been angry to discover me gallivanting through the night once again, at least, until they discovered he’d summoned me.

“Now what have you been told about sneaking about in the night? I’m likely to mistake you for a Fae lover,” the man said, ducking his head lower to softly murmur the words in my ear. I relaxed, my body sagging in relief

the moment I recognized the familiar voice and the fact that he wouldn’t report me.

With my initial fear of being caught gone, I sprung as quickly as he’d taught me, reaching up with both hands to grasp his wrist at the same moment I dropped my weight to the ground and spun. He grunted when his arm twisted with me, extending out behind him as I hooked a foot behind his knees and forced them to collapse beneath him.

“What was I thinking when I taught you that?” he asked, narrowing his warm brown eyes on my face as he looked up at me. His stare focused on the light bruise on my cheek, the spot of skin that was just a bit too dark after Byron’s strike earlier, but he clenched his jaw and ignored it as his duty demanded.

I smiled, releasing his arm and letting him shake out the pain before he sheathed his dagger. Loris’s leather chest piece was secured at his side with clasps that clinked together as he moved, rising to his feet until he once again towered over me. He grinned, thin lips tipping up and taking away some of the harshness that was such an inherent part of his features.

As a Mist Guard, kindness had been trained and beaten out of him. He was a minion of his purpose, driven by the need to protect the Veil and keep the Fae on the other side of it at all costs. Nothing could matter so much as that duty.

It came first, even when that meant taking part in the sacrifice of innocent people.

“Perhaps you like being the only one to—”

Loris interrupted my response, leaning forward to crush his lips to mine urgently. His brown eyes drifted closed the moment he touched me, as if some part of him settled when I didn’t speak any words to demean what we’d become to one another.

It wasn’t love, but it was as close as the two of us would ever come; a rebellion against the life chosen for us where his duty demanded he never marry and mine condemned me to it.

Gentle hands raised to touch my waist, tugging me closer as I returned his kiss and leaned into his warmth. I knew it would be our last, that after I confessed Lord Byron knew about our tryst, he wouldn’t want anything to do with me again.

He kissed me sweetly, making me believe for just a moment I might be worth something to a man in our world. I might be something special, if

even only to one person. When he pulled away, he looked down at me with heavy eyes and a condescending twist of his lips. “You know you shouldn’t be in the woods at night,” he mumbled, tucking a runaway strand of my dark, wavy hair behind my ear and holding my green eyes captive with his.

“I like it out here at night,” I returned, tugging back and raising my chin in defiance. Every moment I spent delaying my confession felt like a lie by omission.

“Only the Ladies of the Night are out at this hour. Even if a cave beast doesn’t find you and make a snack out of you, do you want one of the travelers visiting Mistfell for the celebration to mistake you for one of them?” Loris asked, pulling me back into his chest and teasing the corner of my mouth with his. The temptation to give in rolled over me, but I shoved it away with two hands at his chest.

“Then I suppose it would be a terrible idea for them to see me wrapped in your arms, wouldn’t it?” I asked with a saccharine smile, turning on my heel and continuing toward the manor.

Until the day I had an official master, I wouldn’t be owned in the night. “Estrella, wait!” Loris called, hurrying up behind me and grasping my

wrist. He tugged, pulling me back into his chest as that confident smile consumed his face. “You know I just worry about you.” He kissed me again, this one deeper and holding the heat of a single moment of passion that he knew I couldn’t say no to.

“I’m not yours to worry over anymore,” I said with a sigh, murmuring the harsh reminder of what we both knew was coming. He just didn’t know it had likely already arrived. “Lord Byron knows about us.”

Loris pulled back, his brow furrowing as he stared down at me. “What?”

“Apparently he’s known for some time,” I admitted, shrugging my shoulders and feigning a casualness about the situation that I didn’t feel. Something inside me recoiled, just thinking about the potential fallout with Lord Byron for what I’d done.

“But your lack of purity would make you ineligible for marriage. Why hasn’t he put you to work with the Ladies, or told the Commander what I’ve done, for that matter? That makes no sense whatsoever, for him to keep our secret when we violated The Mother’s doctrine,” he said, raising a hand to scrub down his face in confusion.

