Page 93 of Queen
Velvet lines the inside, black and smooth, cradling the pieces I’ve stolen of her. Not jewelry. Not coins or crowns. No—Zina isn’t measured in wealth. She’s measured in scars, in fire, in the ruins she leaves behind. And I’ve hoarded those ruins like relics.
The veil. Torn, frayed at the edges, a remnant of Giovanni’s wedding. She wore it like armor that day, trying to cover the truth—her chains, her silence, her fear. I wasn’t supposed to have it, but I slipped it from a pew when no one was looking, the faint trace of her perfume still clinging to the lace. Even now, years later, I can smell her in memory. A ghost.
The lipstick. Crimson, worn down to the nub. She used to paint her mouth with this when she wanted to wound me without a word. A slash of red sharper than any knife, a promise of defiance every time she smirked. I used to imagine kissing it away until nothing but her bare mouth remained, mine alone.
And the note. Creased from being opened too many times, the ink nearly faded. Only two words in her hand:Protect him.NotI love you.NotDon’t let go.Not evengoodbye.Just a command. A plea sharpened to steel.
I pour a glass of scotch, the amber liquid burning in the low light. I don’t drink. Not yet. I just stare at it, waiting for her reflection to appear in the glass like some fucked-up miracle. It doesn’t.
The villa feels emptier without her, stripped of air, of warmth. Even the men look at me differently now. They whisper that she weakened me, that exile broke my grip. They’re wrong. She’s the only reason I’m still breathing. Without her, I’m just ash waiting for wind.
I lift the veil, press it to my face. The scent is long gone, but memory fills in what time erased. Her laugh echoing in that chapel. The fury in her glare when she caught me watching. The vow in her eyes that day:I’ll never kneel for you.
My laugh shreds the silence, jagged and hollow. Because she did kneel. In fire. In ruin. And still—she won.
I slam the scotch back, throat searing. My reflection in the window stares back at me: hollow-eyed, jaw tight, a king who looks more ghost than man.
The note crumples in my fist, blood smearing the words as the scar on my palm splits open again. My voice rips out, low and hoarse, a curse and a vow tangled together.
“You’ll come back. You always come back.”
But even as I say it, the lie tastes like ash. Because memory is a weapon, and tonight it’s cutting me to pieces.
Desperate Obsession
The bedroom reeks of her. Roses. Smoke. Skin. The scent clings to the plaster, soaked into the mattress, carved into the wood like an echo of the war we waged here. I stand in the doorway too long, staring like a lunatic, waiting for her shadow to stretch across the floor. It doesn’t. She’s gone.
But the room lies to me. It whispers otherwise.
I close the door and lock it. The slide of the bolt is final—a coffin lid slamming shut. My guards mutter down the hall, pretending they know loyalty, pretending they’ve ever felt what it means to bleed for someone. They don’t. Loyalty isn’t standing outside with a gun. Loyalty is this sickness choking me now, the weight in my chest that splits me open because she’s not here to breathe me back together.
The bed is unmade, a crime scene left behind. The sheets are tangled silk, knotted with sweat, still dented where her body lay. My muscles ache with memory. I rip my shirt over my head and throw it aside, stumbling forward until I collapse into the hollow she left. The silk is cool against my burning skin. I bury my face in her pillow, inhaling like a drowning man clawing for air. She’s here. She’s gone. She’s everywhere.
My eyes close and the reel begins. Zina—hair wild, lips bitten raw from spitting curses at me, thighs locked around my hipslike chains forged in fire. Not surrendering. Never surrendering. Fighting me even as she opened herself, dragging me deeper into ruin. My ruin.
“Fuck,” I snarl, the word jagged as the ache coils sharp in my gut.
My belt snaps open. There’s no thought, no hesitation. My fist closes around myself hard, punishing, vicious. Every stroke is rage. Every gasp is prayer. My chest bows, veins burning as I chase the phantom of her heat.
She’s on me again in my head, nails raking down my back, teeth breaking skin, her voice a blade in the dark.You’ll never own me.
I grind into the sheets, stroking faster, savage. “I don’t want to fucking own you,” I growl, biting the pillow, breath breaking. “I just want to burn inside you until you scream my name.”
The pillow reeks faintly of her perfume—roses laced with smoke, danger in silk. I rut against it like a beast starved, the drag of fabric sticky with sweat, each thrust desperate, brutal, hollow. Because it isn’t her. It will never be her.
And then, in the blur of madness, I hear her. Not memory—mockery. Low, merciless.Say my name, Emiliano.
“Zina.” Her name tears from my chest, broken, raw. Louder, harsher, until the walls know it. “Zina!”
Release rips through me violent, wrecking me against the sheets. My body convulses, not with triumph, but with emptiness so sharp it feels like death.
I roll onto my back, chest heaving, staring at the cracked ceiling like it might show me her face. The silence after is worse than the ache. It’s a tomb.
My hand fists the sheets, damp with sweat. My voice cracks, softer than prayer, more desperate than any command.
“You’ll come back. You always come back.”
Vow of Devotion (and Vengeance)
