Chapter 10 Stolen Moments
Two months passed like a slow death. Lila moved to the west tower as ordered, into rooms that felt more like a cell despite their luxury. She saw Adrian only at formal dinners when presence was required, and even then they sat at opposite ends of impossibly long tables. They didn't speak. They didn't look at each other. They existed in the same space while pretending the other was invisible.
Celeste's pregnancy progressed. The healers pronounced her healthy, the baby strong. The Queen bloomed with new purpose, her earlier bitterness replaced by maternal focus. She spent hours planning the nursery, discussing names, preparing for the heir everyone had been waiting for.
Lila felt Adrian's misery through the bond. It pulsed constantly, a low-grade ache that never faded. He was drowning in duty, in pretending, in being the perfect husband to a woman he didn't love while his mate lived three floors away slowly dying from the inside out.
She was dying. Not physically, but in every way that mattered. Food tasted like ash. Sleep brought only nightmares. The books she used to love held no interest. She moved through days like a ghost, empty and hollow, existing without living.
Maya brought meals Lila didn't eat. She opened curtains Lila immediately closed. She tried to coax conversation from someone who had nothing left to say. Finally, one afternoon, Maya sat down and spoke bluntly.
"You're going to fade away to nothing if this continues."
Lila stared at the wall. "Maybe that would be easier."
"For who? You? The King?" Maya's voice sharpened. "You think he doesn't feel you giving up? You think the bond doesn't show him everything you're feeling?"
"He has bigger concerns. A wife. A baby."
"And a mate who's dying right under his nose." Maya grabbed Lila's hand. "I don't understand what's happening between you two. I don't need to. But I know you can't continue like this. Neither of you can."
That night, a pebble hit Lila's window.
She ignored it. Probably a bird or wind-blown debris. But it came again, then again, with clear intention. Lila dragged herself from bed and opened the window.
Adrian stood three floors below in the courtyard garden. Moonlight painted him in silver, made his eyes glow even from that distance. He gestured upward, toward the sturdy vines growing up the tower wall.
Lila shook her head. Too dangerous. Too reckless.
He gestured again, more insistent.
She should close the window. Should ignore him. Should follow all the rules they'd established to survive this impossible situation. But she'd been following rules for two months and it was killing her. Maybe breaking them would too, but at least that death would feel like living.
Lila stepped back from the window. Waited. Listened to scraping sounds as Adrian climbed the tower wall. He moved with predatory grace despite the height, his wolf's strength making the climb look easy.
He appeared at her window, pulled himself over the sill, and stood in her chambers breathing hard from exertion. His hair was messy, his formal clothes dirty from the climb. He looked more alive than she'd seen him in months.
"You climbed three floors." Her voice came out rusty from disuse.
"I'd climb a thousand floors." He crossed to where she stood. "Maya came to me today. Said you're fading. Said she's scared you're going to die."
"I'm fine."
"You're a terrible liar." His eyes searched her face. "You've lost weight. You look like you haven't slept in weeks. I feel your despair through the bond every moment of every day and it's driving me insane."
"Then reject the bond. Cut it off. Stop feeling me."
"I can't reject what the Moon Goddess created." He moved closer but didn't touch. "And I won't lose you. Not to death. Not to despair. Not to this terrible situation we're trapped in."
"What do you want from me, Adrian?" Exhaustion made her honest. "You want me to pretend I'm happy? Pretend it doesn't destroy me watching you build a life with Celeste? Pretend the bond doesn't feel like a chain around my throat cutting off air?"
"No." He sank into the chair by her window. "I want to talk to you. Really talk. Not formal dinner conversation or council chamber politics. Just... talk. Like we're two people instead of a king and his wife's sister."
"Talking won't change anything."
"Maybe not. But it's better than this." He gestured at her hollow-eyed face. "Better than watching you disappear while I stand helpless."
Lila should refuse. Should demand he leave. Should follow every rule designed to keep them apart. But she was so tired of rules, so tired of pretending, so tired of being strong when strength felt impossible.
She sat in the chair across from him. "What do you want to talk about?"
Relief flickered across his face. "Anything. Everything. Things that have nothing to do with duty or thrones or impossible situations."
So they talked. Adrian told her about his childhood, about the father who'd ruled with an iron fist and saw his son as a weapon to be sharpened. He described lessons beaten into him, weaknesses punished with violence, any hint of softness or compassion crushed under the weight of what a king should be.
"He caught me healing a servant's child once." Adrian's voice went flat. "I was eight years old. The girl had fallen, broken her arm badly. I had some natural healing ability then, nothing strong, but enough to ease pain. My father found me using it and beat me unconscious. Said kings don't heal. Kings don't show mercy. Kings break things, not fix them."
Lila's chest ached. "He beat the healer out of you."
"He beat everything out of me except duty." Adrian's hands clenched. "By the time I was fifteen and he died, I was exactly what he wanted. A perfect weapon. A cold king with no weaknesses and no heart."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it? I married a woman I don't love because it was duty. I rule a kingdom without caring about the people in it because caring is weakness. I became exactly what my father wanted me to be." His eyes met hers. "Until you. Until the mate bond showed me I'm still capable of feeling something other than obligation."
Lila's turn. She told him about growing up in Celeste's shadow, about being the spare daughter no one expected anything from. She described her mother's constant disappointment, her father's indifference, the way everyone looked at Celeste with pride and at Lila with vague confusion about her purpose.
"At Celeste's sixteenth birthday, someone asked my mother if she was proud of both daughters." Lila's voice caught. "My mother said 'Celeste makes me proud. Lila makes me worried she'll never be more than ordinary.'"
"There's nothing ordinary about you."
"I'm completely ordinary. Average looks. Average intelligence. Average wolf. The only extraordinary thing that ever happened to me was a mate bond I can't have." She pulled her knees to her chest. "Even that feels like a cosmic joke. The Moon Goddess giving someone like me a mate like you, knowing we could never be together."
"Someone like you." Adrian leaned forward. "You mean someone kind? Someone who sees people instead of chess pieces? Someone who cares more about others than power?" His voice roughened. "You're everything I'm not. Everything I wish I could be."
They talked until the moon moved across the sky, until the first hints of dawn threatened the horizon. They shared pain and secrets and truths neither had spoken to anyone else. They didn't touch. The bond flared between them, desperate for contact, but they held themselves apart through sheer willpower.
At some point, exhaustion pulled them under. Lila woke to find gray dawn light creeping through the window. She'd fallen asleep in the chair. Adrian had fallen asleep in his chair across from her, head tilted back, finally looking peaceful for once.
Horror shot through her. If servants came, if anyone found them, it would destroy everything. They'd been so careful, but falling asleep together crossed every line.
"Adrian." She shook his shoulder. "Adrian, wake up."
His eyes opened, instantly alert. He took in the dawn light, the compromising position, and cursed under his breath.
"I have to go." He moved to the window. "If anyone sees me leaving your chambers at dawn..."
"Go." Panic made her voice sharp. "Quickly."
Adrian climbed onto the windowsill, paused with one foot already on the vine. His eyes met hers with desperate intensity. "Tomorrow night. Same time. I can't go back to not talking to you."
"Adrian, we can't risk this."
"We already are." He smiled, quick and sad. "Tomorrow night. Please."
He disappeared down the tower wall before she could argue. Lila rushed to the window, watched him drop the last few feet and vanish into the garden shadows. Her heart hammered. Too close. That had been far too close.
But even as fear coursed through her, something else bloomed in her chest. Something that felt almost like hope.