“He does nothing without a purpose. I’m on my way to find out what it is,” I admitted, hanging my head and touching my forehead to his chest briefly. “He requested my presence in his library, so I’ll know more soon. But no matter what he has to say, we can’t meet anymore. It’s too dangerous for you.”

“He didn’t seem to object to it, if he allowed it to go on for this long. He could’ve had me hanged months ago for ruining you in the eyes of The Mother,” Loris said, scoffing as he took a step back. Even if his words were an argument that Lord Byron seemed willing to allow another man to touch me, Loris had already put the necessary distance between us, recognizing the danger in continuing to have a relationship with me when the secret had been discovered.

“I don’t think he would have told me he knew unless he wanted it to stop. Whatever his reasons, I don’t think they apply anymore.” I didn’t speak of the words the High Priest had said at Temple earlier in the day, nor did I mention the hint that The Father had plans for me, and what that might mean with the coming sacrifice. It seemed like the odds of Lord Byron’s plan for me carrying weight for very long were slim.

Loris let me go as I backed away and turned toward the manor, because to go against the wishes, even unspoken, of Lord Byron, would violate the vows he’d taken to serve Mistfell and the Veil.

And his duty came first.

He disappeared in the opposite direction on the path as I turned my back on him as well; both going our separate ways as we’d always known we’d need to one day. I hadn’t expected it to sting as much as it did, stripping me of any illusions I’d allowed myself for those few moments wrapped in his arms.

He’d been my safety for a few hours during each week, when we managed to find time together in secret while he was off-duty. He’d made me feel like I mattered—I was more than a broodmare and might be worth risking the consequences to be with—but Loris still turned his back on me without much regret. He’d still walked into the woods to do what was expected of him, in the end.

I continued on my original path through the woods, blinking back the sting of tears I hadn’t expected at the loss of something that had never been mine. Hurrying into the shadows of the trees to avoid further incident, I

stuck close to the path but let them cover me as I approached the barracks that housed the Mist Guard.

The Manor lay behind them, protected from the Veil by the imposing building that was practically a fortress. It was said to rival the palace in the capital of Ineburn City in terms of fortitude. I’d never been permitted inside the barracks themselves. No one who wasn’t a member of the Mist Guard had. Loris was quiet about the details of the life he lived within those walls, to keep me from really feeling the differences between us. The other guards, however, weren’t nearly as aware of the poverty that ran rampant within Mistfell and the way most of us suffered while they lived in luxury.

The Mist Guard were deemed a class all their own. In an ideal world, not tainted by Lord Byron’s corruption, they weren’t supposed to report to anyone or anything other than their own doctrines and hierarchy. Not the Lord of Mistfell; not even the King of Nothrek. They were intended to be a separate entity from the crown.

As such, it was only natural that they were treated like royalty as well. This was the reward for choosing a life of service protecting the Kingdom from the creatures on the other side of the impenetrable Veil.

The stone walls surrounding the fortress had been stained brown by time. I skirted around the edge, keeping distance between myself and the patrols that I expected to jump out at any moment. I wistfully eyed the horses that poked their heads out of the barn stalls. It hardly seemed fair that they had the finest horses in the village, while the farmers often had to cope with aging nags that weren’t made for hard labor.

The barracks acted as a barrier, separating the Veil from the village, so that no matter what corner of Mistfell one found themselves in, the Mist Guard waited as a silent sentry to the Veil itself. The Guard would be the first thing the Fae encountered, aside from the gardens, if they ever came to Nothrek. If they ever crossed the Veil, it would be to claim the humans they thought belonged to them, after centuries of forced separation kept them away from their mortal counterparts.

Stepping through the edge of the woods, I approached the shimmering white Veil where it swayed on the other side of the trees. The branches reached toward it, as if they couldn’t get close enough to the pervasive magic of Faerie, which promised a better life and more fertile soil.

