Page 14 of Sweet Venom Of Time (Blade of Shadows #6)

“Damn it all,” I cursed softly, dismissing my orders, dismissing my restraint.

What harm could an offer of solace do?

But as I approached, doubt shadowed my steps.

I was no savior.

I was a monster born of darkness, a man who had built his legacy on destruction.

I had no business offering comfort.

Mortals wept. They suffered. Their lives were fleeting, their sorrows as insignificant as whispers lost to the wind.

And yet?—

Elizabeth.

She was different.

A beacon of innocence in a world that had long since turned cruel. A testament to the last vestiges of goodness that men like me had long since forsaken.

And I—who lurked in the shadows, who dealt only in death and despair—felt the uncharacteristic urge to protect that light.

The very notion was foolish.

I should have walked away.

Lazarus had warned me not to get involved. His words echoed in my mind, his power looming over me now like an unseen specter.

“Stay detached, Amir. It is the only way to survive.”

He had spoken not as a friend but as a Shadow Lord—his voice laced with the weight of centuries of knowledge drawn from a past littered with mistakes I had no intention of repeating.

Nevertheless, I found myself here.

“Am I going to do this?” I muttered into the night, expecting no answer but the rustling of leaves and the distant hoot of a vigilant owl.

No turning back.

The die was cast.

And my feet carried me onward—toward the unsuspecting angel ahead.

The night held a chill that felt at odds with the warm glow spilling from the manor’s windows—a stark contrast between what lay behind me and what waited ahead.

I moved silently through the garden, my steps sure, practiced—nothing but a shadow among shadows.

And yet, Elizabeth’s silhouette merged with them as if she belonged to the night just as much as I did.

Then—

A sound.

Soft. Fragile.

A sob broke the silence.

The air thickened, my resolve flickering like the flame of a candle in a draft.

I had spent a lifetime detached from the sorrows of the living.

But her grief?—

It rooted me to the spot.

And for the first time in longer than I could remember?—

I felt something.

Something I had no right to feel.

Something that would change everything.

“Lady Alexander.”

My voice barely rose above a whisper, yet she stiffened—a doe alerted to a being in the dark.

She glanced up, her eyes wide and glassy in the faint light.

“Who’s there?”

Her words trembled, as delicate as leaves on the verge of falling.

“Don’t be alarmed. It’s me—Lord Hassan.”

I took a cautious step forward, though I knew my appearance was a trespass. I was breaking the rules I had lived by for centuries, stepping onto sacred ground.

“I’m not here to hurt you.”

The words felt hollow, even to my ears.

Because I was a man who hurt.

A man who destroyed.

She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, straightening her spine—her gaze locking onto mine with an intensity that belied her fragile exterior.

“If you’re not here to ridicule or hurt me, then why are you here?”

Her voice was firm despite the remnants of sorrow clinging to her like morning mist.

“You have seen how little regard I am to be given.”

The bitterness in her tone struck something deep within me.

They had sought to break her. To render her voiceless.

And yet?—

She still stood.

I took another step closer, drawn into her orbit against my better judgment.

“I beg to differ.”

A flicker of something passed across her face—doubt, curiosity, something more.

“May I ask why you’re out here?”

The quiver in her voice did not escape me—nor did her effort to conceal it.

“I couldn’t leave without saying something.”

The admission hung between us, heavy, laden with meaning I dared not explore.

Her lips parted, the faintest hitch in her breath betraying a moment of hesitation.

“To address the earlier spectacle at my expense?” she asked at last, her words laced with a bitterness that suited her ill.

Her pain whittled new edges into her beauty, turning something delicate into something dangerous.

I remained silent, offering only a gesture toward the stone bench nestled among the roses.

She hesitated.

Then, with a wary grace, she moved to sit, her posture rigid, her frame coiled with unspoken distrust.

I joined her—but kept a respectful distance, acutely aware of the space between us.

The space where doubt could linger.

Where uncertainty could breathe.

Where logic whispered that I should not be here.

Sitting beside her, the world narrowed to just the two of us?—

A weeping angel.

