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I know that now with absolute certainty.

He would track me through the woods, ride all the way to the village if necessary. He would find me wherever I tried to hide and drag me back to this castle because he has already decided that I belong here.

That I belong to him.

The first hot tear slips from the corner of my eye and travels sideways across the bridge of my nose, disappearing into the pillow.

He’ll never let me go.

Until now, some part of me has always treated this as temporary. Weeks, perhaps. Months at the absolute worst. There was always some distant future where I returned home, where I walked through my own front door and found my father waiting for me, where this castle became something terrible that happened to me rather than the place where the rest of my life would happen.

That future disappears.

When Rhys says prisoner, he means forever.

Something inside me simply gives way.

The anger disappears first, followed by the desperate calculations I’m constantly making without even realizing it—the distance to the door, where the keys might be, whether Bramble is saddled, whether the weather might hold long enough for me to reach the village. Even the fear dulls around the edges because fear requires believing there’s something left to save.

I stop struggling. My hands go limp inside his grip, and my body sinks into the mattress while I stare at nothing.

“Okay,” I whisper.

His fingers remain tight around my wrists for another moment, then he releases me and climbs off the bed.

I don’t move immediately.

Eventually, I push myself upright and sit there with my shoulders hunched, concentrating on breathing because that’s easier than thinking about anything else. My cheek throbs in time with my heartbeat, and my lip burns where my teeth must have caught it when he struck me. But I refuse to cry any harder while he’s still standing there.

“You belong to me,” he says.

It’s unnecessary to say. I’m well aware.

I swing my legs over the opposite side of the bed and stand, putting the mattress between us without consciously realizing I’m doing it. When I press the pad of my thumb against my stinging lip and pull it away, blood dots the center of my finger, bright against my skin. I stare at it briefly, then lick it away.

I walk to the window.

Snow stretches in every direction, burying the mountain under an endless expanse of white until the world beyond the glass hardly looks real. Somewhere beyond those trees and all that snow is the village, my house, my father and every ordinary piece of the life I once thought would always be waiting for me.

I wonder what he thinks happened to me.

I wonder whether he waits for me.

I wonder how long he’ll keep waiting until he understands that I’m never coming home.

Behind me, the door closes.

The lock slides into place with a heavy metallic click.

Usually, that sound makes me panic. I listen for Rhys’s footsteps to disappear, test the handle even though I already know it won’t turn, pace the room, cry, or stare at the door while imagining every impossible way I might get through it.

This time, I don’t move.

I remain in front of the window with my arms hanging at my sides, staring out at the mountain while Rhys’s footsteps fade down the corridor.

I don’t think about escaping.

I don’t think about trying again.