I followed suit against my best intentions, making my way to the edge of the boundary, where the land disappeared into the shimmering magic and

the mist that lay beyond. With the gardens to my right, the barracks through the trees behind me, and the Manor gleaming in the distance as it rose above the trees, I swayed like a sapling toward the Veil. It fluttered like the lightest of fabrics when caught in the ocean breeze, the clouded mist on the other side making it impossible to see through to the land of Faerie. Sometimes, in the night, I looked into that mist and swore I saw the shining beacon of dazzling blue eyes staring back at me.

But that was impossible, and sometimes I wondered if that was as much a blessing as everyone insisted. My own idle curiosity and a boring life drove me to the Veil at night to see the stars twinkling in the mist and the lightning storms that rippled through the boundary, like the Old Gods themselves were angry for what had been taken from them.

Considering the Old Gods we’d once worshiped had eventually been revealed as the most powerful of the Fae, I thought it was likely they were angry. After their real identities had been exposed, the resulting war had torn Nothrek in two. Entire cities had been laid to waste at the hands of those Old Gods in their fury at the prospect of no longer being worshiped.

A sense of nothingness settled over me when I raised a hand as close as I dared and stared into the Mist beyond the Veil, the twinkle of stars resonating with something inside of me. If the quiet of darkness was a welcome reprieve from the chaos inside my mind, then my morbid curiosity of what might exist just on the other side of the Veil was my defect.

“I see that our last lesson in propriety was ineffective as usual, Miss Barlowe,” Lord Byron said from somewhere behind me. I flinched, dropping my hand from where I’d reached up to feel close to the magic that called to my curiosity.

Spinning, I turned to face the owner of the smooth voice that haunted my nightmares. “Lord Byron, I can explain—”

“My Lord,” he corrected, sauntering through the copse of trees that I’d thought would provide me cover. A legion of Mist Guard followed at his heels, having none of the natural grace he did and moving only with brute force as they’d been trained. They were a reminder of everything I didn’t want to consider, of the ticking clock he held over my head now.

“My Lord,” I said, tilting my head down until my eyes landed on the yellowing grass at his feet. I preferred that to the false kindness in his blue eyes and the attractive features that undoubtedly fooled many girls into aiming for his bed.

To be a consort to the Lord of Mistfell was no small feat—even if he did have a wife.

“I am fairly certain that this is not my library, Estrella,” he said when he stopped in front of me, sliding two smooth fingers under my chin and tipping my face until he captured my stare with his.

“It isn’t the library,” I confirmed, the urge to spit in his face sneaking through me.

“Mumbling is beneath a woman of your grace.” He slid his fingers down the column of my throat, pressing them to my collarbone and pushing me back until I stood straight, noble, as if my dress wasn’t stained and torn, and my boots didn’t have holes in them from too many harvests.

He looked at me and saw something to polish and own, when all I wanted was to be free.

“It won’t happen again, my Lord,” I said, resisting the urge to mumble all over again.

“Be certain it doesn’t,” he said, removing his hand from my body and taking a step back. “I meant it when I told you there are things we need to discuss.”

“We’re both here now,” I said, glancing over his shoulder. Even if the presence of the Mist Guard was a false comfort, it helped when I didn’t feel alone with him. The worst of his punishments came where there were no prying eyes.

He studied me, stepping back and grasping his chin in the same fingers that had touched me. “Loris, would you be so kind as to help Miss Barlowe find her way to the library? We wouldn’t want her to get lost again.” Lord Byron turned to Loris with a stare, where he’d tried to hide behind other Mist Guard soldiers. Loris’s throat worked as he swallowed, meeting Lord Byron’s eyes and knowing the older man knew what he’d done, and he stepped forward with a brisk nod of his head.

“Yes, my Lord,” he said, his voice carrying through the otherwise quiet space as his fellow guards, some of them friends, watched. He moved toward me, his face blank of all apology or care as he took my elbow in a tight grip and tugged me toward the manor.

I attempted to yank it away. “I can walk myself,” I snapped, glaring at him. He didn’t bother to turn his attention toward me or release me, instead setting a steady pace as he practically dragged me toward the manor in the distance.

