Kaelen’s POV

The magical drive whined as I tore out of the underground lot.

Gravel sprayed against the undercarriage. The wheels caught the cobblestones and the carriage lurched forward, throwing my weight against the seat. I corrected the steering wheel with one hand. The other arm held her against my chest—cradled in the passenger seat but slumped sideways into me, her head resting in the hollow beneath my collarbone.

Her blood soaked through my shirt. Warm at first. Then cooling. Sticky.

I could feel her heartbeat against my ribs. Faint. Irregular. A bird trapped in a cage too small for its wings.

Faster.

My wolf paced inside me, restless, feral, his presence pressing against the walls of my skull like something caged and starving. He wanted to howl. He wanted to rip the steering wheel from its column and run on four legs through the dark streets with her draped across his back. He wanted to kill. He wanted to destroy every hand that had ever touched her, every fist that had ever connected with her skin, every pair of eyes that had watched her bleed in that pit for entertainment.

I wanted those things too.

The magelights blurred past. Amber. White. Amber. The city was quiet at this hour—cobblestone lanes mostly empty, shop windows dark, the occasional drunk stumbling along the curb. I drove through intersections without stopping. Let them arrest me. Let them try.

My gaze dropped to her face. What was left of it.

Both eyes sealed shut by swelling so severe the skin had gone taut and shiny, stretched over fluid and damaged tissue. The bruising radiated outward in concentric rings of purple and black and sickly green. Her lower lip hung open where it had split, the wound crusted but still weeping at one corner. Dried blood caked her hairline. Her silver hair—once so bright it caught moonlight—was matted into dark, stiff ropes of rust and filth.

I looked at the road. Looked back at her.

Her collarbone jutted beneath paper-thin skin. The hollows of her cheeks were concave. When I’d lifted her in that room, she’d felt like kindling in my arms. Like something already half-consumed.

This wasn’t from tonight.

Tonight’s fight had been vicious, yes. But the layers of bruising—yellowed beneath fresh purple, green beneath yellow, old scars beneath all of it—told a longer story. Days. Weeks. Months of accumulated damage. She’d been doing this over and over. Stepping into that sand ring. Letting people beat her body until it broke. And then doing it again.

My claws extended without conscious thought. They punctured the leather of the steering wheel with a soft, wet sound. I felt the material tear beneath my grip.

Why.

The word ricocheted through my skull like a trapped bullet.

Why this. Why here. Why not come home.

Valerius asked about her every single night. Every night. Without fail. He’d stand in the doorway of her old chamber—the one I hadn’t let anyone touch, hadn’t let anyone clean or rearrange—and he’d look at the empty bed with those dark gold eyes that were so much like mine, and he’d say nothing. He’d just stand there.

Lyra was too young to ask. But she’d reach for strangers sometimes. Silver-haired women in the market. Serving girls with blue eyes. She’d reach with both hands and make a sound—not quite a word, not quite a cry—and then go still when the face wasn’t right.

They needed her. I needed—

She chose this over us.

The thought was poison. I knew it even as it spread through me. I knew it was unfair, incomplete, that there were things I didn’t understand. But knowing didn’t stop it. It sank into my chest and settled there like a coal that wouldn’t cool.

I couldn’t take her to the palace.

The realization arrived like cold water. The children were sleeping. The nursemaid would be dozing in the chair between their rooms. If I walked through those halls carrying their mother—face unrecognizable, body broken, reeking of blood and sand and that underground filth—

Valerius was a light sleeper. He’d hear the door. He’d come running. And he’d see this.

No.

I turned the carriage sharply. The wheels squealed against wet cobblestone. New direction. The city center.

I knew a place. A luxury hotel that catered to diplomats and visiting nobility—the kind of establishment where discretion was the primary luxury and questions were never asked. They had round-the-clock concierge service. Private entrances. Suites where a man could disappear for days and no one would blink.

It took several more minutes of reckless driving before I pulled into the underground entrance of the hotel. The lot was nearly empty. Polished stone floors. Soft lighting. The scent of cedar and sandalwood piped through invisible vents.

I parked in a corner space, cut the magical drive, and sat in the silence.

Her breathing filled the cabin. Shallow. Wet. That rattling sound on every inhale.

I looked down at her. Pressed against my chest. So small. So ruined.

The pent-up rage I had been swallowing finally erupted.

