Chapter 18 MY VILLAIN.

Chapter 18 MY VILLAIN.


Seren’s POV

I sat on the edge of a bed that felt too soft to be real, watching the man who claimed to be my soul’s other half. 

Draven was slumped in a chair across from me, his head bowed, his broad shoulders shaking.

He had tried something. An hour ago, he had placed his hands on my temples, his eyes glowing with a white light that felt like it was trying to shear my skull open. I had felt a flicker—a phantom taste of jasmine, a ghost of a growl but then it had snapped. 

The light had died, replaced by a low groan from his throat.

Whatever he had done hadn't just failed; it had shattered against the wall the Lethe-glass had built in my mind.

"I can't find you," he whispered, his voice sounded broken.

He looked up, and the sight of him made my stomach twist. He looked diminished. The predatory look was gone, replaced by a look of exhaustion. 

He had given up a piece of himself to buy back a ghost, and the transaction had failed.

"I told you," I said, my voice flat. I gripped the grey duvet, my knuckles white. "There’s nothing left to find. I’m just... me."

"You are never 'just' anything," he snapped, a flash of anger flaring in his eyes before fading. He stood up, his movements  uncoordinated. He walked toward me, and instinctively, I flinched.

He stopped instantly. The look of  agony on his face should have made me feel sorry for him. Instead, it just made me feel cold.

"I won't hurt you, Seren. Never again."

"You already are," I said, looking at the door. "Every time you look at me like I’m a puzzle you can’t solve, you’re hurting me. Every time you touch me expecting me to remember a kiss I don't feel, you're just reminding me that I’m broken."

Draven’s jaw set into a hard line. He looked at me with so much love that it made me mentally sick.

"You aren't broken. You're just lost. And I am the King of this kingdom. I will hunt through every shadow of your mind until I find the girl who told me she was the storm."

"Maybe the storm died in the ice, Draven."

"Then I’ll teach you how to be one."

He turned and walked out of the room.

The next three days were a masterclass in psychological warfare.

He didn't lock me in. He did something worse: he gave me the run of the palace. But everywhere I went, I was met with the evidence of a life I didn't recognize.

In the library, I found a book of poetry with my name scrawled in the margins in a handwriting that must have been mine, but the words felt like they belonged to a stranger. 

In the gardens, the scent of the jasmine made my head ache with the pressure of a memory that refused to surface.

And then there was him.

Draven didn't press me. He didn't try the ritual again. He simply... existed everywhere I was. He wouldn’t stay away.

I was sitting in the conservatory, watching the rain falling against the floor, when he appeared. 

He wasn't wearing his royal mantle. He was in a simple black training tunic, his skin slick with sweat, his hair clinging to his forehead. He looked simple. He looked…human.

"You’re staring," he said, not looking at me as he wiped his face with a towel.

"I'm trying to figure you out," I admitted. I leaned back in the  chair, hugging my knees to my chest. "The woman in the mask said you were a butcher.  But here you are, looking like you’re the one who was tortured."

Draven let out a dry, humorless laugh. 

He walked over and sat on the low stone wall across from me, his legs splayed.

"I am a butcher," he said, his eyes meeting mine. "I have killed thousands to keep this throne. I have done things that would make people run. But I am only a person when it comes to you."

"Why?" I asked, leaning forward. "Why me? I am a girl in the commoner. I probably lived in the dirt and You’re a King. You could have anyone."

"I didn't want anyone," he rasped and reached out, his hand stopping inches from my knee. "I wanted the only heart that didn't beat with fear when I entered the room. I wanted the girl who looked at a monster and told him his crown was crooked."

I looked at his hand. Large, scarred, and or the first time, I didn't feel the urge to run. I felt a strange, magnetic pull.  It felt like…curiosity.

"Tell me something," I said. "Something they didn't tell me in the spire."

Draven’s gaze softened. "You have a scar on the inside of your left ankle. You got it when you were six, climbing a fence to steal an apple for a stray dog. You told me about it the night we talked about the outer wards. You said it was the first time you realized that doing the right thing usually leaves a mark."

I looked down at my ankle. I hadn't even noticed the faint injury line there. A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold raced down my spine.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I listen, Seren. Even when you aren't speaking, I am listening to the sound of your heart beating."

He stood up then, his heat washing over me. He didn't touch me, but he leaned down until our faces were inches apart. The scent of him—cedarwood, rain filled my senses.

"I don't need a ritual to bring you back," he whispered, his eyes scanning my face with a hunger that made my pulse skip a beat. "I’m just going to make you realize that no matter how many memories they steal, your body already knows who I am."

He turned to leave, but I reached out, my fingers catching the hem of his tunic.

"Draven."

He stopped, his back to me.

"I'm hungry," I said. It was a simple statement, but it felt like a confession. In the spire, hunger had been a weapon. Here, it was a void I didn't know how to fill.

Draven turned back, and for the first time, I saw a genuine, crooked smile pull at his lips. It transformed his face  into something devastatingly handsome.

"Then let’s go to the kitchens," he said. "The chefs will want to make a feast, but I think you'd prefer the bread from the back ovens. The ones that smell like home."

We sat on the flour-dusted floor of the royal kitchens long after the staff had been dismissed. 

Draven had found a loaf of crusty, dark bread and a block of  cheese.

He didn't feed me like I was an invalid. He sat next to me, his shoulder brushing mine, and we ate in a silence that felt... comfortable.

"The woman in the mask," I said, my mouth full of bread. "She said you’d burn the world for me."

"I already started," Draven said,  "The Northern border is still smoldering. I broke their armies, Seren. I leveled their towers. I would have torn the mountains down stone by stone if I hadn't found you."

"Doesn't that scare you?" I asked. "To have that much power tied to one person?"

Draven turned to me, his gaze intense. "It doesn't scare me. it completes me. A wolf without a mate is just a beast waiting for an end. With you... I have a reason to be a King."

He reached out, and this time, I didn't flinch when his thumb brushed a crumb from the corner of my mouth. His touch was electric, want that settled deep in my belly.

I looked at him—the scars, the power, the overwhelming obsession in his eyes. 

He was a dangerous man. A villain in every story but mine.

And for the first time since the ice, the void in my chest didn't feel quite so empty.

"I still don't remember," I whispered, my heart hammering.

"I know," he said, his hand sliding to the back of my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair. He pulled me closer, his breath hot against my lips. "But you’re starting to feel. And that’s all I need."

He didn't kiss me. He just held me there, in the quiet dark of the kitchen, while the world was probably in chaos.

I leaned into him, my forehead resting against his shoulder. I didn't know if I loved him. I didn't know if I ever would. But as he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his body, I knew one thing.

The ice that had created in my mind was melting.