“Perhaps this will serve as the reminder you needed that I am in charge, Estrella. Whatever happens in Mistfell is because I allow it. Because I own this village and everyone in it,” Lord Byron said, taking up pace behind Loris and I as he left the meaning of his words to hang between us. I turned to look at him over my shoulder, watching him straighten his cloak and brush the rich red velvet over his shoulder as he met my gaze. “Just as I own you.”

The light stone of Mistfell Manor gleamed in the moonlight as Loris led me along the path until we approached the servants’ entrance at the side. The same entrance I used every time Lord Byron requested my presence in his library and I had to sneak into the house without alerting one of the High Priest’s spies. The Ladies of the Night entered through the front door, their presence anything but hidden, while he snuck me in through the side as if I was the dirty secret no one could ever know about.

One of the manor guards hurried to open the door for us as Loris guided me inside, taking me through the halls quickly until he placed a hand on the gilded handle of one of the enormous library doors and shoved it open for us to enter.

As soon as we’d stepped over the threshold onto the polished stone, veined with gold, Loris released me and turned his face downward toward the floor as I stumbled to catch my footing. I lifted my hand to rub at my elbow, the skin blooming with a bruise. Loris watched from the corner of his eye, his face pinching as he witnessed the show of vulnerability for a moment.

The betrayal lingered between us, even knowing what he would choose if forced to decide between his affection for me and his duty to Mistfell. I’d only deceived myself when I tried to convince myself I didn’t care. The hurt made my throat tight, leaving me to swallow against it as I tore my eyes from his and looked around the room I was too familiar with.

“Leave us,” Lord Byron barked as he stepped into the room, dismissing the Mist Guard from our presence for what came next. For the punishment that had to follow.

“What do you propose I should do with you for your continued disobedience, Miss Barlowe?” he asked the moment the doors to the library closed behind the retreating guards, sealing me into the room that I’d come to dread more than anything. I’d come to hate this place for the association

it bore with my own pain and the depravity of Lord Byron’s actions within those four walls.

Books lined the ornate, wooden shelves. Stacked to the ceiling with generations worth of knowledge that required ladders to access. Knowledge that Lord Byron himself could very rarely be bothered to read; his focus on the present and growing his own power within the Kingdom demanded too much of his time.

His desk sat at the back edge of the room, parchment laid out on top next to his bottle of ink and quill. I’d spent far too many nights bent over the surface, my nails gripping the edge of the smooth, polished wood as I listened to the whistle of his switch cutting through the air, waited for the fire of his strike.

How many nights had I spent reading the texts he assigned to me, filling my head with the chastity of The Mother and the consequences for sin, while he wrote letters to the King in Ineburn City? I’d lost count long ago, and something like desolation made my chest throb.

He moved to the decanter on his desk, calmly pouring himself a glass of red wine. With his back to me, he reached up and unclasped his cloak, draping it over the chair beside his desk. “I would never assume myself worthy of determining my own punishment, my Lord,” I said, biting my tongue to keep from worsening whatever might be coming.

He poured another glass of wine, turning and holding it out to me. “Drink,” he instructed. I stepped forward, confusion furrowing my brow as I closed the distance between us. In all my nights spent in the library with him, he’d never offered me wine. “It will help you relax, and for tonight, I think that is needed.”

It would dull my senses too much, according to him, and vertigo made the room spin as I closed the distance between us and accepted the glass from his hand. What kind of torment did he have planned where this was necessary in his mind?

“I’m sure you must have questions,” he said, leaning back until he rested against his desk with his arms crossed over his chest. I took my first sip of wine, the bitter notes making my face pinch.

I nodded, not lending voice to any of them. I knew better than to assume this was an invitation to question his motives, as if I had any understanding of the games he played.

“Always so curious. Sit,” he said, gesturing to the chair directly in front of him. I obeyed, lowering myself into it as he refilled his glass and took out yet another one to fill. “You get one question, Estrella. That is the extent of my kindness after your behavior today.”

I swallowed, taking another sip of my wine as I met his harsh stare. “Why did you not send me to be trained with the Ladies of the Night? Why didn’t the physician report me as impure?” I asked, catching myself before I could continue on. The urgent thoughts running through my head demanded attention, and perhaps the smartest question to ask would have been about the High Priest’s plans for me in the name of The Father.

