Chapter ten: The carriage ride
The carriage ride back to the manor was a thing of hollow quiet.
Outside, the night bled deep into the hills, mist trailing like phantoms through the twisted trees lining the road. Inside the cabin, neither of them spoke. Elira sat with her hands folded tightly in her lap, fingers aching where they'd clutched Lucien's in that impossible dance just minutes before.
That dance. That moment.
She still felt the phantom weight of his hand on her back. Still saw the way the room had watched them — not just with curiosity, but wariness. Hunger. Calculation. As if something unspoken had been declared.
As if she had changed something she didn't understand.
Lucien had not looked at her once since they left the ballroom.
When the carriage finally jerked to a stop beneath the high arch of the manor's rear gate, he stepped out first. He didn't offer his hands. Not even spoke a word.
The chill met her like a breathless slap when she followed, the scent of damp stone and ash clinging to the night.
He didn't wait for her.
The click of her shoes on the wet stone path echoed behind him as they moved through the servant's entrance — the same door she'd come through on her first day, trembling and unfamiliar. It felt different now. It wasn't warmer. Just heavier.
They passed the kitchen corridor. Cold coals slept in the hearth. The wine cellar door stood ajar. A maid glanced up as they passed — and quickly looked away.
Elira kept walking.
In the hall outside the main atrium, Lucien finally stopped. He turned to her without preamble, his face schooled into that perfect, unreadable mask.
"You disobeyed me."
The words landed like a slap, not shouted, not even harsh — but absolute.
She blinked, stunned. "Excuse me?"
"You left your position at the wall when I had not called you. You spoke to nobles without leave. You let them touch you."
"I what?" she snapped, the heat bubbling suddenly beneath her skin. "I didn't let anyone—"
"You didn't stop them."
Her throat tightened. "I tried. Lucien, you left me alone in that ballroom like some pawn. They surrounded me."
"I told you," he said, quietly now, "what the Court would do. You were warned. Yet you think you can navigate this place by instinct and stubbornness. You think survival is a matter of defiance."
His tone was soft, measured — which somehow made it worse.
"You don't get to lecture me about survival," she said, her voice cracking. "You wear armor made of secrets and power. I walked into that ballroom with nothing. Not even a name that means anything here."
He took a single step toward her. It wasn't threatening — and yet, it was.
"You have my name now. My mark. My collar. That's more than nothing."
Her breath caught.
"You think that's something to be proud of?" she whispered. "Being owned?"
Lucien's expression darkened. "You misunderstand the purpose of that mark."
"Then tell me. Tell me why you needed to put a collar around my throat like I'm a beast you're training."
His gaze dropped—just for a moment—to the base of her neck, where the faint shimmer of the blood-seal still pulsed beneath the skin.
Something flickered there. Not desire. Not pity.
Memory.
Regret?
"I didn't choose the bond lightly," he said at last, and his voice was quieter now. "But I did choose it."
"Why?"
A beat of silence.
"Because I needed a way to keep you alive. And sometimes, Elira…" His eyes rose to meet hers again. "Sometimes the leash is the only thing standing between the prey and the pack."
She stared at him, breathing hard.
And despite everything — the cold, the cruelty, the fact that he hadn't denied owning her — something inside her shifted.
Not forgiveness.
But understanding. Of the game.
The silence stretched.
Until at last, she asked, more softly, "That man. In the ballroom. You saw him too."
Lucien's eyes narrowed.
"There was no man."
"Don't lie to me."
His jaw twitched.
"He's dead," he said after a pause. "If it was who I think you saw… he died over a decade ago."
A chill laced her spine.
"He looked like Calen," she whispered. "My brother. Not exactly, but…"
Lucien said nothing.
"I'm not crazy."
"No." He turned away, already walking toward the grand stairwell. "Just foolish. And tonight, that foolishness nearly drew too many eyes in the wrong direction."
Her feet didn't move.
"Elira," he called without turning back. "You will go to your room. You will say nothing of what you think you saw. And you will not leave this wing without my permission."
"And if I do?"
He halted. Slowly turned.
"If you do," he said, voice cold and clear, "I won't be the one who punishes you. The manor will."
She flinched — not from the threat, but from the way he said it. As if the house were alive. As if it waited for disobedience the way a predator waited for a wound.
Lucien vanished up the steps, his coat sweeping behind him.
Elira stood there in the hall long after he was gone. Breathing hard. The fire from the ballroom now turned to ice.
And in the silence that followed, she swore—somewhere deep in the bones of the house—she heard a whisper.
Not a word.
Just her name.
Elira…