My fist left the steering wheel.

I hit the dashboard. Hard.

The plastic housing around the instrument panel cracked. Shards scattered across the console. Pain shot up through my knuckles—brief, bright, meaningless.

I hit it again.

The crack widened into a spiderweb of fractures. A gauge popped free and dangled by its crystal conduit. Blood smeared across the beige leather where my split knuckles dragged.

One more.

The third blow caved the panel inward. Something behind it snapped—a bracket or a support strut—and the entire section sagged with a grinding creak. The blood was everywhere now. On the wheel. On the dash. On the seat beneath her.

Hers and mine, mingled together.

I pulled my hand back. Flexed it. The knuckles were raw meat. I didn’t care.

She hadn’t moved. Hadn’t flinched. Not even at the sound of me destroying the interior around her.

"What did you do to yourself, Elara," I whispered. My voice was raw. Scraped out.

No answer. Of course no answer.

I eased her off my chest and gathered her properly—one arm under her shoulders, the other beneath her knees. Lifted her out through the driver’s side door because the passenger side would have required me to set her down first, and I was not letting go. Not now. Not again.

She weighed nothing. My wolf whimpered at the absence of her.

The private entrance required an enchanted pass. I didn’t have one. The night concierge materialized within seconds—a thin man in a pressed uniform who took one look at the blood on my shirt and the unconscious woman in my arms and opened his mouth.

"Penthouse suite," I said. "Now."

He hesitated. His eyes darted between my face and hers.

"I will pay triple the nightly rate. Cash. You will not record this visit. You will not speak of it. To anyone."

Something in my voice or my eyes made the decision for him. He swallowed hard, produced a crystal key from his jacket, and gestured toward the private enchanted lift.

I didn’t thank him.

The suite was obscene. Vaulted ceilings. Polished marble. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the glittering city. Crystal decanters on a sideboard. Fresh flowers on a table that probably cost more than most families earned in a year.

None of it mattered.

I carried her to the bedroom. A massive bed dominated the space—white linens, too many pillows, pristine and untouched. I laid her down with a care that contradicted every violent impulse still raging beneath my skin. Settled her head on the pillow. Straightened her legs. Pulled her arm gently from beneath her torso where it had bent wrong.

Her blood immediately stained the white sheets. Dark spreading circles beneath her head. Beneath her shoulder. Beneath her hip.

I stood over her. My hands hung at my sides, dripping.

No one knows you’re here, I thought, looking at her shattered form. And you are going to wake up, Elara. You are going to open your eyes and tell me why.

The communication crystal in my pocket pulsed. Once. Twice. A third time—urgent, insistent.

I pulled it out. Cassian’s energy signature. Panicked.

I pressed my thumb to the surface and his voice erupted into the silence.

"Kaelen! Where are you? The city guard and the constabulary are tearing apart the warehouse district. The arena operators reported a kidnapping—someone took their champion fighter right out of the tunnels. There are witnesses describing a man who ripped through reinforced doors with his bare—"

"It’s her, Cassian."

Silence. A long, ringing silence.

"...What?"

"The fighter. The champion they’re looking for." I stared at Elara’s motionless form on the white bed. "It’s Elara."

Another silence. Longer this time. When he spoke again, his voice had changed completely. The panic was gone. Something worse had replaced it. Something quiet and devastated.

"Moon Goddess. Is she—is she alive?"

"Barely."

"I can be there in twenty minutes. Where are you? Tell me and I’ll—"

"No."

The word came out harder than I intended. I softened it. Slightly.

"I need you to do something else. Contact the city guard. Tell them the investigation is to be dropped immediately. Imperial authority. The fighter left voluntarily. There was no kidnapping."

"Kaelen, the arena people saw you tear that door apart. They know something—"

"I don’t care what they know. Make it disappear."

I heard him exhale. Steadying himself. Soldier’s reflex.

"And if anyone inside the palace asks where you are tonight?"

I looked at the blood on my hands. At the woman on the bed who had chosen sand and fists and strangers over me.

"Tell them I’m handling imperial business outside the capital. A border matter. Nothing urgent. Nothing that requires attention."

"Understood. And Elara’s identity—"

"No one learns she’s alive. No one learns I found her. Not the council. Not the guard. Not anyone. That is a direct order, Cassian."

A pause. "Understood, Kaelen."

The crystal went dark.