The castle had never felt so suffocating before. Tomorrow, you would marry a prince.

The entire kingdom celebrated it as though it were salvation, a perfectalliance between lands. Songs would be written about it and smiles forced upon faces that cared more for politics than happiness.

But none of them knew why your hands still trembled whenever the northern sea was mentioned. None of them knew about Mordren.

The kitchens behind the feast hall burned with unbearable heat, filled with the scent of smoke and spilled wine. Servants hurried past too distracted to notice when you slipped away into the quieter storage corridor beyond the ovens.

For a moment, silence finally found you.

Then a large hand suddenly seized your wrist and yanked you sharply into the shadows between stacked barrels. Your back collided against solid wood before another heavy arm braced beside your head.

The breath left your lungs, and then a voice reached you.

“Easy.” The command came almost like a growl. “Don’t fight me.”

The scent of sea salt, leather, and cold northern wind wrapped before you could even process what was happening. Massive fingers tightened briefly around your wrist, only enough to stop you from pulling away.

“It’s me.”

Morden.

You still remember the warmth of enormous hands against your waist while he whispered impossible promises into your skin. The nights spent praying no one would discover the monster from the northern fjords sneaking into your chambers like a storm given flesh.

And then the memory that hurt most of all: You begging him not to leave.

Even after all these years, he still carried that same terrifying energy beneath his silence. the feeling that violence slept just beneath his skin. His hand slowly tilted your chin upward.

“You look miserable,” he muttered darkly. His gaze searched your face with something intense. “They’re really going through with it then,” he said after a moment. “Marrying you off to that princeling."

His thumb brushed once against your jaw before his expression hardened again. “I didn’t cross black seas to watch you belong to another man.”