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CHAPTER NINE

JORGE

Twenty-One

" W as this the best idea, Your Highness? There are reports of trolls in the woods."

The waiting room of the summer castle was stifling, its grandeur only amplifying the weight in my chest. The stone walls were draped with rich tapestries that muted the echoes of my pacing, while the faint scent of polished wood and beeswax lingered in the air.

The Hunter's Eclipse was only two days away, its pull a constant reminder of what was coming.

"Much rather fight a troll than…" Prince Adom trailed off, but I knew the trajectory of his thoughts.

"Than face your bride?"

The first time I’d seen the Prince of Solmane, I’d thought him a nightmare come to life.

Half lion, half man, his form a monstrous blend of power and fury, a predator on two legs.

He’d looked like the kind of creature who’d devour a fairy princess whole.

The kind of creature who would destroy Charlotte if he got his sharp claws on her.

I'd stayed awake in the barracks each night, my body aching from training, my hand blistered from wielding weapons too heavy for my frame. Pain I was used to. The surprising thing was how natural killing came to me.

They'd shoved my still bleeding body onto the battlefield after I'd barely survived the Convergence Games. They put a cheap prosthetic hand that ended in a sword at the end of my arm and aimed me at a troll. I didn't think. I just swung.

My blade tore through the air, heavy with the weight of every injustice I’d ever endured—being born weak, growing up without parents, suffering under my uncle’s fists and against my cousins’ kicks.

I struck with the fury of every scar carved into my skin, not caring if it broke the brittle bones inside me.

I didn't break. The troll did. I poured everything into that blow—a reckoning, a demand, a promise. I would never be powerless again.

Battle had a way of changing a man. I fought my way up from a conscript to a soldier, from a soldier to a commander, my body reforged in the crucible of war.

Every commendation, every victory came with enhancements—first a crude mech arm to replace the one I lost, then the reinforced plating in my legs that let me run faster, strike harder, survive longer.

The weak, frail servant who had once been unable to protect Charlotte was gone.

In his place was something sharper, something deadlier. A weapon honed for vengeance.

And with every battle, every rise in rank, I found myself closer to the Beast Prince.

Close enough to see him, to know him. Close enough to kill him.

Close enough right now that the blade embedded in my prosthetic would gut him and leave him to bleed out slowly while we waited for Charlotte's arrival two days before her wedding.

I stared down at my fake hand. "No wonder this first date feels more like an ambush than anything."

“Don't be fooled," growled Prince Adom. His growl wasn't one of anger. It was simply his normal tone of voice. "Royalty are the stealthiest and most cunning fighters in the world.”

I snorted at that. “I hear she’s beautiful.”

“It’s a marriage of convenience. Her looks don’t matter. There will be no courtship. No love. I’m doing my duty—to the moon, to my people, and to end this war.”

I put my hand at my back. The lethal blade remained inside its sheath. “Good for you, Highness. Love gets people killed.”

The Beast Prince had no interest in loving Charlotte.

His only joy came from slaughtering trolls.

I’d seen him cleave through the enemy like wheat in the fields, his roar shaking the earth as he defended the lands of Solmane.

He had no interest in glory. He never expected his people to love him.

Didn't expect his bride to care for him.

He’d never even tried to meet the Princess of Evergrove, let alone win her over. If anything, he seemed content to keep the union and any knowledge of his bride-to-be at arm’s length.

That disinterest caused my guard to slip. It gave me time to see behind his beastly exterior. To get to know the man beneath. In a short time, I came to respect the Prince of Solmane. Then grudgingly to call him a friend .

And yet friendship wasn’t enough to stop what I was going to do to him today.

“You’re going to terrify the poor girl.”

“Precisely. I want her to see me, get her screams out of the way, and then move on to the wedded bliss portion of our lives together where we rarely see or speak to each other.”

I flexed my mechanical hand, the faint hum of its joints a constant reminder of what I’d lost—and what I’d built in its place.

The original mech arm they’d slapped on me after I'd made it out of the Games and had been conscripted into the army had been a clunky amalgamation of steel and wires that barely functioned.

It had been heavier than my entire arm used to be, making every movement feel like I was dragging an anchor.

