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How do you handle pain?
Each question is a blade slid carefully between her defenses, testing for weakness.
They are not welcoming her. They’re finding the proper little box to put her in before she becomes inconveniently real and won’t leave.
Zaiya knows it now.
She does well. Better than they had expected.
But I also hear every old lesson underneath her answers. Every punishment that made her agreeable. She showed them her teeth once, then lost her nerve when challenged. The rest is elegance when what they really want is a fight.
My grandfather eyes her as he swallows a bite of steak.
“Twenty-one is young for a Seraph. You lack any real-world experience.”
Zaiya’s shoulders stiffen. She’s barely lived because she wasn’t allowed to.
“I’ll learn as I go.”
They don’t believe in her.
Whether it’s her age or her lack of experience, it doesn’t matter. It’s offensive to me that they think I would choose a woman incapable of holding her own.
Because even now, beneath all those careful answers, they ought to recognize the anger in her. The desire to reclaim the her stolen agency.
I was twenty-one when they decided I was old enough to serve this Order. No one questioned whether I’d lived enough first.
I push my chair back.
That ends it.
Zaiya sets down her spoon and rises with me.
“We’ll be leaving now,” I say, finishing the last of my wine. “Thank you for the motivation.”
No one begs us to stay.
Liam is the one who stands before I can get her out of here. He catches my arm and steers me aside. Reese stands and shifts into the space I vacated beside Zaiya, keeping her from being left alone in the middle of the room while Liam detains me.
“Are you certain she’s the one?” Liam asks quietly.
I look across the room at her. At the way she listens to Reese politely, still enduring the hell of Crotavere men, neither cowering nor pretending she isn’t under observation.
“Yes. There is no other choice.”
“And she agreed to this willingly?”
My tone goes dry. “Yes, Liam. Zaiya is quite happy to be with me.”
That does nothing to deter him.
“Did you explain the cost?”
I rake my fingers through my hair. “She knows enough.”
His grip tightens on my arm. “That isn’t what I asked.”
“I’m not worried about it, and you shouldn’t be either.”
