To heal a Rogue

JOHANN

"Tell them to go to hell," I said. "Tell them you don’t care about some old contract. Tell them you love me. The way I love you."

Her expression crumpled slightly, something pained and genuine crossing it.

"I cannot lie to you," she said. "I’m being decent by telling you this to your face instead of simply vanishing from your life without a word. I did love Lysander once, if we’re being honest with each other tonight. I was supposed to be betrothed to the Askers first. You must remember that."

Silence swallowed the room.

Neither of us moved.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the valet lower his head, suddenly fascinated by the floor beneath his feet. He had become an unwilling witness to something no servant should ever hear.

He cleared his throat carefully.

"Your Highness..." he murmured. "If I may, I shall leave you both to speak privately."

He bowed and took a single cautious step toward the door.

"Stay where the fuck you are."

The words cracked through the room like a whip.

The valet stopped so abruptly his polished shoes scraped against the marble.

He froze.

One foot remained half-raised before he slowly set it back on the floor, every muscle in his body locking into rigid obedience. His face drained of what little color remained, and his hands folded tightly in front of him, trembling despite every effort to keep them still.

"Y... yes, Your Highness."

Only then did I turn back to Amaranthine.

She was staring at me.

"That engagement lasted five minutes," I said. "Lysander humiliated you and your entire family and it was spraed across several pack territories. That’s the whole reason you and I ended up paired together in the first place. So your father wouldn’t spend the next decade furious about the insult." I let go of her arm and stepped back, my jaw tight. "He laughed in your face when that proposal was brought to him. Laughed, Amaranthine, because he was too busy chasing some invisible woman he’d convinced himself was his destiny."

"He was a child then. He’s a man now," she said. "And he has a duty to the crown. I’m not breaking any law. I am in fact, honoring what my family agreed to. I’m keeping it."

I pressed her hand flat against my own chest.

"You’re breaking my heart," I said.

She looked down at where our hands met, and something in her expression hardened, some resolve settling into place that told me exactly how this was going to end before she said another word.

"If your love was supposed to mean anything," she said quietly, "the goddess would have given us a fated bond. She didn’t." She pulled her hand free. "There are also rumors circulating, Johann. About whether you had something to do with your father’s death."

"Look at me," I said. "No. I did not."

She studied my face for a long moment, and whatever she found there wasn’t enough to change her mind.

"I’m glad to hear you say that," she replied. "I truly am."

Her voice carried pity.

Pity.

It landed harder than accusation ever could.

"But it changes nothing."

She turned toward the door.

"No."The word left me before I’d thought it through.

Though, she kept walking.

I caught her wrist.

She stopped but did not turn around.

"Johann."

"No."

"Let go."

"You don’t get to walk in here, further dismantle my life, and leave before I’ve even..." My voice faltered. "Before we’ve even fought for this."

"There is nothing left to fight for."

"There has to be."

She pulled against my grip.

I tightened it.

"Johann."

"Tell me this isn’t what you want."

"It isn’t about what I want."

"Then make it about what you want."

She finally turned to face me.

"I am."

The certainty in her eyes unraveled something inside me.

"No," I whispered.

"You’ll survive this."

"I don’t want to survive it."

"I know."

She reached to pry my hand from her wrist.

Instead, I stepped closer. Too close.

"Johann..."

Before she could finish, I caught her face between my hands and kissed her.

It lasted only a heartbeat.

She shoved hard against my chest, twisting away. When I refused to release her immediately, her teeth sank sharply into my lower lip.

Pain exploded through my mouth.

I recoiled with a curse, one hand flying to the spot. Warm blood smeared across my fingertips.

"What the hell?"

She stumbled back the instant I let go, breathing hard. The back of her hand swept violently across her mouth as though trying to erase the contact altogether.

Disgust flashed openly across her face.

"That," she said, her voice shaking with anger, "was repulsive."

Blood dripped from my lip onto the polished floor.

I stared at her.

She stared back.

For the first time since she’d entered the room, there wasn’t an ounce of sympathy left in her expression.

"You’ve just proven I made the right decision."

She stepped around me.

I didn’t reach for her again.

The valet remained rooted exactly where I’d ordered him to stand, his face pale, his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, as though pretending not to have witnessed any of it might somehow spare him.

"Goodbye, Johann," she said, as she walked out, her heels clicking steady against the floor, not once looking back.

I stood there for a moment, staring at the empty doorway, something building behind my ribs that had nowhere left to go.

Then I let it out.

I swept my arm across the dresser, sending the pin case and a row of colognes crashing to the floor, the glass shattering against stone. I grabbed the nearest chair and hurled it against the wall, watching one of its legs splinter clean off on impact, and I kept going, tearing through the room in a fury that felt righteous even as it destroyed everything within reach.

The Valet fled the moment the first bottle hit the ground, wise enough not to linger.

When there was nothing left standing to break, I stood in the wreckage and laughed. Loud and unhinged.

The sound bounced off walls that no longer held anything worth protecting.

"You have to go down now, cousin," I thought. "Whatever it takes. Whatever it costs. You will not walk away from tonight with everything intact."

I straightened my jacket, brushed a shard of glass from my sleeve, and made my way toward the great hall.

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