Page 8 of Haunted Crowns
“I was startled.”
“He shoved you.”
“Exactly. Because he thinks I’m fragile, and you proved him right. In front of half the Summit.”
His temper flared. “So I should’ve just let him—” He stopped himself, jaw clenched. “I can’t believe we’re fighting about this.”
“I didn’t need saving.”
His voice sharpened. “I wasn’t going to stand there and watch him put his hands on you, Eris. I carried you because the alternative was dragging Kareon off the floor.”
She stiffened. “So this was about him.”
“No,” Stephan said, voice strained. “This was about you. You were hurt.”
She took a step back, arms folding like armor.
“You never listen. I keep saying I can handle myself. But of course you had to swoop in. Make it a spectacle. A rescue.”
“I don’t think you’re fragile,” he said, quiet but firm. “But I can’t pretend I don’t care when someone lays a hand on you.”
“Then stop proving to everyone else that you think I’m not enough,” she said. “I don’tneedyou, Stephan.”
The words came too fast—too sharp—before she could stop them. She hadn’t meant them like that. Not really. But it was too late. She saw it in the flicker of hurt in his eyes, in the way his breath hitched.
“Fine,” he murmured. “Then I’ll do us both a favor and get out of your way.”
His voice wasn’t cold, just broken. She opened her mouth. She wanted to say something, to take it back. But the words tangled. Too many emotions, not enough space. She’d never been good at letting them out when it mattered most. So she said nothing. Just curled her fists, furious with him, with herself. She wasn’t even sure who she was angry at anymore.
Stephan gave a short nod. The mask slipped back into place. Prince. Soldier. Stranger.
“Get some rest,” he said.
He turned toward the door. Eris didn’t stop him. She watched his back, watched hope flicker when he paused, his hand hovering on the frame, but he didn’t look back. The door closed.And the silence he left behind felt heavier than anything Kareon could’ve thrown at her.
This wasn’t how it was meant to go, not after a year of skirting around truth. Not after everything. But the shame—the fear that she still looked small, fragile, that he might see her that way too—stung too much.
She gathered her things and stormed out, limping, but furious.Let them think what they want. Let them doubt me.She would not let this place shrink her into nothing.I am Eris Dragov. And Dragovs don’t cower.
But the image of him—his silence, his retreat—trailed behind her like a ghost she couldn’t shake. And it ached, deeper than she dared admit.
The Astareth Assembly – A Fractured Court
The grand hall of Astareth Summit rose like a cathedral of dark marble and flickering firelight, its chandeliers burning with eternal flames. Tonight, however, it resembled a battlefield.
A mandatory assembly had convened to reinforce unity and order, gathering the Summit’s factions under one roof. Unity was a façade; division ran deep, drawn in bloodlines and hierarchy.
Eris Dragov sat elevated on the dais where the Firstblood nobility reigned, adorned in gold-trimmed attire and sharp gazes: power wrapped in silk and tradition. A few seats away, Stephan Dragov remained unmoving. They did not exchange glances, but between them stretched the weight of everything unsaid.
Crimson Vitae shimmered in her goblet, a synthetic sacrament of so-called progress. Eris sipped, tasting nothing but scrutiny: They were watching her. They always had.
Her hands were steady, but the weight in her chest told another story. To the Obsidian Order, she and her kind were relics. They reclined at the fringes, draped in modern wealth: gold rings, tailored silks, effortless arrogance. Their eyes flicked to sleek tech at their wrists, tracking data she couldn’t see. They drank the same synthetic blood, but to them, it was an insult. They still hunted, still fed in the dark, still defied the crown, and no one stopped them.
At the bottom of the hall, humans and Lycans sat in forced silence, not together, never together. Humans were tolerated; Lycans were controlled. They sat at separate tables, their blood rationed and restricted. They did not drink for pleasure; they fed to survive. And unlike everyone else, they were watched.
Obsidian soldiers lined the exits, weapons ready—enforcers of order within the Summit halls and, increasingly, throughout Goznoth. If a Lycan fought, they simply disappeared.
The air crackled with unspoken violence. This was a powder keg awaiting a spark.
