Chapter 3

I tried to retreat to my small room in the staff quarters, my sanctuary, but I didn't make it.

A hand clamped down on my arm, yanking me back. It was one of the Steele family's guards. He was huge, his face impassive.

"Mrs. Steele wants to see you," he grunted.

He didn't wait for my reply. He dragged me through the mansion, his grip bruising. My thin cotton sleeve ripped at the shoulder, exposing my skin to the cold, judgmental air of the house.

He pulled me into the grand family parlor. It was a room reserved for formal occasions, cold and imposing, smelling of lemon polish and old money. It felt like a courtroom.

Eleanor Steele, the family matriarch, sat in a high-backed chair, her posture ramrod straight. She was a formidable woman with eyes as sharp and grey as flint. Dorian stood beside her, his face a cold, unreadable mask.

And next to him, looking deceptively fragile and upset, was Ainsley.

On the floor, in a thousand glittering pieces, lay the shattered remains of a porcelain vase. It was a Qing dynasty antique, Eleanor's most prized possession.

"Kira," Eleanor's voice was like chipping ice. "Ainsley tells me you deliberately broke my vase."

My head snapped up. I looked from the broken porcelain to Ainsley's face. She had a tiny, almost imperceptible smirk on her lips. She had done this.

"That's not true," I said, my voice shaking slightly. "I didn't touch it."

"She's lying," Ainsley whimpered, clutching Dorian's arm. "She was angry about the engagement. She said... she said if she couldn't have you, no one could. Then she threw the vase."

The lie was so audacious, so cruel, it stole my breath.

I looked at Dorian, my eyes pleading with him. He knew me. He knew I would never do something like this.

But he didn't look at me. He looked at Ainsley, his expression softening with concern.

Then he turned to me, and his face was stone.

"On your knees, Kira," he said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "Apologize to Ainsley."

The words hit me harder than a slap. Kneel? Apologize for something I didn't do?

A memory flashed through my mind. Dorian, sixteen and feverish, clinging to my hand. "Don't leave me, Kira. Promise me you'll never leave me." I had promised. I had always kept my promises.

That memory, once a source of secret comfort, now felt like a shard of glass in my heart.

He wanted me to kneel. On the broken pieces of his grandmother's treasure.

The guard behind me shoved me forward. I stumbled, my knees hitting the floor with a sickening crunch. A sharp, searing pain shot up my legs as the porcelain shards bit into my flesh.

I gasped, biting my lip to keep from screaming.

Through a haze of pain, I saw Ainsley's triumphant smile and Dorian's impatient frown. He didn't care that I was hurt. He just wanted this over with.

I pushed myself up slightly, trying to keep my balance, my back straight. I would not give them the satisfaction of seeing me grovel.

"Dorian, I would never..." I began, my voice choked with pain and disbelief.

He cut me off, stepping forward. He crouched down in front of me, his face inches from mine. For a moment, I thought he was going to help me. I saw the boy I grew up with, the boy I loved.

Then he pressed his hand down on my shoulder, forcing my full weight back onto my bleeding knees.

The pain was blinding. Tears sprang to my eyes.

"Apologize," he repeated, his voice a low, dangerous growl.

The scent of him, that familiar mix of cologne and something uniquely Dorian, filled my senses. It used to be my comfort. Now it was poison.

"I'm... sorry," I whispered, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. Each syllable was a surrender. Hot blood trickled down my legs, staining my simple pants, pooling on the expensive Persian rug.

Ainsley gave a magnanimous sigh. "I suppose I can forgive her. She's clearly overwrought."

Dorian stood up, his duty done. He didn't offer me a hand. He didn't even look at my injuries.

Eleanor finally spoke. "See that she is dealt with, Dorian. This cannot happen again."

He nodded, then scooped me up into his arms. The sudden movement sent a fresh wave of agony through me. My blood smeared across the front of his expensive cashmere sweater.

The walk back to my room was the longest of my life. I was trembling in his arms, from the pain, from the cold, from the sickening, treacherous craving for his touch. His body was still warm, a familiar comfort my own body refused to forget, but his heart had turned to ice.

He placed me on my small bed and retrieved the first-aid kit. His movements were efficient, impersonal, like a doctor treating a stranger.

"You need to learn your place, Kira," he said, his voice low as he cleaned the cuts on my knees. His touch was surprisingly gentle, a ghost of the care he used to show me. "Ainsley is going to be my wife. She is the future matriarch of this family. You will not disrespect her."

"She lied, Dorian," I whispered, my voice raw. I touched the old, faint scar on his wrist, a scar he'd gotten protecting me from a falling bookshelf when we were children. "You know she lied."

The warmth of his skin under my fingers was a painful contradiction. Hot and cold. Gentle and cruel.

He pulled his hand away as if my touch burned him.

"Stop it," he said sharply. "Ainsley is delicate. You've been nothing but hostile to her since she arrived."

He believed her. He chose to believe the beautiful, polished liar over me, the girl who had given him her blood for fifteen years.

A laugh, sharp and broken, escaped my lips. "Delicate? Dorian, are you blind?"

The pain in my knees was a dull, throbbing echo of the gaping wound in my soul. He used to protect me. He used to be my shield against the world. Now, he was the one holding the sword.

I looked at him, really looked at him, and saw a stranger. The boy I loved was gone, replaced by this cold, cruel man.

The pain and the love were so tangled up inside me, I couldn't tell them apart. It was a sweet poison I had been sipping for years.

"It will be alright, Kira," he murmured, his voice softening slightly as he finished bandaging my knees. It was the same tone he used to soothe a frightened horse. "Just be a good girl."

I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that it would never be alright again.

Outside my window, the rain had started again, a slow, miserable drizzle. The sky was the color of lead.

My heart hammered a frantic, lonely rhythm against my ribs.

The cracks between us had become a chasm. And I knew, with a final, heartbreaking clarity, that he was the one who had pushed me in.