The walk back to the eastern wing of the keep was the longest walk of Kazimir’s life.
He walked half a pace behind Iris, his eyes fixed on the gentle sway of her dark green cloak. The corridor was narrow and dark, lit only by the occasional iron sconce, and the silence between them was so heavy it felt like a physical weight pressing against his chest.
With every step he took, his wolf was clawing at the walls of his mind, screaming at him to close the small distance between them.
MATE. CLAIM. TOUCH. HEAL.
The beast was wild, driven mad by the sweet, rich scent of her—the scent of wild lavender, rain-wet earth, and the clean, sharp fragrance of the mountain wind. It was a physical torment to be this close to her and not touch her. His body burned with a sudden, intense fever, his blood rushing through his veins like molten silver, making the joints in his scarred hands throb with a dull, white-hot agony.
He kept his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his heavy wool trousers, his fingers clenched into tight fists to hide the trembling. He could not touch her. He could not let her see how much she affected him. He could smell the sheer, unadulterated terror radiating off her, a cold, sharp scent that cut through the sweet lavender like a knife.
She hated him. She feared him. And she had every right to.
When they reached the door of the bridal chamber, Gunnar was already waiting there, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. His young beta’s face was grim, his eyes darting down the dark corridor behind them.
"The guards have been posted at either end of the hall, Alpha," Gunnar said, his voice low and serious. "No one enters this wing tonight. Not Varis, not Sigrid. No one."
"Thank you, Gunnar," Kazimir rasped, his voice sounding thick and ruined to his own ears. "Go get some rest. It has been a long night."
Gunnar bowed his head, his eyes lingering on Iris for a brief second with a mixture of pity and respect. "Goodnight, Luna."
Iris did not respond. She stood frozen beside the door, her hand tightly clutching the silver locket around her neck.
Kazimir pushed the heavy oak door open, stepping aside to let her enter first.
The chamber was warm, the massive stone fireplace filled with glowing, red-orange coals that cast a soft, intimate light across the room. The massive bed in the center, piled high with thick, luxurious furs of silver-grey wolf and dark brown bear, looked like an island in the middle of the dark basalt floor.
Iris walked into the room, her movements stiff and guarded. She did not stop until she reached the far side of the room, her back pressing against the cold glass of the window, her amber-gold eyes wide and alert as she watched him.
Kazimir entered and closed the heavy door behind him.
The heavy iron lock clicked into place with a sharp, final clack.
The sound seemed to echo through the room like a gunshot. Iris flinched, her body tensing as if she were preparing for a physical blow. Her hand slid down her chest, her fingers dipping into the folds of her green cloak, her eyes never leaving his face.
Kazimir stood near the door. He did not move toward her. He did not make any sudden gestures. He simply stood there, letting her see that he was keeping his distance, letting her see that he was not a threat.
"The lock is for our protection, Iris," he said softly, his voice a low rumble in the quiet room. "The pack... they are not happy with my decision tonight. Varis will be looking for any sign of weakness. I need to ensure no one disturbs us."
"And by us, you mean your property," Iris spat, her voice shaking with a mixture of fear and white-hot fury. "You played a very pretty part down there, Alpha. You must have felt very proud of yourself, defying your own elders to play the chivalrous savior. Did you think it would make me grateful? Did you think I would fall into your bed and thank you for not poisoning me?"
Kazimir felt a sharp, twisting pain in his chest, a physical ache that was far worse than the silver poisoning in his joints. He slowly walked over to the heavy oak wardrobe, keeping his movements slow and predictable.
"I do not expect your gratitude, Iris," he said quietly. "I know who I am to you. I know what my pack did to your home. I know the blood that lies between us."
"Then why did you do it?" she demanded, her voice rising as she stepped away from the window, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. "Why did you refuse the Sieve? Why did you defend me? A brute is easy to understand, Kazimir. A monster who takes what he wants by force is something I know how to fight. But this... this gentleness? It is a lie. It is a calculated, cruel game to make me lower my guard!"
Kazimir stopped. He turned to look at her, his amber eyes soft and filled with a profound, quiet sorrow.
"I refused the Sieve because I will not have my wife forced into submission," he said, his voice flat and steady. "I will not have you poisoned and broken before a crowd of cheering warriors. And I defended you because you are my Luna. It is my duty to protect you, even from my own people."
"And who is going to protect me from you?" she whispered, her voice cracking with a sudden, raw vulnerability that tore at his soul.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Kazimir looked at her, seeing the young woman behind the mask of defiance. He saw the nineteen-year-old girl who had been torn from her home, who had watched her family die, and who was now locked in a bedroom with the man she believed was her tormentor.
He looked at his own silver-scarred hands, the ugly, puckered tissue that had never healed. He was a creature of war, a man who had spent his life digging graves and fighting in the mud. He was the Gravedigger.
How could he ever convince her that he wanted nothing more than to keep her safe? How could he show her that the mate-bond was not a cage, but a promise?
He slowly reached into the wardrobe. He did not pull out a nightshirt or a robe.
Instead, his scarred fingers wrapped around a single, rough wool blanket—a thin, scratchy thing that was meant for the stable boys or the guards on the battlements. He pulled it down, along with a small, flat pillow of straw-stuffed linen.
He walked over to the fireplace.
The hearth was made of massive, flat slabs of gray basalt, cold and hard, though the coals in the grate offered a gentle, radiating warmth.
With slow, deliberate movements, Kazimir laid the thin wool blanket out on the hard stone floor beside the hearth. He placed the flat pillow at one end, smoothing the rough fabric with his scarred palm.
Iris watched him in absolute, stunned silence. Her amber-gold eyes followed his every move, her brow furrowed in deep, suspicious confusion.