But I couldn’t think about that, about the possibility of dying in the same way my father had years ago. Not if I wanted to keep breathing, to keep functioning until the moment of my death arrived.

“That was two questions,” Lord Byron said, raising an eyebrow as he scoffed. “But the answer is the same for them both.” I heaved a sigh of relief, hoping this would mean he wouldn’t penalize me for my impudence. He pulled a small vial out of his pocket, staring at it for a moment in thought before he twisted the cork out of the top and placed it on the desk. “You were always a pretty girl.” He tipped the vial over, pouring the amber liquid into the third glass of wine. The bittersweet aroma of belladonna filled the air as he emptied the vial into the glass, lightening the color of the wine a fraction.

“My Lord,” I murmured, my voice hushed as my body went still. A dose of belladonna like that would be lethal, would make certain I never saw the morning come. He lifted it from the desk, stepping around me and moving toward the library doors. He knocked on them, waiting until a servant pushed them open and accepted the wine from him without a word. She left the library, closing the doors behind her as Byron turned back toward me and stood beside my chair.

“She was meant to die slowly, gradually, over the years so that no one would suspect anything, but it appears we have run out of time,” he said, running the backs of his knuckles over the side of my cheek as I tried to process what he was saying.

I kept my mouth shut, not asking the question that didn’t concern me. Whoever he’d sent that poison to, I couldn’t let my curiosity prevent me from having the answers to what actually mattered to my life.

He waited, smirking down at me when I bit my tongue. “I prevented the physician from reporting you and didn’t send you to train as a Lady of the Night because that would have interfered with a plan that I’ve been working toward for a very long time.” He reached over, capping the vial of poison and depositing it into the waste bin beside his desk. “You would have ruined everything had I not intervened.”

“Lady Jaclen—” I said, snapping my mouth shut before the question could come. My tongue burned with the force of my bite, my hands trembling where I clasped them on my lap.

“Will be dead before morning,” her husband said, leaning back onto his desk once more. He stretched his hand out and caught my chin, leaning forward until his face was only a breath away from mine. “Do you understand now, Estrella?”

I nodded, squeezing my eyes closed as the horror of his intentions took root inside of me. I’d always thought myself safe from that kind of attention, so long as he never discovered I was not a virgin. Another man would take me in that way, but I’d thought myself safe from him, at the very least.

I’d never truly been safe at all.

“Why did you allow it to continue?” I asked, risking the next question.

He grinned, something evil lurking in his eyes, and I knew that whatever came next would horrify me. “Your virginity never mattered to me, though taking it would have been enjoyable. That is the High Priest’s prerogative alone. If anything, your Mist Guard saved me the trouble of listening to you cry during your first time. Now I needn’t worry about any of that nonsense, because he already broke you in. I might have arranged for it to happen myself, in time.”

“But the High Priest said The Father has plans for me. I hardly think any of that matters now,” I argued, trying to push away the image of what might have come. For once, the idea of being sacrificed to the Veil wasn’t the worst horror I could imagine. “You can’t make me your mistress if I’m dead.”

“I wouldn’t need to kill Jaclen for you to become my mistress,” he said, grabbing a cloth off his desk. A bowl of water sat beside it, and he dipped it into the liquid as he lifted one of my shaking hands off my lap. “I need her to die so that you can become my wife.”

I flinched, the agony of those words striking me like a physical blow. I couldn’t be the Lady of Mistfell. I wouldn’t long survive a life with Byron as my husband—my days and nights dominated by his demands and his company.

“I’ve shocked you. Why did you think I brought you here and taught you to read? Why did you think I taught you the decorum of a lady at great expense to myself? My whore would not need to have such abilities,” he said, pressing the cloth into one of the wounds the twilight berries had left me with the day before.

“I never considered this,” I admitted. It hadn’t even been a possibility in my mind. Killing his wife, who was a distant relation to the King, was something unthinkable even for him.

