Page 106 of The Prince's Captive

As she stood over him, she could hear a commotion behind her, but all she focused on were Gavril’s eyes staring up at hers.

He squeezed her hand and said, “Thank you. I yield.”

Then he called out in his tongue, “Stand down.”

Marcella looked up to see all of the Inimicus guards had half-formed runes in the air while the others were whispering to each other and jotting things down. She released Gavril’s hand and pulled her own back.

She lowered her hands as Gavril pushed himself to his feet. She whispered, “I stay off the table?”

Gavril’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth, but before he could confirm her intuition or lie to her face in a denial, her guards were approaching with the limiters in their hands. She turned to them and started to hold her arms out, but before they could clasp them on, Gavril was stepping between them, snatching the limiters away from her guards and snapping at them in his tongue.

She caught the word“uxorem” again, but she still had no idea what it meant.

He turned back to her and started to clasp the limiters back on himself, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. She just stared at him.

Why had she won that fight?

Gavril was a commander. A prince.

She’d seen him fight against Aimilia. She knew he was far better than the showing a few minutes ago would have anyone believe.

Marcella was the daughter of a weak mage and a Solitus. She knew what she was and what she wasn’t. A powerful mage she was not.

He’d been holding back against her. But why?

As the guards led her away, she spotted Gavril walking up to the Inimicus with notebooks out of the corner of her eye.

But the strange thing was…

She’d given him what he’d wanted. So why did he look more miserable than before?

Chapter34

GAVRIL

Gavril paced the front courtyard, his eyes never leaving the door that the guards would be bringing Marcella through.

It had taken quite a bit of convincing—begging—to receive permission, but with Marcella using her magic in a spar and the academics at least starting to record the runes she used and their effects, his parents acquiesced to Gavril’s request.

He needed to go to the Academy’s library for some specific texts that they didn’t have in the palace for his work trying to understand the vitae rock. That wasn’t the issue.

The issue was he wanted to bring Marcella with him.

Gavril risked a quick glance down at his right arm, but his illusion was still in place. As long as he didn’t smack it against anything, the bruise would go unnoticed.

The doors opened, and the guards brought Marcella out into the sunlight. She wasn’t putting up a fight, but there was a sharp glint to her eyes he’d learned well when he’d thought she was Hypatia. Analyzing everything.

But then they landed on him. The tension in her shoulders eased and his heart swelled so much he half expected it to fall out of his chest.

As soon as she looked him over, she then eyed the main courtyard they were in again and a slight tension returned as she said, “Gav, what is happening?”

The first time she’d called him Gav had taken him completely off guard, but he adored the way his name sounded in her voice, cradled in her thick, warm accent. While he loved her calling him anything she didn’t put a sneer into, he couldn’t deny he had loved it best when she had breathed out just his name.

It had only happened once. After he’d pulled Mage Hirtus off her, when she’d believed in him.

When she trusted him.

But until he could get that back, Gav was enough.

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