Page 30 of Revert
Prince Castiel cursed under his breath and yanked me through a narrow opening hidden behind a tattered tapestry, half-choked with dust and darkness. We stumbled into a side hall, cobwebbed and long neglected. I had no idea where we were—and by the tight strain in his expression, I realized that neither did he. For once, Prince Castiel seemed to be navigating blind.
Even with the abandoned corridor empty and no footsteps of our pursuers, he didn’t slow. My skirts caught on a jagged stone as we rounded another sharp corner, nearly pulling me off balance. His hand shot out, catching my elbow to steady me. After several more twists and turns, we finally burst into a forgotten chamber of bare stone walls and floor thick with dust. Only then did he stop, chest heaving, exhaling like he hadn’t let himself breathe until now.
It took several panting moments before I could catch my breath. “What’s going on?” I demanded. “Why were we running from your own men?”
Wordlessly, he held up the coded correspondence—the one he had taunted me with back in the conservatory, a moment that after our frantic excursion felt like a lifetime ago.
“Surely you’re prudent enough to understand the consequences should you be discovered with something so incriminating, but if you’re eager to dance with that risk, next time I can leave you to face the guards alone. As you know, in this court questions too often come after deadly accusations.”
By helping me, he had taken a risk he had no reason or obligation to choose. Pride wrestled with the gratitude swelling in my chest, leaving me unsure what to do with this unexpected, almost noble gesture.
Something fierce and aching flickered in his usually cold eyes; the force of it made me look away. “Why would you help me?” My voice was barely a whisper.
“Don’t you see?” His strained voice dropped so low it barely reached me. “Though you seem determined to fight me at every turn, I’m trying to keep you alive.”
At his words, my heart I’d thought long sealed away lurched in my chest, rendering me speechless.Him, keep me alive? Impossible. This had to be another manipulation, another twist in this dangerous game. Yet by the rare falter in his mask over the emotions he always kept hidden, he didn’t appear to be lying, even as his efforts to protect me stood in stark contrast to the murder I knew awaited me at his hands.
“I don’t believe you.” I couldn’t; doing so would be far too dangerous.
He nodded, unsurprised. “I didn’t expect you to, yet what you believe changes nothing.”
A sharp breath hitched in my chest, my thoughts tangled. This conversation was yet another divergence I hadn’t foreseen. I had no explanation for why everything felt like it was unraveling beyond my control…unless the choices too minor to be consequential that I’d made at the beginning had been missteps I was only now realizing had led me drastically far from my intended destination.
I took a wavering breath, forcing calm.It’s alright, I tried to reassure myself.I can still get back on course. I knew the script I needed to follow, but my frantic heart overwrote it with a single question: “Why?” I whispered, taking a step backward and brushing against the dusty wall.
His mouth parted, as if to answer…when a sudden pulse shivered through the room. Both of us went still.
The air shifted, thick with magic. Along the walls, old carvings sparked to life, faint blue light threading through half-faded ancient runes I hadn’t noticed. The archway behind us shuddered, then sealed shut with a low, resonantclang.
Theclickof the lock echoed with finality, swallowed by the tense silence crowding the narrow space; the only sound that followed was the frantic pulse of my heartbeat. I couldn’t tear my gaze from the door, as if sheer desperation alone might force it to open and rescue me from the predicament I now found myself in, tightening its hold around me.
A cold shiver crawled down my spine. I swallowed hard. “What’s happening? Are we…trapped?” The possibility sounded worse aloud, trembling past any attempt at composure.
He stepped to the door, hand closing over the handle, testing it with deliberate calm—a twist, a rattle. Nothing. His gaze flicked to me, a glance that almost looked apologetic, as if to quietly appease me with the comfort of a lie: that he’d done all he could.
Unconvinced, I crossed to the door myself, fingers scrabbling at the stubborn latch, as if my determination could succeed where his strength had failed. But the knob stayed stubbornly frozen, unmoved by my urgency, dismissing the possibility that this was merely a ploy the prince had concocted as an excuse to keep me entrapped.
No mistake: we were locked in.
The awful truth pressed coldly upon me as the fear I’d barely held at bay surged. I was alone. In a confined room. With my enemy. And not just any enemy—but the man whose sword had stolen my life, whose shadow had followed me even back across time. Other than the king, I could think of no worse company.
He exhaled, low and slow, one hand braced on the doorframe, the tendons in his wrist taut — as if holding back words, or something darker. His presence crowded the confined chamber. I became hyper-aware of him—his tall frame, the sharp cut of his shoulders, the menacing force of his dark eyes, the dangerous quiet he wore like a cloak. The air seemed to hum with his nearness, the walls pressing closer, stealing what little space remained between us.
The tension was thick and suffocating as my panic closed in. But beneath the fear, another emotion stirred, something I refused to name for fear of the repercussions of my notice. My heart thudded hard against my ribs, wild and unruly. I forced a slow breath.
His dark eyes flicked briefly towards me, not menacing, but heavy enough to pin me in place, the faint stiffness in his jaw a crack in his composure, the only hint of his own unease…which somehow made everything worse.
Whatever courage I’d relied on for my earlier boldness unraveled in an instant. The reality of being trapped with him cracked through the mask I’d struggled to hold in place, splintering every scrap of composure I’d clung to. SuddenlyI was no longer in this room, but transported back to the dungeon…with him.
A faint frown toyed at the corners of his mouth as his eyes held mine, reading every line of tension I couldn’t voice aloud: my rigid posture, the nervous glances I couldn’t keep from darting his way. For a long beat, he said nothing. Then without a word he shifted, slowly but deliberately moving to the far side of the room, putting as much distance between us as the confined space allowed.
In this position he remained—back rigid against the wall, arms folded, silent. The air between us felt charged, sharp like the edge of a blade, humming with things unspoken.
I hoped the time would slow my frantic heartbeat, but the longer the quiet stretched, the more the tension grew, winding tighter around me, pressing against my chest until I could scarcely breathe. This was the man whose hands had once ended my life. And yet, he crossed his arms to keep them at his sides, as if trying not to reach for something neither of us wanted named.
“There’s no reason to be afraid.” His tone was quiet, almost gentle. But that was where he was wrong. With him, every moment was a reason for terror.
“Of course there’s reason,” I snapped, voice sharp with panic I could no longer contain as my contained emotions slipped further from my weak grasp. “We’re locked in this chamber together with no way out.” The fear pushed harder into recklessness, my sole means of defense. “You did this on purpose.”