A silent monster.

Each hiding behind our masks.

And in that moment, I realized?—

Perhaps I was not the only one cloaked in shadows.

The evening air curled between us, cool and weightless, carrying the faint scent of roses and regret.

I studied her silhouette against the moonlit garden, the soft tremor in her shoulders betraying the tears she refused to shed.

“What you did was brave,” I said at last, my voice low, careful—as if the words might shatter between us.

“Speaking out among those men.”

A bitter chuckle slipped past her lips—cold enough to rival the frost creeping over the grass beneath our feet.

“Brave?” she echoed, her laughter hollow, chiseled from something achingly raw.

“I was stupid.”

She turned her gaze to me then, her eyes gleaming with an emotion I could not yet name.

“I should have kept my mouth shut.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper, the weight of years of expectation pressing into each syllable.

“I should know my place.”

The sarcasm dripped like acid from her tongue.

But beneath it?—

Beneath the anger, beneath the bitterness, beneath the quiet resignation?—

It was a flicker of something else.

Something wild.

Something undone.

And against every warning in my mind?—

I wanted to set it free.

“You weren’t stupid,” I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper. “You spoke the truth, when no one else dared to. That takes courage.”

Her eyes—so often a serene summer sky—now blazed with something untamed, something undeniable.

“What good did it do?” she asked, her voice breaking like glass.

“They laughed at me. They treated me like I was nothing.”

Then—

Her gaze locked onto mine, the blue depths searching, demanding.

“And you… you said nothing.”

I swallowed hard, her disappointment rending through me—cleaner, deeper than any weapon ever could.

“I couldn’t,” I admitted, my voice quieter than intended.

It wasn’t the answer she wanted.

It wasn’t the answer she deserved.

“There are… things you don’t know, Elizabeth.”

She shook her head, frustration rising like a storm.

“You’re just like them, Lord Hassan. Just like my father and Lord Winston.”

Her voice trembled—but it wasn’t from fear.

It was anger.

“You stayed silent while they humiliated me.”

A pause.

A breath.

And then?—

“Why didn’t you stand up for me if you thought I was right?”

The words hit harder than I expected.

She had every right to ask.

And I had no right to answer.

Because if she knew the truth?—

If she knew who I was, what I had come here to do?—

Her hatred for her father and Winston would be nothing compared to the loathing she would feel for me.

I tore my gaze away, staring into the darkened garden, searching for an answer in the cold night air.

“It’s complicated,” I murmured.

It was a hollow excuse.

A lie wrapped in half-truths.

“I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

But the words tasted bitter on my tongue.

Because the truth was?—

If I stayed in her orbit much longer…

I would be the one to hurt her most of all.

Elizabeth let out a shaky breath, her hands trembling as she clutched the edge of the bench as if anchoring herself against a fate closing in around her.

“I don’t want to marry him,” she whispered.

It was so soft that I almost didn’t hear it.

“I can’t marry Lord Winston.”

Her voice was raw, splintered at the edges—helpless and defiant all at once.

“He’s old, cruel… I feel so trapped.”

The words tore at something inside me, something I had long thought dead and buried.

I knew exactly the kind of man Winston was.

And the thought of Elizabeth bound to him, suffering beneath his vile hands?—

A future stolen, a light snuffed out?—

It was unthinkable.

Inside, my turmoil raged as fierce as any storm.

Intervening would be reckless.

It would threaten everything.

But to do nothing?

To leave her to that fate?

I would be no better than the monsters I hunted.

“Elizabeth.”

Her name escaped me as a whisper, heavy with the weight of a war I had yet to win.

She turned to me, her gaze pleading—desperate—but it was not mercy she sought.

It was freedom.

“He is not worthy to stand in your shadow,” I said, my voice low, and firm—a vow I had no right to make.

“Let alone claim your hand.”

And just like that?—

The moment shifted.

A silent promise.

A dangerous truth.

An unspoken declaration hanging between us, like the last breath before a fall.

