The infirmary was quiet—too quiet for a fortress that had just survived a coup attempt. Mia was already settled in a bed near the window, her wrists wrapped in clean bandages, her breathing steady with exhaustion. Rowan and Milo had been taken to a separate ward, their injuries more severe but survivable.
Sylas laid Elsa on the nearest bed with care that felt foreign in his battle-roughened paws. He arranged pillows behind her, adjusted the blanket over her legs, and found himself lingering—unwilling to step back, to let the distance grow between them.
“You’re hovering,” she said, but her hand found his fur and curled into it like she didn’t mean the words.
“I’m assessing.”
“You’re stalling.” Her blue eyes met his, seeing too much as always. “You have to go hunt them down, don’t you? The ones Vask left behind.”
The bond shivered with her understanding. She could feel what he needed to do—the violence coiled inside him, waiting. The names that burned in his mind like embers.
“Yes.” He covered her hand with his, engulfing it entirely. “Fourteen conspirators still in my walls. In my fortress. They opened gates that let the Fallen breach our perimeter. They fed Vask information about you, about the other humans, about every weakness they could exploit.” His claws flexed against the blanket. “They have to be purged.”
“Purged,” she repeated. Not a question. Not a judgment. Just the word, sitting between them like a stone.
“I need you to stay here.” He leaned closer, pressing his forehead to hers, breathing in her scent—Frosted Tears and blood and something warm underneath that belonged only to him. “Be a good pet, Elsa. Let Yarx heal you. Don’t follow me, don’t try to help, don’t save anyone else tonight.”
“Sylas—”
“I need to know you’re safe.” The words came out cracked, raw. “I can’t hunt with the bond screaming your pain at me. I can’t think when you’re bleeding and I’m not there to—” He stopped. Swallowed. “I can’t lose you. Not after tonight. Not after watching Vask and his enforcer put their hands on you and knowing I almost wasn’t fast enough.”
She was quiet for a long moment. Through the bond, he felt her weighing his words—testing them for control, for manipulation, for the possessive hunger he’d wielded over her since the moment he’d claimed her as his pet.
She found only truth.
“I’ll stay,” she said. “On one condition.”
His ears flicked. “You’re bargaining with me. Now?”
“I learned from the best.” Her mouth curved—the ghost of a smile despite the split lip. “Promise me you’ll come back.”
“Elsa—”
“Promise me.” Her grip tightened on his fur. “Promise that when you’re done being the monster they need you to be, you’ll come back to me. Not to your throne. Not to your council. To me.”
Something cracked in his chest. A wall he hadn’t known he was building, crumbling under the weight of her demand.
She wasn’t asking for safety. Wasn’t asking to be freed. She was asking for him—the monster who had claimed her, caged her, marked her. The king who had killed for her tonight and would kill again before dawn.
“I promise,” he said.
He kissed her.
Not gentle. Not careful. He was past gentle—had been past it the moment Vask’s hand connected with her face. His mouth found hers with the same hunger that pounded through his veins, mindful of her injured lip but unable to hold back the desperate need that had been building since he’d seen her wrapped in chains in that tunnel.
She opened for him. Tasted of copper and warmth and something he didn’t have words for. Something that felt like belonging.
The bond flared bright between them—her pain, his rage, and underneath it all, want. Desperate, impossible, terrifying want that he had tried to deny since the first moment he’d caught her scent.
He pulled back before he forgot himself entirely. Her split lip was swollen now, her eyes dark with something that made his chest ache.
“Stay,” he said against her mouth. “Be here when I return.”
“I will.”
He made himself step back. Made himself turn to Yarx, who had arrived at a respectful distance and stood waiting with the careful patience of a healer who knew better than to interrupt.
“Protect her,” Sylas commanded. “Protect all of them—the humans are under my protection. Anyone who touches them answers to me personally.”