It had been a marriage forged in politics, a union meant to fortify alliances between two powerful families. When you first stood beside Kabir Singh, king of one of Rajasthan’s grandest constituencies, it had been with the cool detachment of duty. Yet somewhere between the endless ceremonies, the heavy jewels, and the quiet dinners on palace terraces, duty softened into something dangerous, something deep. Love.

And yet, love had not brought an heir.

Two years had passed since your wedding, two years of whispered prayers and sidelong glances from the elders. His grandmother, a formidable matriarch with centuries of tradition at her back, had finally decided the solution lay elsewhere: a second wife, a princess from another noble house, chosen to carry forward the bloodline. You had overheard the whispers in the marble corridors, the servants’ cautious murmurs, the stiff voices behind closed doors. Another woman. A second queen.

The words carved through you, sharp as a blade.

You drifted away from Kabir in the days that followed, your laughter fading to silence, your body turning cold beneath his touch. He sensed it, of course—Kabir, with his sharp eyes that missed nothing, his hands that once steadied you when the world tilted. He tried to reach you, to fold you back into his arms, but you resisted. You told yourself it was pride. In truth, it was heartbreak.

But Kabir was no puppet king.

When he overheard the conversation himself—his grandmother’s imperious tone, the council’s murmured approval, the meticulous planning of a marriage he never agreed to—something inside him cracked. Anger flooded his veins, hot and unrelenting. His fists clenched as he strode into the chamber where they plotted his future. His voice was not raised; it didn’t need to be. A single, iron-laced sentence silenced the room. He would take no other wife. There would be no one else.

But by the time the echo of his words faded, you had already packed your suitcase.

He found you in the twilight hush of your chambers, fingers curling around the leather handle, back stiff with resolve.

“Where are you going?” His voice was raw, confusion and desperation threaded through every syllable.

You kept your gaze on the suitcase. “I can’t sleep in a room that smells like another woman.”

For the next half hour, the palace trembled beneath the storm that was Kabir Singh. Servants scrambled as he tore through the suite with relentless precision. The bed was stripped bare, sheets and pillows flung aside. Curtains ripped from their hooks. Vases shattered. The very air seemed to shift as windows were thrown open, the sharp scent of night jasmine flooding in. When all was done, the room looked reborn—no trace of the past, no trace of anyone but you.

And when he turned back to you at last, there was no crown on his head, no armor of royalty. Just a man, tall and striking, his chest heaving with breath, his eyes dark with fierce, unshakable love.

“This was never hers,” Kabir said, voice low, unwavering. “It never will be. It’s yours. Only yours.”

In that moment, surrounded by the ruin and the rebirth, you felt it—the vastness of his love, raw and desperate and all-consuming. And for the first time in days, you let yourself believe it