"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Kazimir stood up, dusting the soot from his hands. He looked at the massive, comfortable bed with its piles of soft furs, and then he looked back at her.
"The bed is yours, Iris," he said quietly. "I will sleep here, by the hearth."
"You... you are sleeping on the floor?" she stammered, her voice incredulous. "This is your keep. This is your room. Why would you sleep on the stone?"
"Because you are terrified of me," Kazimir said, his voice carrying a quiet, heavy truth that made her flinch. "And because I will not sleep in a bed where my presence feels like a threat to my wife."
He took a slow step closer, stopping when he saw her hand instinctively tighten on her locket. He stopped, maintaining a distance of at least ten feet between them.
"I want you to listen to me very carefully, Iris," he said, his amber-gold eyes locking onto hers with an absolute, unbreakable intensity. "I know what the south says of me. I know the stories of the Gravedigger. I cannot change the past, and I cannot erase the blood that has been spilled. But I swear to you, on my honor, on the memory of my mother, and on the magic that binds our souls..."
He took a deep breath, his chest heaving under his charcoal-grey tunic.
"I will never touch you without your consent. I will never mark you, I will never demand your body, and I will never force myself into your bed. You are safe in this room. You are safe from my pack, and you are safe from me. This marriage... it will be in name only, until the day you decide otherwise."
Iris stared at him, her chest heaving as she fought to process his words.
The physical warmth of the mate-bond was thrumming in her blood, a constant, magnetic pull that seemed to scream at her to believe him, to step forward and let him wrap his massive, scarred arms around her. Her wolf was practically begging her to yield, to trust the gentle giant who was willing to sleep on the hard stone floor just to give her peace of mind.
But her mind—her sharp, wounded, logical mind—refused to yield.
"You are a liar," she whispered, her voice shaking with a sudden, violent intensity. She stepped closer, her amber eyes burning with a fierce, desperate anger. "You are a master of deceit, Kazimir Vale. You think I am a fool? You think because I am a nineteen-year-old girl from the south, I do not know how monsters operate?"
"Iris—"
"No!" she cut him off, her voice rising as her hands began to shake. "Do not speak! You think this gentleness is a mercy, but it is the cruelest trap of all! You want me to lower my guard. You want me to look at you sleeping on the floor and feel pity for you. You want me to see your scars and think of you as a victim. You want me to trust you so that when you finally decide to take what you want, I will go to you willingly! You want to break my spirit from the inside out!"
Kazimir felt a cold, dead weight settle in his stomach. The sheer, deep-seated depth of her trauma was a chasm between them, a vast, black gulf that no amount of words could ever bridge. She could not see his respect as respect; she could only see it as a weapon.
"I do not want to break you, Iris," he said, his voice dropping to a low, quiet whisper that was thick with unshed tears. "I want you to heal."
"Then let me go!" she shrieked, her voice echoing off the stone walls. "If you want me to heal, let me go back to Oakhaven! Let me go back to the ruins of my life!"
"I cannot," Kazimir said, his jaw clenching as his wolf growled in protest. "If I let you go, the treaty is broken. Varis and the elders will view it as an act of war. They will march on the south, and they will burn what is left of your village to the ground. You know this."
Iris froze, the truth of his words hitting her like a physical blow. She let out a low, shuddering breath, her shoulders sagging as the anger suddenly drained out of her, leaving her feeling empty, cold, and terribly small.
"Then I am a prisoner," she whispered, her eyes dropping to the floor. "And you are my jailer. No matter how comfortable you make the cage."
"If that is how you must see it," Kazimir said, his voice thick with a quiet, devastating grief. "Then so be it. But the cage will remain unlocked from the inside, Iris. You may leave this room whenever you wish. But tonight... please, sleep. You are exhausted."
He walked over to the hearth, his heavy boots making a dull thudding sound on the stone. He did not look at her as he sat down on the thin wool blanket, his large frame looking awkward and massive on the hard floor. He pulled the rough wool over his shoulders and lay down, his back turned to her, his head resting on the flat straw pillow.
He lay perfectly still, his eyes staring into the dying orange coals of the grate.
His hand, tucked beneath the blanket, was clenched tight, the silver pain in his joints flaring with a brutal, relentless agony that matched the raw, bleeding wound of his rejected mate-bond.
Iris stood near the window for a long, agonizing time.
She watched the rise and fall of his massive shoulders, listening to the deep, slow rhythm of his breathing. He did not move. He did not look back. He lay there on the cold basalt floor, a few feet from the warmth of the fire, leaving the massive, soft bed entirely to her.
Her mind was a storm of conflicting emotions. Her wolf was whimpering, desperate to crawl down from the bed and lie beside him, to soothe the pain she could feel radiating off him through the bond. But she held herself back, her heart hardening with every beat.
It is a trap, she told herself, her jaw tightening. It must be a trap. The Gravedigger does not show mercy. He is a butcher. He is playing a long game.
She walked slowly over to the bed, her movements quiet and guarded. She did not take off her dark green dress, nor did she unclasp her green cloak. She wanted to keep her armor on. She wanted to keep her poison close.
She climbed into the massive bed, pulling the thick, luxurious furs over her shoulders. The furs were warm, smelling of cedar and old stone, but they offered no comfort.
She lay on her side, her eyes fixed on the back of the massive, scarred Alpha sleeping on the floor.
She reached up, her hand closing tightly around her mother’s silver locket. It was cold against her skin, a silent, heavy reminder of her vow.
"I will not trust you, Kazimir Vale," she whispered into the dark, her voice so quiet it was drowned out by the whistling wind outside the window. "I will not let you break me. And when the spring comes... I will put you in the ground."
In the dim, flickering light of the dying coals, the fated mates lay only yards apart—separated by a thin strip of gray stone, a history of blood, and a silence that felt as vast and deadly as the northern winter.