I have so many things I want to say, ‘get out’, ‘why?’, ‘you’re a monster’, ‘I trusted you’, ‘I liked you’, but my mouth only peeps open before closing on a thought: ‘You will never speak again.’

Never speak again…

The image of my tiny hand scooping that small bird up comes to mind. I seem to always seek meaning from my oldest memory. After all, it must be there for a reason.

Maybe the useless little thing didn’t try to escape, wasn’t brave or determined to spread its wings. It simply hit the glass because it was ignorant and confused about its situation and place in the world.

I feel ignorant and confused about mine.

Upside-down bird.

Upside-down bird.

“Are you hurt?”

I turn my face from him and roll my shoulder. There is the dullest of aches, but nothing new to me, given I have been bullied and shoved around my entire life.

“Answer me.”

All the contradictory messages suddenly pull me in every direction. This way—'you’re weak.’

And that way—‘I am enamoured with you.’

This way—'get out.’

And that way—'are you hurt?’

I can usually roll with the punches; I always have. Iris. The Endigo. A life of servitude. No questions. No answers. But lately the punches have been soothed and kissed and I don’t know how to adapt to kindness after cruelty.

I suddenly let a quick, pathetic little sob break from between my lips. Then, wipe a single defiant tear away.

He rises to his feet.

“Aster. You’re in pain.”

He walks toward me, and I shuffle backward along the bed, not wanting him to touch me—melt me.

“Don’t do that, little creature.” Darkness barely conceals the regret in his gaze. “I lost my temper. I’m here to make amends, dammit.”

He could slide on and stalk me across the mattress, but he doesn’t. He circles the post and comes to the side, sitting down, facing away from where I huddle.

Outside of the shadows now, his muscular back is completely visible, a landscape of stories written with angry scars and tattoos.

“Fuck,” he mutters, thrusting his hands through his hair and dragging them down his face as if to tear at his thoughts. “You missed dinner, too.”

That is what he has to say?

I missed dinner?

I sit in confused silence, and my soul is not as content with him as it was with the queen.

Nope.

It is on fire.

When he finally turns to stare at me, my shoulders fall to behold the regret in his blue gaze.

I don’t care.

I will not forgive him.

But… But I want to hold him. My hand twitches with need. The need to run my fingers down his thick neck again. He liked that. He practically purred as if the beast inside him was being stroked and tamed.

“Say something. That is a direct order. Did I hurt you?”

“Yes,” I admit, but not the kind of pain he means. “I’m Fur. Did you know that?” I want him to know. So he can send me away to a new catchment, once and for all. I can be a Silk Girl to another lord.

Never see him…

Never see him again.

Stop this whiplash.

For good.

Another small tear slides down my cheek.

“That is why I am unfit to be a Silk Girl.” I add. “Different. It must be.”

“You’re not unfit,” he says, curt.

He stands up and nods toward my cloak, which hangs on a silver claw by the closet. “Put on your cloak. I’m taking you to get something to eat.”

I blink at him. My body is frozen on the mattress. I admitted to him that I am Fur, not just Common but born amongst outlaws, that I wasn’t born to be a Silk Girl originally, that my need for Meaningful Purpose didn’t start in the womb, and he…

“Did you hear what I said, Sire?” I press.

“I heard. I know what you are. Better than you do. Now, do as you’re told. Cloak.”

I don’t like that answer or its ambiguity.

I stand up in my night dress, the ends skirting the flooring, tickling my toes. “I am awful at my Trade.” I square my shoulders at him and peer up, immediately shadowed by his giant frame. “Yes,” I press on despite looking like a mouse agitated with a bear. “I ask too many questions. I’m suspicious and pry. I consider the world, now and before, and why it is the way it is. This is true. But you, you started this thing.”

I pace in front of him, focused on the floor before each step. “You held my hand and pretended to care. You saved me and carried me to your military vehicle—you could have made someone else do it. You organised oatmeal with honey for me. You cornered me in the banquet room and... Now you’re here, in this room while I have no veil on. You blur the line of our appropriate interactions. Why? Why do that to me? I could have been well-behaved. I could have if you had kept the line between us.”

Breathing hard, I stop my back-and-forth and stand in front of him with my hands gripping my hips.

I peer up at him and… I blink. He is grinning. Not smirking but actually grinning. I’ve never seen him grin. It- it transforms his face.

How patronising.

How annoying.

I smile back.

“You’re so tiny.” His lips only widen and while my knees buckle under the beauty of his grin, his words irritate me.

So tiny…

Drained to the point of mindlessness, I relent and watch him retrieve my cloak, coming up behind me.

A warm caress rolls down my spine as he drapes the cloak on my shoulders and lifts the hood over my black hair.

“You need to keep your head low. Hide your pretty face. Do you have any energy left after that little outburst to do as you’re told, little creature?”

Drained, I simply nod. I’m too emotionally exhausted for much else.

My stomach rolls, the movement large enough to speak volumes for the hunger I’ve been quelling.

Still behind me, he says, “I want you to know that I heard you.”

I exhale hard, closing my eyes and holding them like that as he speaks. With his chest, large and hard, so close to my back, he warms me to my bones.

“I blurred the lines because I don’t want the lines. I apologise if that confused you. I was thinking of myself, and what I wanted.”

His huge hand moves to the side of my neck, sliding down to massage the shoulder he wounded.

“I will make amends for hurting you,” he whispers, a deep baritone of dark promises. “Now. Follow me. Chin to your chest. Don’t let anyone see your face or I will have to kill them.”

That last phrase widens my eyes.

The door opens, and I am walking into The Circle, with his looming body a barricade behind me, before my next thought can surface.

I amble slowly through the holding space.

The cloak cuts across my eyes but I risk looking at the Guard who is passed out on the floor by the entrance. What about the other girls? They aren’t secure.

Rome’s body presses to my spine, and I realise I have stopped moving forward.

“Move forward, girl,” he states, and I continue taking a step at a time down the dark corridors.

Girl? He never calls me that.

His hand grips my neck through the fabric of my cloak, heat wrapping around my throat with his long fingers. Despite my best efforts not to, I hum from the sense of security he brings.

I stumble.

Concentrate.

I’m too busy watching my step from under the seam of the hood that I can only take in the hues of the lamps reflecting on the polished white and gold flooring.

We turn and enter a room with heavy white double doors, the floor decor changes to grey ceramic tiles, the scent of sizzling butter swirls around my nose.

“Out while I eat,” Rome suddenly orders, his voice proceeding the sound of pans and other metal items being placed down, and quick, nervous footsteps.

Then silence.

It’s unsettling, yet I like the energy his power creates. I only wish he wielded it with more kindness.