The front door slammed behind me.

  I didn’t care where I was going. I just needed to move. To outrun the panic still clawing at my ribs. I’d thought she was gone. Taken. Hurt. I saw the blood and something in me tore loose. I’d pictured her body on the floor. I’d imagined Marcelo’s bloody hands on her, the cold stillness in her eyes if she didn’t survive it. And then she walked in. Calm. Upright. Not a real scratch on her. Not even winded. She looked at me like none of it mattered. Like I hadn’t just broken at the thought of losing her. Like she didn’t care that I had been terrified.

  I turned that terror into fury. Not at Marcelo. Not at Selwyn. At her.

  She was meant to be with Marcelo. Safe, if not happy. That was the deal. The plan.

  And then I saw all the blood. In that moment I panicked. I broke.

  My feet carried me farther than I meant to go, and by the time I stopped walking, the gate to the main road stood in front of me. My fists were clenched tightly. I folded my arms on the top rail of the gate and dropped my forehead against them.

  “Sir?”

  Delia’s voice carried on the breeze, and I turned to see her approaching on horseback. Her black skin glinted faintly with a copper undertone beneath the morning sun, and her tightly braided hair was pinned back to expose the elegant curve of her horns. Her golden eyes caught the light like polished metal, unmistakably demonic. She wore the Velez crest at her collar, her stable coat stained with hay and her trousers mud-flecked from the morning rounds. She swung down easily, the reins loose in her hand, and walked the horse the rest of the way to me.

  “Are you alright, Sir?”

  I straightened, loosening my fists as I did. “Just needed to clear my head, Delia.”

  She looked me over, clearly unconvinced. “Seems like a popular thing to do. Everyone’s out and about this morning. Probably walking off the champagne from last night. I even saw Mister Selwyn and Miss Joy earlier.”

  My head snapped up. “Walk of shame, clearly.”

  It came out too sharp, too bitter. I knew it the moment I said it, but I didn’t take it back. Couldn’t.

  She gestured vaguely to grounds behind us. “Well, he came from the barn. She came out from the trees. Unless they were playing a weird game of hide and seek, they weren’t together.”

  Of course she understood what I’d meant. The words weren’t even cold before she was smoothing it over with fact. I should have appreciated it, but somehow it only made me feel worse.

  As she stepped beside me, the light shifted across her horns, and I saw it. A small notch caved near the base. Old. Healed. I should’ve noticed it before.

  I reached out before I thought better of it. “What happened?”

  She eased her head just out of reach. “Old injury.”

  “Why did it?”

  She hesitated, then shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.” Her voice stayed even, but she looked at me carefully. “But… thank you for asking.”

  I stared at the notch another second before dropping my hand.

  Delia watched me carefully now. “You don’t seem yourself, Sir.”

  I exhaled. “Have you heard anything of demons being abducted?”

  Delia clicked her tongue. “Not in this realm. No one would be that stupid, surely.”

  “Marcelo Levanth. Do you know him?”

  Delia visibly shuddered, her whole face twisting in a dramatic gag. She didn’t dignify the question with a proper answer, just the sound of disgust, loud and clear.

  I gave her a moment to setting before continuing.

  “We think he took Ellah.”

  Delia blinked. Then a grin spread across her face, and she burst out laughing. I could only stare at her.

  “He what?” she said between laughs. “Oh, Joy is going to kill him.”

  “Yes, she said she wants to go after-”

  “No.” Delia’s laughter vanished in an instant.

  “You don’t understand. Joy will kill him. If he touched Ellah?” She whistled low, but there was no amusement now. “He won’t survive it. Tesh’ilia law.”

  I froze at the word. I’d heard Ellah call her that more than once, Tesh’ilia, but I hadn’t thought anything of it. It hadn’t occurred to me that it meant something real.

  I blinked. “Tesh’ilia isn’t a nickname?”

  “It’s a title.” Her voice turned grim. “Sovereign guard. Protector of the royal bloodline.”

  “Ellah?”

  She raised her eyebrows. Didn’t need to say a word. Just waited for me to catch up.

  “Royal…” I breathed. “They live in my house.”

  Joy had begged me to buy her. She saw Ellah’s name on the flyer and wouldn’t let it go. I thought she was being difficult. Throwing a tantrum.

  So I punished her. Sent her to that sadist Deacon like I was proving something.

  She was gone more than a week before I saw sense—before I found her half-starved, shaking, her ankle black with infection. She nearly lost the foot.

  And still, she just went down into the dark and waited for me to figure out what I’d done.

  I thought it meant she’d accepted her place. That I’d put her in it.

  But it was never about me.

  I was still reeling when Delia gave a soft tug on the reins, drawing the horse to her side. She grinned as she swung up into the saddle. “Joy chose to play a role here. But that doesn’t mean she forgot who she was.”

  I stared at her, trying to take it all in. “She’s really a royal guard?”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Delia shrugged. “She fought for that title. Bled for it. You think the way she moves is just something you trained here?”

  “But she’s owned. Collared.”

  “That doesn’t mean she forgot how to break necks.” She leaned forward in the saddle, smirking. “Marcelo has no idea what he’s done. She might let you humans think she’s a pet, but she’s still Tesh’ilia. And she will take back what was stolen.”

  She rode off, her laughter bright and casual.

  For a moment I wished I could just relish in the idea of Marcelo’s downfall like that.

  I turned, leaning back against the gate.

  From here, I could see the whole front of the manor. Pale stone in the morning light. The stables off to the side. The main steps framed with rosevine.

  It was all mine. Every inch of it.

  And still, somehow, I’d missed seeing the truth.

  I’d shown Joy my darkness once. Just once. A day in the stables when something inside me slipped loose.

