Their marriage had been arranged.

Once, they had hated each other. She was the fourth Archeron sister, a secret kept buried in shadows and blood. He was Eris Vanserra, the cruel heir to the Autumn Court, known for his ruthless ways and his father's iron grip. The union between them was meant to heal the rift between their courts, an alliance born of duty—not love.

They fought in silence, two flames too hot for peace. He resented the bond that tethered them, as if it was another chain, another way to control his fate. She hated the thought of being forced into a marriage with someone so cold, so calculating. Their every interaction had been fire and ice, a storm of venom and mistrust.

But that was then.

Now, after the war, after the death and the destruction, after everything they had both endured… it was different.

The war had ended, but it didn’t feel like peace.

She flinched at shadows, woke gasping in tangled sheets, her magic coiled tight beneath her skin, ready to destroy. No one spoke of the cost. Not of the nightmares. Not of the silence that followed.

But Eris stayed.

Not because of duty. Not because of politics.

Because she was unraveling, and he couldn’t bear to watch from a distance.

He brought her warm bread in the mornings when she couldn’t eat. Sat on the floor outside her door when she couldn’t speak. Let her fall apart in front of him and never once asked her to explain the pieces.

When she lashed out, he didn’t retaliate.

When she wept, he didn’t try to stop her.

He just… stayed.

He looked at her like she was more than what the war left behind. Like she wasn’t ruined. Like he saw her rage and grief and the cracked things in her, and didn’t turn away.

And when the mating bond snapped—one soft evening with her curled beside the hearth, eyes swollen and limbs trembling—he didn’t claim her.

He simply tucked the blanket higher around her shoulders and whispered, “You don’t have to be okay for me to love you.”