“Mistfell needs an heir. Before the sacrifice tomorrow, I will announce Jaclen’s death and inform the villagers that I have chosen another wife to give them the heir they deserve. They’ll learn that The Father himself made his will for our union known to me as I sat beside Jaclen’s death bed. The High Priest will not dare to take you from that divine purpose, and he will need to choose another to sacrifice. We’ll be married within the week—”

“No.” The word hovered between us, filling the library with the muted sound of my voice and the quiet defiance that I hadn’t even meant to say aloud. My ears rang, while nausea swirled in my gut.

“What did you just say?” he asked, his body stilling as his gaze hardened into a glare. All traces of gentleness he’d deigned to show me as part of his act disappeared, the truth of him showing in his anger.

“No,” I repeated, my voice coming through with more strength. My heart was in my chest, my skin slick with a cold sweat as I drew my line in the sand. Some fates were worse than death.

This was one of them.

“You do realize the alternative is having your throat slit, just like your father?” he asked, the incredulous laugh that fell from his lips only serving to make me more determined to escape him. To make the choice that he wouldn’t approve of.

“I do” I lifted my chin and straightened my shoulders, projecting the posture of the woman he’d tried to mold me to become.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed dismissively, but behind his gaze, disbelief turned into knowing. He knew as well as I did that I’d meant the word. That I fully intended to say no to him.

“I was six when you held me still and forced me to watch them slice my father’s neck open. When they’d wrung all the blood they could from him, they burned him on a pyre and celebrated around his ashes. I hadn’t even turned seven yet when you first invited me to this library and allowed the Priestess to beat me until I curtsied properly, until I stood straight enough, and I knelt as long as ordered without complaint. I have spent a lifetime tolerating your touch and your attention. No more,” I said, the burn of tears stinging my throat and my nose and I held them back, refusing to give him that last part of me.

“And if I decide I do not need your permission? You think I have done all of this just to bow to your wishes?”

“Then I’ll tell the High Priest what you’ve done. You cannot keep me alive and keep me silent, as well, my Lord. Whether it is tomorrow or in a year, I will tell anyone who’ll listen that you’ve murdered your wife. What do you think the King would do with that information about his relative, when you and I both know you strive for far greater things than Mistfell?” I asked, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip. It wasn’t a hollow threat; it was a promise I would spend every day of the rest of my life attempting to fulfill.

I just didn’t know if the King or the High Priest would care, or if Jaclen had any power at all, but his original plan to poison her slowly over the course of years made me think that maybe, just maybe, he would be condemned for his crime.

That damage was already done, the fatal dose of poison given to her before he spoke to me. He’d been so confident I would do as I was told and be who he wanted, he’d never stopped to consider that I would reject him.

“It would be such a waste of what could be a luxurious life. Think of what you would be able to give your family with me as your husband. They would be cared for beyond your wildest imaginings.”

“They would,” I agreed, nodding my head. Once upon a time, that had been everything I’d wanted, the promise I’d never thought to actually obtain. I was just so tired, so exhausted from the games I’d played to keep us alive for years. Brann would be more capable of providing for himself and my mother without me to consider.

They’d be okay.

“Take the night to think about it, and know that if you tell anyone what I’ve done, it will not be only you to suffer the consequences in the morning.

I’m sure you’ll change your mind by the ceremony tomorrow afternoon. It is easy to be brave when you think I’ll back down, but I promise you, Estrella, if you don’t come to me in the morning, you will die for your insolence.”

“I would sooner die than allow you to shove that flaccid flesh between your legs inside me,” I snapped, baring my teeth at him and allowing all the hatred I felt to show for once. So long, I’d been forced to play submissive to the man who dictated my life.

But he couldn’t dictate what no longer existed.

The back of his hand cracked against my cheekbone, his signet ring cutting my cheek open on the spot that he’d already bruised earlier in the day. Darkness hovered at the edges of my vision as I sprawled to the floor.

“Get out of my fucking sight,” he said, leaving me to pick myself up and move toward the library doors. “You will pay for that tomorrow night, Estrella. We both know you’ll change your mind.”

I put my hands on the doors, ignoring the throbbing in my cheek as I shoved them open. Servants moved through the halls, panic on their faces as they paced. One shoved past me to enter the library, informing Lord Byron of his wife’s passing.

Death called my name next.

I would step willingly into his embrace.