Chapter 21: One More Day

Alaric

The Council convened again at dawn.

Light leaked through the stained glass like spilled wine, red, gold, and heavy with warning. It painted the chamber in beauty and blood, in fire and silence, but did nothing to lift the mood. Tension clung to the air like smoke, unspoken, but understood. The Obsidian mines had been breached again. Another noble house requested relocation. The borderlands strained beneath the weight of rebellion and rumor.

None of it mattered to me.

Not truly.

Not when every word spoken around the table paled beside the memory of her mouth. The heat of her body pressed to mine. The softness in her voice when she whispered, “Then don’t stay.”

Gods, I nearly lost it… again.

My body sat at the head of the table, but my mind hadn’t left her chambers. Not truly. It lingered in the warmth of her breath, the silk of her skin. The taste of her still haunted my tongue, maddening and sweet.

I barely heard Vasilis’s droning voice as he summarized his findings on the disputed lands. I nodded in the right places. Asked the expected questions. Pretended to be the king they needed.

But my thoughts were elsewhere. Still caught in that candle-lit room. Still wrapped around her.

Then Clotilda spoke.

“I wonder,” she said idly, letting her voice carry just enough. “Is the servant girl still unwell? The one everyone keeps whispering about?”

The words were innocent enough.

Too innocent.

I didn’t look at her. “Do you often concern yourself with the whereabouts of my staff?”

She smiled, lips painted the color of bruised roses. “Only when they’re so... favored.”

A subtle shift rippled through the chamber.

Chairs straightened. Eyes flicked between us. Some were wary. Others, far too curious. Vasilis said nothing, but I saw his hand still resting on the table, casual to anyone else. To me, it was deliberate. He was listening. Watching.

As if I wouldn’t notice.

“Favored?” I echoed, keeping my tone flat. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Oh, come now, Alaric.” She gave a light laugh, all sugar and silk, though her gaze never softened. “A king with a favorite is hardly scandalous. But secrecy?” She tilted her head. “That always raises questions.”

It was a dance she’d perfected, venom laced in velvet.

I finally met her eyes. “Then perhaps you should avoid secrecy, Clotilda. You’ve always seemed more suited to open displays.”

A few of the Elders looked away, hiding smirks behind aged hands. One cleared his throat to stifle a laugh.

But Clotilda didn’t flinch.

“She’s not just a servant, is she?”

There it was.

The thread she’d been teasing all morning, finally held out for them to see. She wanted them to tug. To unravel what I’d tried to keep wrapped in silence and shadow. Not because she cared.

But because she was losing.

I didn’t dignify her with an answer. I didn’t have to.

The meeting carried on, tense, but orderly. The Council, practiced in the art of ignoring what they were not yet ready to confront, moved forward. Clotilda’s words hovered like smoke, but no one inhaled.

She was right about one thing, though.

A king having a favorite wasn’t a scandal.

Her forgetting her place?

That was.

The Council dismissed themselves shortly after, each drifting off like shadows retreating from firelight. The discussions had run long, and the court began to thin, just as I had planned.

But Clotilda lingered.

Of course she did.

I waited until the chamber emptied, the last pair of footsteps fading into silence, before I spoke.

My voice was gravelly low. Cold enough to cut.

“You are playing a very dangerous game.”

She turned slowly, her smile gone, her eyes hard with something sharp and bitter.

“Am I?” she asked. “Or are you?”

My steps were soundless as I crossed to her. When I stopped, we were only inches apart. Too close for comfort, but close enough that if she were mortal, she’d feel the weight of what simmered beneath my stillness.

“You forget yourself,” I said, my voice like steel sheathed in silk. “I’ve tolerated your presence out of respect. But that ends now.”

She lifted her chin. “I was promised-”

“You were promised nothing but consideration,” I snapped. “You mistake your proximity to the throne for possession of it.”

She bristled. “And she? What does she possess? What gives her the right to-”

“She has no rights,” I said, cutting her off. “She is under my protection. That is all you need to know.”

“That’s not all there is,” she hissed. “I see the way you look at her.”

Her eyes narrowed, gleaming, feral, and knowing.

“I smelled it,” she added, her voice dropping. “The other morning, when I passed her in the corridor. She was still flushed. Dazed a little with Prince Edric, and your scent was on her. Faint, but there. Clinging to her skin like heat.”

Her smile returned, slow, cruel, and triumphant.

“You bit her, didn’t you? That’s why she’s hidden away. That’s why the Council hasn’t met her.”

I leaned in, my voice so soft it barely stirred the air between us.

“Then let me make this clear.”

A pause.

“If you speak of her again, if you so much as let her name touch your tongue before the Council. If you dare mention scent, or blood, or anything else you think you know…”

My eyes locked onto hers, glowing with a fury I didn’t bother to disguise.

“I will forget the years we’ve known each other. I will forget your titles, your bloodline, your centuries of posturing. And I will remind you what fear tastes like.”

Her jaw clenched, the fury in her gaze barely held back by the last thread of sense.

But she was wise enough to remain silent.

When I stepped back, I could still feel her presence clinging to the space between us like frost.

“You should go,” I said, calm and quiet. “Before I decide I’m done warning you.”

She turned without a word.

Her gown swept across the floor like spilled wine behind her, and for the briefest second, I thought she might look back.

She didn’t.

The door closed behind her.

I was alone again. With a hunger I couldn’t name, and a war I hadn’t chosen.

One more day, I reminded myself.

Just one more day.