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I sucked in a sharp breath as I drew my eyes away from the necklaces dangling from his neck—the vein pulsating under his scarred throat—and met his gaze.

“I am not scared of him, but I will make him fear me.” I growled the words at Andrues and a charged silence graced the air as our breaths mingled in the small space between us.

“Good.” Andrues pulled back, standing to his full height as my heart raged in my chest. “Now we are getting somewhere.” He smirked down at me and I shot from my chair.

“You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?” I stepped behind the chair, putting space between us.

“You’ve called me worse,” he said, shrugging as he sat back down in his chair and pulled his book back into his lap.

“I swear to the Gods, I hate you. I really do.” I spat the words at him as I started to pace.

He was infuriating, using my own fear against me like that.

No, not fear—I wasn’t scared.

“For being someone you hatesomuch, I do find you in my quarters quite often.” He smiled to himself as he said the words, opening his book and propping his chin between his thumb and forefinger.

“You’re right. It won’t happen again,” I snapped and strutted to the door.

“Fear,” Andrues said over his shoulder as I wrapped my fingers around the golden handle, refusing to look back at him. “Keeps you grounded in reality, it is not a weakness.”

I hesitated for only a moment at his words, then straightened my shoulders and closed the door behind me.

I stood in the grand hallway outside of his chambers and watched as a rat scurried across the polished floors. A small shudder ran up my spine at the sight of it.

I fucking hate rats.

The sun was starting to rise over the rolling hills, slivers of light seeping in between the flowing sage curtains and dancing across the gold flecks inlaid into the marble floors.

The castle was quiet at this hour, peaceful almost.

I let out a sharp breath as I began my walk down the corridor, my boots trudging along underneath me, the only sound in the otherwise silent space.

Andrues, like me, never seemed to sleep. And something about him led me to believe that he was just as haunted as I was. Haunted by the horrors life dealt to him.

I’d started coming to his quarters a few months ago, when it felt like I had nowhere else to turn.

Hyacinth had Landers, and I was so happy she did—she deserved that love after everything she had been through. And Wren had Pri. That left me alone, and I wasn’t used to being alone.

I was used to Ardan—

I shook the thought from my head as a lump caught in my throat and my heart threatened to explode from my chest.

On the nights where loneliness felt like it would consume me, I found myself in Andrues’s chambers. We would read in silence and more often than not I would fall asleep in the chair across from the fire. I always woke before him, and left before he could see me.

I wasn’t sure why I did that, wasn’t sure why I felt like I needed to sneak out. But slowly, those silent nights reading turned into short conversations, then longer ones. Eventually, we had stopped reading altogether and talked into the early hours of the morning until one of us drifted off to sleep.

And still, I would sneak out before dawn.

He spoke openly around me in a way I only saw him do with Landers and Pri, but when we were in a room full of peoplehe slipped back into his shell and I would watch as he closed himself off to the world.

In the last month, he had taken it upon himself to point out all my bad behaviors. There was something in the way he spoke to me, something in his brutal honesty that made me grateful he didn’t see me as fragile, while simultaneously making me want to punch him directly in the face.

I didn’t see the problem with a few bar fights here and there.

Men did it all the time; what was the difference if I did it? It was insulting for them to think I couldn’t hold my own. Not one of the men I fought knew what was coming for them when they threw that first punch.

I felt alive after each fight, like nothing would be able to get the better of me again. And it didn’t hurt that for every fight I won, I added more coin to my coffers from the pockets of these vile men.