Chapter 17 Chapter 17
Nathaniel’s POV
I slammed the door behind me so hard the hinges rattled. Good. Let her jump out of her damn skin. Maybe a little fear will finally keep her still.
I locked it, muttered the protection spell again for good measure, and exhaled through my teeth. My anger was a living thing, clawing under my skin. Goddamn it, she knew exactly how to push my buttons. I was fighting tooth and nail to keep control.
Stupid woman. I hate this. I hate her. I hate my brother.
Why now? Why her? Why when I’m this close to my goal?
Tristan and his saintly morals. If he’d just listened to me from the start, none of this would’ve spiraled. Now I’m stuck cleaning up this divine mess with a human who has the emotional intelligence of a wet cat.
Fine. Focus. I need a solution before this spreads. If word gets out, I’m done for. The council will skin me alive. But there’s no way to extract the power from her without damaging it—without damaging her.
And if the power weren’t at risk? Oh, I’d let her die without blinking. Hell, I’d celebrate. She’s been nothing but a complication—one with a particularly distracting backside. Firm. Round. Perfectly—
I stopped mid-thought.
What the fuck.
I scrubbed a hand down my face. I needed to see Kara later, badly. Maybe she’d remind me what sanity feels like.
I strode through the glass hallway, watching servants scurry about to prepare for the ball. Silver trays, crystal goblets, golden candleholders—the illusion of order masking the chaos I was rapidly losing control of.
Lucian appeared at the far end, still wearing his lab coat, dark hair in disarray, holding a stack of notes. If he was still dressed like that, it meant one thing: he hadn’t slept. Good. Progress.
“Where do we stand on the heart extraction?” I asked flatly, glancing down at the maids scrubbing the floor where Spike had apparently unleashed hell earlier.
Lucian sighed. That was not a good sign.
“Nowhere,” he said simply.
Nowhere? That word felt like a knife. Lucian always had something. He never admitted defeat. He couldn’t afford to—and neither could I.
“Then work harder,” I snapped. “Longer. I don’t care how you do it, just get me out of this mess.”
He didn’t even flinch. Of course he didn’t. Lucian had known me since childhood—since before the crown, before the kingdom, back when I was just a furious boy with too much power and too little patience.
My parents found him after the Northern conquest, a half-starved child chained to a table in the royal tent. My mother—ever the battlefield queen—had insisted on saving him. That day, the kingdom outlawed slavery. That day, Lucian was reborn.
Now he was the kingdom’s most brilliant mind—and, apparently, the only one immune to my wrath.
“I have a life outside the lab, you know,” he said dryly, jotting something down, crossing it out, and jotting again. “I’m no use to you dead tired.”
I clenched my jaw. He was lucky I gave a damn about his wellbeing, or I’d turn him into a stain on the marble.
“Fine. Have your rest.”
He looked up, eyes narrowing. “What?” I barked.
He sighed, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. “That’s it. I’m definitely hearing things. First, you’re telling me to rest, and second, you didn’t kill Spike this morning? You just threw him in the dungeon instead? Are we sure I’m not hallucinating?”
I looked away. “He… proved useful. I can use him to get to Ares.”
Lucian arched a brow. “Since when do you take prisoners?”
“Since now.”
I sounded like an idiot, and I hated it. The words tripped off my tongue like a child lying to a parent. It had to be this cursed bond. Ever since Bailey, everything felt off-balance—volatile. I needed her out of my system.
“Right,” Lucian said, skeptical as ever. “You’re a mess, Nathaniel. I’ve never seen you like this.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re… uncertain. Anxious. You never worry. You always think you’re right.”
“That’s because I usually am right.”
Lucian sighed in defeat, shaking his head. “Fine. Keep pretending. Just keep me out of whatever domestic war you and Miss Bailey are waging. I’ve got enough trouble without newlyweds throwing tantrums near my lab.”
“Newlyweds?” I frowned.
He rolled his eyes. “You two argue like married couples in those Earth TV dramas she told me about—what were they called again?” He snapped his fingers. “Soap operas! Ah, television. What a loss to civilization.”
He started to walk away, muttering about screens and satellites, when one word caught in my mind like a blade—
Marriage.
I said it out loud without realizing. “Marriage…”
Lucian froze mid-step.
“That’s it,” I whispered, the plan forming sharp and clear in my head. “That’s it.”
Lucian turned slowly, already pale. “Oh no. I know that look.”
“Lucian—”
“That’s the psychotic idea look. Whatever you’re thinking, don’t. Nathaniel, listen to me. You’re about to stain something sacred. In the human world, it’s written on paper—but here? It’s written on your soul.”
He stepped closer, desperate now. “Please, don’t do it.”
Too late. The decision had already taken root, and it was glorious.
I smirked, voice low and sure.
“I’m going to marry her.”