Vermin’s hand clenched around his phone, his knuckles pale as he scrolled through the endless headlines: “Princess and Prince Caught in Scandalous Video!” “Royal Affair Exposed!” His chest tightened with every word, each article a reminder of everything he had failed to protect. The video of him and Enchantress—his heart, his equal—had been leaked, and with it, their love, their privacy, torn wide open for the world to consume.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. For a brief time, they had managed to carve out a space just for themselves, away from the pressures of their royal duties. They had been Vermin and Enchantress, not the prince and princess the world saw them as. But now, that love had been reduced to scandal. And Enchantress—his fierce, intelligent Enchantress—was being sexualized, objectified, just like the boys in the court had done for years. He’d watched them leer at her, make crude comments about her beauty, and he had never known how much it hurt her until now. The world saw her body, not her soul.

Then came the night—the stolen hour they had shared, a moment of raw love when the weight of their lives felt lighter. It was meant to be a secret, a sanctuary. But now that moment was twisted into something dark and shameful. The headlines didn’t see her—the woman he adored. They only saw her as a prize to be claimed, a body to be ogled.

He couldn’t stand it any longer. He needed to hear her voice, to know that they were still the same, that they hadn’t been destroyed by the cruelty of the world. His hands were shaking as he tapped her name into his phone, pressing it to his ear. The dial tone felt like a thousand miles between them, each ring a painful reminder of their distance. When she finally picked up, her voice was softer than he had ever heard it.

“Enchantress,” he whispered, her name both a balm and a wound. “I’m so sorry. I should have protected you. I never wanted this for you.”