Page 64 of Vow to Claim You

She studies me the moment we’re alone. “How is your new life?”

Images flash in my mind before I can find an answer. Aric throwing himself over me as the bullet flew. Aric holding Luca captive. Aric, cold as a fjord one moment and unbearably gentle the next. Norway. Elske. Vidar at the head of his table. The endless tightrope stretched between safety and danger. Him.

Not the life I imagined.

Not quite the nightmare I feared, either.

“It’s… not as bad as I expected,” I admit.

Her shoulders come down a fraction. “I’m glad he’s behaving like a decent man.” The skepticism doesn’t leave her eyes. “Given that family’s reputation, we feared he’d treat you like a beast.”

“He’s different from his father.”

That part, at least, is true. Vidar radiates domination—control for the pleasure of it. Aric controls because the world built him to. It’s a distinction I never expected to make.

“Don’t let that fool you, Ayanna,” she says. “He’s still an enemy.”

Enemy. Funny word for a husband.

“The enemy you’re describing is my husband,” I remind her. “And you’re the one who arranged it.”

Her lips press thin. Pride, stung. “We did what was necessary.”

Necessary. That word has ruined more lives than hatred ever has.

She reaches for the tea, takes a graceful sip, then sets it down again. “And your…” She hesitates—and my mother never hesitates. “Your wedding night?”

The awkwardness settles over us both at once, and I understand the silence that follows. We don’t speak of such things in this house. It isn’t proper.

“We didn’t exactly have one.” I lower my gaze for a fraction as I say.

Her head lifts, eyes snapping to mine. “What do you mean?”

“We haven’t slept together.”

“Ayanna.” She presses a hand flat to the table as though the floor’s tilted beneath her. “If the marriage isn’t consummated, it can be annulled. You must secure your position.”

Position. Not happiness. Not love. Position.

“You need an heir.” The words hit harder than they should. Perhaps because Luca’s grave isn’t even filled yet.

Because that’s the thing no one in this house will say out loud—not my father at lunch, not my mother now, not a single soul since I stepped off that plane. No one has spoken his name. I came home to bury Luca, and this family has already decided the kindest thing to do with him is pretend he never existed. They’ll lower him into Monserian soil and into the same silence they keep for everything inconvenient—and in the very same breath, they’ll ask me about heirs.

“This alliance gives your father access to power,” my mother continues, without ever noticing the pain I’m carrying inside. “It protects Monsera.”

Of course it does. Everything protects Monsera. Everything except the people sacrificed for it.

I nod, because nodding is easier than the truth clawing its way up my throat. Even here, in the house where I grew up, I was never a daughter.

Just an asset that learned to walk.

My old bedroom hasn’t changed. Same cream walls. Same carved headboard. Same balcony doors breathing in that warm Monsera air. Everything exactly where I left it weeks ago, and standing in the middle of it feels like walking through someone else’s life instead of coming back to my own.

Norway did that. Stripped the comfort out of the familiar. Taught me how quickly a home can turn into nothing more than an address.

My suitcase sits unopened by the wardrobe. I don’t bother with it. I won’t be here long enough for unpacking to mean anything.

Maylin remains posted outside the door. She planted herself there the second I left my mother as though I might evaporate the moment no one’s watching.