Chapter 135: He Was Done Being Silent
Lorraine froze, her breath ragged in her chest. Slowly, she turned—and there he was. Leroy stood in the center of the hall, his hair damp with sweat, his cloak disheveled, his eyes burning with something she could not bear to face.
"Why?" His voice was low now, but all the more dangerous for it. "Why do you keep running from me?"
Her lips parted, but no sound came. The throne loomed behind her, not a symbol of power now but an empty shadow of it, pressing her down, leaving her exposed. She no longer felt like the powerful person in the room as she stood there. And that was a first.
He was speaking to her. After all the walls she built, after every attempt to slip from his reach, he had found her, and of all the questions he could have asked...
Why do you hide the truth that you can hear, that you can speak?
Why do you break every law and put my life at risk?
Why are you humiliating me by dressing like this and mingling with the lowly people down here?
Why do you refuse to be like other noblewomen, painting lilies or stitching silks, instead of scheming in blood and shadow?
Why did you kidnap your own family? Torture them?
A thousand questions hung between them like sharpened blades. And he asked none of them.
Instead... He asked this... He asked why she ran from him.
Why?
The answer clawed inside her chest. She ran because one more harsh word from him would destroy her. She ran because seeing him despise her would ruin her. Running was all that kept her heart from shattering.
So why did he ask this?
"Has Zara recovered?" Lorraine said at last, her voice brittle. "And I’m not letting Elyse go."
A single torch hissed somewhere behind the throne, throwing warped shadows along the wet stone walls. The sound echoed like a serpent’s breath, coiling around her words.
Whatever he planned, she would not let him touch Elyse. Zara had wounded her only with words, perhaps stolen some quiet corner of Leroy’s heart, but Elyse... Elyse was unforgivable for taking her place in his heart.
He came closer, and when she stepped back, he sighed.
Lorraine stiffened. She did not understand that sigh. Was it pity? Condescension? A man exhaling over a woman too foolish to see what was plain?
As though he were perfect. As though she were the only broken one.
The sound scraped at her nerves, and her anger rose like a shield.
"You were furious at me for poisoning your mistress!" Lorraine’s voice rang sharp against the pillars. "I gave you what you wanted, and why are you here now? You will not stop me. You have no right to stop me!"
Her chest heaved, words tumbling out, only half-spoken. Her blood surged hot, carrying with it years of hurt, a thousand unsaid wounds. She wanted to scream at him for every scar he had carved into her.
She was about to spit Elyse’s name and name all the hurt he caused because of Elyse. But before she could, his voice cut through hers, low, unyielding, and devastatingly calm.
"I cut off Zara’s first two fingers," Leroy said, "and I threw her out of our mansion, along with Cedric."
Her fury staggered and faltered. "You never should have brought her there in the first place when I was living there!" she snapped back, the torchlight flaring as though the air itself caught on her anger. The stone pillars loomed around them like sentinels, impassive and ancient, watching not the clash of kingdoms, but the war of husband and wife, too proud and too wounded to speak plainly.
And then the words struck her in full.
Wait... what?
At first, she had only heard him dismissing Zara. But he had cut her fingers, too?
Her voice cracked, sharp with disbelief. "Why... why would you cut her fingers?"
Hadn’t he raged at her for poisoning Zara? Hadn’t he plucked the antidote from her hands, furious, blaming her for something? He saved the woman... and then maimed her?
Leroy’s gaze held hers, steady, unreadable. For all her cunning, for all her power to move men like pawns on a board, she could not seem to fathom him, her own husband. And that... that burned him more than her barbed words ever could.
How could she not see? How could she wield such mastery over everyone else, yet fail to understand the one man who would do anything for her? Who already had?
It hurt him. Gods, it hurt. But he was done being silent.
For too long, he had spoken his love in actions, by bleeding, fighting, yielding, and waiting. Always waiting for that day she would finally come to him, tail tucked, words trembling on her lips as her love she held close in her heart, spilling out despite her pride.
But perhaps he had waited long enough.
"Because I was told she threatened to kill you... and wanted your bedchamber," Leroy said. "No one can even think of replacing you under my roof."
There. He had said it... plain, unornamented, and brutal in its simplicity.
Lorraine’s eyes widened. The torch sputtered against the stone wall, its glow barely reaching him where he stood. From her lower vantage, she had to tilt her head back, and his height only deepened the shadows. His green eyes that were so close, yet still so far above her, caught the wavering firelight. Moss-dark one moment, molten gold the next. Something restless burned inside them, something the flickering flame could not explain.
Dangerous, yes. But not with anger, not with disappointment.
"For that?" Lorraine’s voice faltered into a whisper.
"She was never my mistress," Leroy said, steady as iron.
For once, he didn’t swallow the words back, didn’t hide behind his silence. All this time, he had thought he didn’t need to explain himself, that love proved itself in action alone. And yet here he was, realizing how much of a hypocrite he’d been for expecting her to come to him when he had never offered her his own truth.
Lorraine bit her lip, studying him, her chest rising and falling as though the weight of years pressed down on her. She let out a long, uneven sigh.
Leroy lifted his hand toward her. His voice softened, quiet but resolute. "Now, let’s go home."
Her head snapped up, her refusal bursting sharp against the vaulted chamber. "No!"
The word echoed, hard and final. "I’m going to live here. For the rest of my life."
The torch hissed as if in protest.
Leroy’s hand remained outstretched, but his shoulders sank. A sigh escaped him—heavy, tired, but no, he was not defeated. Not yet.