Chapter 25 Chapter 25

Chapter 25 Chapter 25
Vivian
The walk back home from the Black Swan happened in heavy silence.

It felt as if the air around us mourned for our souls. The greenery around us seemed to hold their breath.

Beside me, Adrian walked with a face that was a marble bust of agony and restraint.

A mate bond, my mind echoed as we arrived at the estate.
Where I came from, soulmates was a term reserved for cheesy greeting cards sent across on birthdays and valentine day. It was a term mostly used for bad pop songs.

Here, in the damp visceral reality of this past century, it was a biological tether.

I could feel it now, like a rhythmic drumming at the base of my skull that didn’t match my own heartbeat.

It was his heartbeat instead.

Every time his breath hitched, my own lungs felt a kind of constriction.

“You are thinking of the ball,” Adrian cooed.

“February fourteenth,” I whispered, holding my skirt a little too tight. “Valentine's ball. It’s supposed to be about romance, not… a death pact.”

“The stars do not care for the names we give our celebrations, Vivian. They only care for the alignment.” He reached out for my hand, his hand hovering before he pulled back.

Asif the touch itself would further complicate matters for us.

“If you go… if you truly step through that light, the cord of our lives will snap. My heart is no longer entirely my own. It has become yours.” He added.

“And if I stay?” I turned to him just as we walked through the grand doors, the tears I’ve been struggling to hold back blurring my vision.

The stakes had gone beyond my control. Even if I didn’t like Adrian, even if we were enemies and I decided to damn him and walk through the void, I'd still lose my life in the process.

I was trapped in a system that didn’t want me with a price I didn’t deserve to pay. This wasn’t what I planned for my life. This wasn’t part of my ambition.

But it was happening either way. My only shot at life was to stay back in time.

A decision I’d hurriedly kick at if the chance were in my power.

Adrian reached for me with a gentleness that felt like a goodbye. “Better to be a ghost in my arms than a corpse in yours, Vivian.”

The days that followed was a slow motion car crash.

I moved through the hall like a robot, conforming to the rituals and fitting sessions for the upcoming ball. I no longer avoided breakfast with Adrian. There was no need to.
The meeting with the fortune teller had shattered my goals, my vision, my drive. Her words played like a loop in my mind.

To cope, I found myself seeking Adrian at odd hours. I watched him from the gallery while he fenced with his guards, his movement a blur of lethal, silver-furred grace.

I saw the scars on his back as his shirt clung to his skin with sweat, the jagged reminder of a life spent fighting the nature of the beast.

My sympathy for him had curdled into something far more dangerous.

I sought for him every evening until today, when I realized that I wasn’t the only one watching.

“You look particularly peaked today, Miss Vivian,” Cordelia’s voice cut through the muddiness of my thoughts in the conservatory.

She was clipping blood-red roses, the shears snapping with a rhythmic but silent, metallic shirr.

“One might think the weight of the duke’s affections are starting to crush you,” she added.

“I’m just tired, Cordelia,” I said and tried to ignore her.

She stepped into my path, the scent of the crushed roses thick and cloying. Her eyes narrowed, scanning me with a predatory focus. She drew in a sharp inhale, her nostrils flaring.

“There is a scent on you,” she hushed, voice dripping with a sudden realization. “A resonance. It’s not just a mark. It’s… much deeper.”

She stepped closer, the shears inches from my waist “You’ve tethered him, you little fool. You have accepted the bond without even knowing what it was, haven’t you?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I lied through my teeth, hoping she didn’t have a solid basis for whatever she was saying.

A laugh rippled through Cordelia. “The Great Mate Bond. The myth of great lines across the realms, one which the Northbrook line isn’t exempted from. If he loses you, he loses his mind. He becomes a true feral, akin to the beast for which we protect the realms from. And you, you die of a broken heart that you cannot recover from before the month is out.”

I tried to give her a blank face, but the fear rippling through me gave me away.

She leaned closer. “The valentine’s ball isn’t just an event, yes? It’s a portal, a choice you have to make, yes? You want to go home, but you will know that by going, you kill the only man who ever truly saw you. How… delicious. The ultimate sabotage, and I didn’t have to lift a finger.”

“He’ll make it. He’ll survive, I know it.” I hissed, but the lie felt like ash in my mouth.

“He won’t,” Cordelia smirked, turning back to her roses. “But don’t you worry, Vivian. If you’re too cowardly to make the choice, the void will make the choice for you, I’m sure. But even if you don’t, I’m sure Edmund has a plan.”

And with that, she focused on her flowers.

I stiffened, wanting to ask her to go on, to probe further, but holding back as I felt the rage rippling through her.

She may have acknowledged the bond I share with Adrian, but it was obvious that she wasn’t happy about it.

And what was that she was saying about Edmund? Should I be scared? Should I talk to Adrian? Even if I talk to Adrian, would he take me seriously?