  She didn’t shrink from it.

  She didn’t run.

  She—

  She knelt.

  Not because she had to. Because she wanted to see what I would do next.

  And ever since, she’s been trying to draw that back out.

  All those little refusals, when to stand, how to speak, the tone in her voice when she pushed just enough.

  I thought she was being difficult. But she never fought the things that mattered.

  When I told her to perform in public. When I offered her up to someone else.

  She obeyed. She endured it.

  And I see it now. She wasn’t resisting me. She was playing with me.

  She’s been circling me, waiting to see if I’ll bare my teeth back.

  Not to punish her. Not to hurt her.

  Just to meet her there. In that darkness.

  And gods help me… I think I want to.

  The kitchen was the last place I looked.

  It was too quiet. Too ordinary. The kind of space I never thought to picture her in.

  I stepped into the doorway, and stopped.

  Joy was standing on the counter, her back to the door.

  Feet bare, one hand braced against the cabinet, the other stretched high into the shadows at the back of the top shelf. She ducked slightly as she reached, careful not to catch her horns on the low beam that ran just beneath the ceiling.

  Like she’d done it a dozen times before.

  Like this was her space, not mine.

  Leather pants hugged her legs, too tight across her thighs and hips, if such a thing was possible.

  The waistband cut low, sitting uneven against her frame.

  Too snug across the curve of her ass.

  Worn in all the wrong places.

  Not hers.

  The hem of the shirt stopped just above the waistband.

  Thin fabric, well-worn, clinging in places it had no right to.

  Shorter than it used to be. Cut to fit her.

  I’d seen those clothes slung over a chair too many times.

  Selwyn’s.

  My jaw tightened. Fingers curled against my palm before I could stop them. Heat rose, low and sharp, crawling up the back of my neck.

  I opened my mouth. Meant to say something else.

  But the mask came first.

  “So you did get into his pants, after all.”

  She turned slowly, a large jar balanced in one hand.

  No raised brow. No sharp retort.

  Just… watching me.

  In that silence, I didn’t see submission.

  I saw control. Waiting.

  I exhaled, sharp through my nose.

  “That’s not what I meant to say.” My voice came out quieter than I liked. I swallowed.

  “You are—”

  I was ready to lash out, make it her fault.

  “I’m sorry,” I said instead. “For what I said. And for assuming. I know you weren’t with him last night.”

  My jaw tightened. “I was angry. Jealous. It doesn’t matter.”

  “I know.”

  Her voice was calm, like her expression, but something twisted beneath my ribs at the dismissal.

  I straightened.

  “Get down.”

  She stepped off the counter without a word, her feet barely making a sound on the tile.

  Then she walked straight to me, toe to toe.

  Eye to eye.

  I’d never realised it before, we were the same height.

  Not when she knelt.

  Not when she bowed her head.

  Not when she made herself smaller to play the part I asked of her.

  But now?

  Now she wasn’t playing.

  “Is this down far enough?” she asked, her voice low. “Or would you rather I kneel?”

  There was no mockery in it. No edge.

  She wasn’t baiting me. She was giving me space.

  My pulse thudded slow in my throat.

  “Do you want to kneel for me?”

  The honesty of it startled us both.

  Her breath caught, as her eyes locked on mine.

  She wasn’t expecting that. Neither was I.

  “I want—”

  She stopped. Swallowed hard.

  “I cant.”

  I nodded once. “I know. You have to go.”

  Her fingers curled and flexed at her side, like her body hadn’t caught up to her mind.

  She looked at me, unblinking.

  The silence was too much. I cleared my throat, forcing the tension to break.

  I nodded towards the jar she was holding in front of her. “Are you taking your emotional support jar?”

  Her lips twitched, like she was about to smile.

  Then the expression smoothed, and she shook her head, almost imperceptibly.

  “There’s money in it. I need it.”

  “Leave it.”

  She paused, just a moment. Her eyes flicked to mine, guarded.

  “You’re already taking everything you need.”

  I stepped closer, closing the space between us, just enough to feel the tension shift.

  “That collar. That’s not just a decoration. It’s mine. You wear it, you’re mine. And people know that.”

  Her breath shifted, sharp, audible.

  “So, I walk in marked, let them take what they want in trade for what I need? Because they know who I belong to?”

  “No!”

  The word snapped out of me like a reflex, sharper than any tug of the leash I’d ever given.

  Her eyes flared, just slightly, and her head tilted, slow, precise.

  That look.

  The same one I saw that day in the stables. When I pushed back and something in her lit up.

  Curiosity. She was listening now.

  “No.” I repeated, lower now, measured. “They don’t touch you. Not unless you say so.”

  I lifted my hand. She didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away. Instead, her chin lifted slightly.

  But I didn’t reach for the collar. My fingers found the edge of her neckline instead, straightening it where it had shifted, brushing the fabric into place.

  The slight confusion in her eyes tugged a small smile to my face.

  “That collar isn’t permission. It’s a warning.”

  I let my fingers linger on the fabric just a moment longer.

  “This will get you whatever you need, food, shelter, access. No questions.”

  Her hand came up and curled around mine. She pressed it flat against her chest, heartbeat strong and steady beneath the fabric.

  “I’ll be back, as soon as I can.”

  I nodded, trying not to look too pleased with myself.

  “Then you and I are going to talk. No more games. No more pretending we don’t know what this is.”

  I released her hand.

  She stepped past me, then paused, turning to hold out the jar.

  I took it from her hands, ensuring my fingers brushed against hers.

  “That’s my emotional support jar.” Her lips twitched in amusement. “Keep it safe.”

  She walked out of the room without another word.

  I looked down at the jar in my hands, then wrapped both hands around it and drew it to my chest with a quiet sigh.