Because I knew, as surely as I knew my name?—

I would not let her be his.

The garden around us lay silent, save for the rustling leaves, whispering secrets in the dark—a fitting audience for this clandestine meeting between two souls caught in a web far more elaborate than we could have imagined.

“Listen to me, Elizabeth,” I implored, my voice deep and stable, though my pulse was anything but.

I leaned in, close enough to catch the faint trace of roses on her skin.

“You don’t have to marry him.”

Her breath hitched, her eyes widening. Moonlight caught in their depths, reflecting something new.

A flicker of hope.

“And what way is that?” she whispered, the words laced with disbelief. “Running away? To where?”

Her voice trembled—not with fear, but with a raw, acerbic desperation.

“The thought of facing my father’s wrath, of being cast out into a world that would see me as nothing—” she swallowed hard, her fingers twisting together. “It makes bile rise in my throat. I would have nothing. No one. My entire existence would crumble to dust before my eyes.”

Her pain sank into me like a dagger buried deep.

She was trapped.

And I—of all people—knew what it meant to be caged by duty.

I reached into the inner pocket of my jacket, fingers brushing against the embossed card I had prepared for such unforeseen circumstances.

The exit I had never planned to offer.

“You wouldn’t be alone,” I said, drawing out the card—a simple thing, yet weighted with meaning far greater than ink and paper could convey.

Lord Amir Hassan.

The name was not mine, but the only one she could know.

I extended it toward her, and our fingers brushed.

A spark.

A current, unexpected and undeniable, licked up my spine.

Her lips parted—barely, a soft inhale that sent heat rushing through me.

Sparks danced between us.

And my body responded—viscerally, ruthlessly.

It was alien to me, this sensation.

But in that instant, I knew.

I wanted her.

Not as a pawn in this war.

Not as a woman in distress.

I wanted Elizabeth Alexander.

Completely.

Wholly.

In every way, a man could claim a woman.

And gods help me?—

I would have her.

“If you ever feel unsafe,” I said, releasing the parchment into her safekeeping. “Or if you need to get away… this is where I’ll be. My townhouse. You’ll be safe there.”

Elizabeth’s fingers curled around the card, gripping it like a lifeline.

A long silence stretched between us before she spoke, her voice soft, trembling slightly under the weight of her vulnerability.

“Why are you helping me?”

Her question was raw, stripped bare.

“Why do you care?”

I hesitated.

Because I shouldn’t.

Because I couldn’t.

But the words left me before I could stop them.

“Because you shouldn’t be treated this way.”

My voice was steady, but inside, a war raged.

“And because you deserve better than this.”

It was the truth. And it came from a place of honor I had long feared was dead within me.

I forced aside the heat coiling in my blood, the pull of something far more dangerous than desire.

She studied me in the dim glow of moonlight, her gaze searching, weighing me with a scrutiny that made my chest tighten.

And then, finally?—

“Thank you.”

A whisper, yet deafening.

“I don’t know what I’ll do.”

She bit her lip, hesitating, before tilting her head slightly. The weight of her eyes on mine was like a thread binding us together.

“I take my words back,” she murmured. “You’re not like them.”

A pause.

“You might think you are, but you’re not.”

The words struck harder than they should have.

Because she didn’t know.

She didn’t know.

I was worse.

Far, far worse.

A monster wrapped in a man’s skin.

And yet?—

I wanted to believe her.

Rising to my feet, I felt the pull of our strange connection, a force unseen yet undeniable. The gravity of it pressed against my chest, threatening to crack something open inside me.

I had no right to her trust.

No right to this moment.

But I took it anyway.

“Stay safe, Lady Alexander.”

Her name left my lips in a whisper, a ghost of something I did not deserve.

Gently, I lifted her hand to my mouth, my lips barely grazing the silk of her glove.

A fleeting promise.

A sin waiting to be committed.

As I released her hand and stepped back, the tremor coursing through me unsettled me.

Because in that moment?—

I knew.

I had just made a choice.

A choice that would change everything.

A choice that could save us both?—

Or doom us completely.