The prince tosses restlessly in his bed, sheets tangled around pale limbs. Moonlight filters through tall windows, casting silver shadows across the opulent chamber where two figures lie separated by more than just distance.
On the massive four-poster bed, Kael's carefully controlled composure has cracked in sleep. Soft sounds escape his lips - not quite words, but something urgent, desperate. His hand reaches toward nothing, grasping at phantoms in the dark.
"Where are you?" he whispers to whatever haunts his dreams, his voice rough with unfamiliar longing.
In the corner, the girl lies motionless on her bed of furs - a makeshift nest for the prince's most defiant pet. Fresh bandages cover the lash marks across her back, white cotton stark against pale skin. Her breathing remains steady, too steady to be natural. Beneath half-lowered lids, violet eyes gleam faintly in the darkness - not fully awake, not truly asleep, but caught somewhere between.
"Why won't you break?" Kael murmurs, and the words drift through the air like smoke. The girl's fingers twitch against the furs, some deep instinct stirring at the sound of his voice.
Kael jerks awake with a gasp, sitting upright so quickly the bedframe creaks. Sweat beads his forehead despite the chamber's coolness. His dark eyes sweep the room, wild and disoriented, until they settle on the still form in the corner.
The girl doesn't stir, but the tension coils around her like heat rising from the hearth - unseen, but suffocating. She remains perfectly still as footsteps approach - slow, quiet, deliberate. Every instinct screams to stay small, unreadable.
He stops beside her makeshift bed. The heat radiating from his skin would be noticeable to anyone truly awake. His hands clench and unclench at his sides, as if fighting some internal battle.
"Please," the girl whispers, her voice cracking on the word. She curls tighter into herself, clutching the furs with white knuckles. "Please, I didn't mean to..."
It's a performance, but one layered with real pain. The bandages pull tight across her wounds, and her voice trembles for more reasons than one.
Kael drops to his knees beside her, his jaw tight with some unreadable emotion. His hand hovers over her face, trembling in the space between them. The air grows thick with tension, with possibility, with the weight of a choice unmade.
The girl turns slightly in feigned sleep, unconsciously seeking warmth. Her face tilts toward where his hand had been, and for a moment they're separated by mere inches. Her lips part on a soft sigh.
"What are you doing to me?" Kael whispers, the question torn from somewhere deep in his chest. His voice breaks on the words, raw and desperate in a way that would shock anyone who knew the cold, controlled prince.
She settles deeper into the furs, her face relaxing into peaceful sleep. The lines of pain smooth from her features as if his presence alone could chase away nightmares.
"Kael," she breathes, the name slipping free - not as a plan, but a reflex. Like a name remembered from another life, soft and intimate in the darkness.
He draws in a sharp breath and leans closer. His scent - sandalwood and something darker, more primal - surrounds her. The heat of his body chases away the chill from the stone floors.
"You're changing me," he whispers, and there's something broken in his voice. Something that sounds almost like fear. "And I don't know if I can stop it."
Then he pulls back abruptly, retreating to his bed like she's something dangerous. Something that might burn him if he gets too close. The mattress creaks as he settles back into his sheets, but his breathing remains uneven, watchful.
*****
"Good morning, Master," the girl says, her voice steady and proper.
But the way she looks at him - like she's seeing him for the first time, or perhaps remembering him from somewhere else entirely - makes the air between them shimmer with possibility.
Kael's dark eyes search her face, looking for something he can't name. His hands grip the sheets until his knuckles go white.
Neither speaks of dreams or whispered names or moments when comfort nearly overcame cruelty. Something is changing. Something beyond either of their control.