Over the years, I’d spent every spare moment refining it.

Every bit of pay I earned from the army went toward materials and tools.

The original steel was replaced with a lightweight alloy I forged myself, one that didn’t buckle under strain or chafe against my skin.

The clunky gears were swapped for streamlined mechanisms, each piece calibrated for precision.

The door creaked open, and Adom roared. A quick check in my peripheral showed the Beast Prince with his maw shut, slinking deeper into the shadows as though they could grant him a few more minutes before he had to come face to face with his bride.

Adom hadn't roared. That was the sound of my pulse in my ears, drowning out everything but the unbearable anticipation coiling inside me.

My fingers twitched at my side, one hand clenching into a fist, the other—phantom though it was—aching as if I could still feel the last thing it had ever touched.

Her hand.

For three years, I had lived in the echo of that moment, trapped in the memory of her fingers tangled with mine, her warmth grounding me right before they ripped us apart. In my mind, I was still holding her hand. I had never let go.

The scent of flowers wafted into the room before she stepped through the doors.

It wasn’t her usual fragrance. Not the warm, familiar blend of lavender and soft earth that had lingered in my memories for years.

This was sharper, sweeter, like a bouquet arranged to impress rather than comfort.

My nose twitched, my instincts prickling.

Maybe she’d changed. I was no longer the fragile boy I’d been when we’d met.

My body bore the marks of every battle fought, my muscles carved from years of hardship and survival.

Even as I told myself that people could change, something about that scent scratched at the back of my mind like an itch I couldn’t reach .

“If you don’t want to be queen, all you need to do is scream,” I said, my voice low, testing.

She was veiled. Adorned in white. Her gown flowed like liquid moonlight. “Are you going to bite me now?”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. That wasn’t Charlotte's voice. “Remove the veil.”

Her fingers curled into the fabric, clutching it tightly. “Human custom dictates it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding day.”

I knew her hands, every delicate line, every callus from years of secret work with tools and weapons. These hands were different. This wasn't my Charlotte. She might as well have been a troll.

The fury that I’d kept buried roared to life. I moved without thinking, my body a blur as I lunged forward to rip the veil away myself.

“Do not touch her.”

Adom's hand shot out. Deadly claws clamped around my neck with a vise-like grip. The pressure was immediate, cutting into my air and sending a sharp pulse of pain down my spine.

“Something isn’t right,” I choked out, my voice strained as Adom’s grip tightened.

My dark eyes darted past him to the veiled figure pressed against the door. Her back was flat against the wood as though she could vanish into it. Charlotte never cowered, not even the one time in her life she'd been scared.

This wasn’t her—it couldn’t be.

“Show yourself.” I braced for her to run, ready to give chase if she did.

“It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding. I was trying to honor your father’s human customs, Your Highness.”

Adom’s gaze shifted from me to her. The change in his focus made him loosen his grip on my throat. I staggered back, dragging in a ragged breath as the room spun for a moment.

“Leave us,” Adom said, his voice a cold command.

“Adom—”

“Now.”

A thousand protests screamed in my mind. In the end, I obeyed, retreating from the room. My feet carried me to the garden, though my mind was already circling back to that door, to that veiled imposter. That wasn’t her. It couldn’t have been.

Could it?

I paced the garden like a caged animal, my thoughts tearing at me. Could Charlotte have changed so much in three years? Could she have forgotten me entirely?

My heart rebelled at the thought. Logic whispered cruel possibilities. She was a princess. I was nothing. Of course, she’d forgotten me .

But no. I refused to believe it. Not my Charlotte. In order for me to believe it, she’d have to tell me herself.

Movement caught my eye up the castle wall. The flicker of a figure in the window above me made my pulse spike. It was her. Or was it?

I didn’t stop to think. My hands found purchase on the rough stone. I climbed, the muscles in my arms burning as I pulled myself upward.

The window creaked open as I swung myself over the ledge. My breath came in sharp bursts, but not from the climb. There she was—without the veil this time. Her hair had Charlotte’s lavender hues, her skin the same soft tones. But the rest of her…

It was not the pert nose I’d memorized. That was not the slope of her shoulders. Those were not the wings I’d traced as she slept in my arms.