Page 37 of Labyrinthine
I blink, startled. Then nod. Just once.
He leans in, his breath warm, his movement slow and deliberate. When his lips graze my skin, it’s like the brush of a promise. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I don’t stop him. Or look away.
And still?—
Guilt tears through my chest like a blade unsheathed.
Because I knew what I was doing and waited for it. A part of me wanted Mallen to see. And that part? That part was cruel. This wasn’t innocence. This was betrayal. And no matter how gently Darian touched me—I let it happen.
I let itmeansomething.
Darian says nothing, only passes me a plate. I eat slowly, picking at the bread and cheese. He makes me smile without trying—makes me forget, for a moment, everything I’m supposed to be afraid of. He teases, soft and wry, and I tease him back. It’s easy. Too easy.
“You nibble like a bird,” he laughs.
“I’m not hungry.”
His grin tugs at one side of his mouth. “Or maybe the kiss was that good.”
I roll my eyes and stuff a canapé into my mouth just to shut him up. He laughs again, genuinely delighted, and somehow it makes everything more treacherous. Because this—this comfort, this warmth—shouldn’t exist between us.
The sun sinks low, draping shadows across the flagstones. When I shiver, Darian rises without comment and offers me his arm. I take it. We walk slowly through the garden paths, twilight spilling around us.
At the foot of the stairs leading to the royal suites, we stop. He turns, but I step back. A boundary, clearly drawn. Not because I fear him. Because I fear myself.
“Thank you,” I say, softly. “For…today.”
He nods, as though he understands exactly what I mean and has guessed what it is I haven’t said. He doesn’t try to kiss me again. Every time I glance at him, he’s tracking me with a gaze that might be longing. Maybe it’s hope.
Whatever it is, it’s enthralling. New. Different.
My chest tightens with every step I climb.
Because this—this—wasn’t harmless.
And if Mallen knew—if he even glimpsed the truth behind my silence—I fear it would shatter the brittle edges of him, those fragile shards barely holding together beneath his calm.
And I don’t know if I’d be able to forgive myself.
CHAPTER NINE
“Azhara.”
My name drifts down the corridor like a warning cry long buried and remembered like a prayer to a cursed god. The dream of this afternoon shatters, and I freeze. My father isn’t furious that often—at least not loudly. But when he is, it’s the kind of anger that calcifies in the air, invisible and choking. I turn toward him, each step sinking heavier, as though I’m walking toward my own execution.
“A word, Daughter.”
He disappears into his study, and I follow, swallowing the taste of iron. The room is lined with bookcases, cluttered with papers, harmless by design. But when my father stands at its center, the space becomes a cell dressed in civility. A cage with gold trim.
I remember the first time he bruised my wrist—how he kissed my forehead afterward and said it was my fault forflinching. I remember the lashes painted like medals across my ribs. The days I spent locked in this very room with no food, no light, only silence sharp enough to cut. He called it discipline. It was really a lesson in how to disappear.
“How was this afternoon?” he asks, voice smooth and glinting.
“Fine.”
“Do you like him?”
