Chapter 225: Chapter 225: Consequences (1) [Win-Win]

Natalie did not flinch.

That, perhaps, was the worst thing of all.

She should have. Any sensible person would have. There had been something in his voice just then that did not belong to a teen standing on winter balconies with champagne in their hands and old history between them.

But Natalie Frasner had been raised among monsters polished into nobility, among princes who smiled while delivering ruin and consorts who could dismantle a life with a lifted brow. She knew what danger felt like when it wore silk and perfect posture.

So she looked straight at him, eyes bright with hurt and rage and a humiliation she would rather have died than let him witness clearly, and gave him the only thing she had left that still felt clean.

"Never talk to me again."

Her voice came out colder than the tears burning behind her eyes, which was good, because she would not cry in front of him.

Not after he had stood there with her whole childhood in his hands and treated it like something cheap enough to lie across.

She turned before the heat in her eyes could spill over and betray her, one hand already tightening around the stem of her glass, the other free at her side, her back straight enough to pass for dignity if anyone through the warded glass happened to be watching.

She made it one step.

Then Arik caught her wrist.

His fingers closed around her with startling speed, the force of it stole her balance before she could decide whether to wrench free or whirl around and strike him again.

Natalie did both too late.

Because Arik pulled.

It was not graceful nor careful in the way court boys were taught to be careful with noble daughters in public spaces.

It was immediate.

One second she was moving away from him with all the brittle, furious pride she had left. The next moment, she was dragged back across the narrow space between them, champagne forgotten, the world shifting sharply under her heels, and then his arms were around her.

Natalie went still in pure shock.

The glass in her hand tilted dangerously but did not fall. Her free hand pressed hard against his chest on instinct, ready to shove, ready to fight, ready to tell him to take his hands off her before she made a scene so catastrophic that the ballroom would still be talking about it at Arik’s grandchildren’s weddings.

But the words never arrived.

Because Arik held her like a person trying to stop her from breaking.

One arm locked around her back, firm enough that escape would take effort. The other came up higher, his hand settling at the back of her shoulders as though to shield. He bent his head just slightly, enough that anyone looking through the glass might mistake the posture for romance instead of disaster, enough that the line of his body blocked her face from the ballroom and, more importantly, from the world.

From him, too, if she turned just enough.

Natalie’s breath caught.

"You do not get to say that," he said, and the cold resonance from a moment ago had changed into something lower now, roughened by strain. "You do not get to tell me never again because I was an idiot for one sentence."

"One sentence?" Natalie said, and the sound that came out of her was so wounded that she hated it instantly. She shoved against his chest harder. "One sentence?"

Arik did not let go.

"No."

"No?" Her voice sharpened. "No?"

His hold tightened by a fraction just enough to keep her exactly where she was while she burned in it. "No," he said again, quieter this time. "Not like this."

She laughed once, a small, furious sound with tears all through it. "You lied to my face."

"I know."

"You insulted me."

"I know."

"You stood there and looked at me like I was stupid enough to believe that."

That struck something in him, but he didn’t let it show.

Arik had learned too much from Damian to show cracks on the outside. But she felt it in the way his breath changed against her hair, in the brief stillness that went too deep to be composure.

"I know," he said for the third time, and this time it sounded terrible.

Natalie swallowed hard, furious at her own throat for tightening. "Then let go."

"No."

"I mean it."

"I know that too."

She hated him.

She hated him for answering like that, for sounding so calm when her chest felt too tight and her eyes stung so badly that blinking was turning dangerous, and for holding her in the middle of this stupid beautiful balcony as if he had any right at all.

Most of all, she hated that he was so clearly putting himself between her and the glass, the ballroom, and every possible witness.

As if he knew exactly why she had turned away so fast.

As if he knew she would rather be skinned alive than let those tears become public.

Her fingers, still braced against his chest, curled into the black fabric of his formal jacket. "Let," she said, each word cut and precise, "go of me."

Arik lowered his head a little further, enough that his mouth was near her temple, his voice pitched for her alone.

"If I let go right now," he said, "you’ll walk inside with your face like this and half the court will decide I proposed, rejected you, ruined you, or all three in the space of five minutes."

Natalie’s eyes closed.

Because that was the kind of answer she usually wanted. Practical. Sharp. Intelligent. Infuriatingly aware of the room even when the room was behind glass and three layers of etiquette away.

But now it only made the pain under her ribs twist harder.

"You don’t get to protect me from consequences after causing them."

"No," he murmured. "Probably not."

The honesty of that hit far worse than defense would have.

For one awful second, Natalie felt the first tear break loose.

Mortification shot through her so fast it left heat behind.

She turned her face harder into the line of his shoulder, more out of furious self-preservation than consent, because if he saw that, she would never forgive him, and if anyone else did, she would start a war and let the empire sort itself out after.

Arik did not comment.

He only moved one hand up, letting his fingers gently spread through the silk at the back of her shoulders, and held her there. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

The winter wards hummed softly around the balcony. Somewhere inside, beyond the tall glass, music went on. Laughter continued. Crystal flashed. The world, offensively, had not ended.

Natalie’s voice came muffled and unsteady against him. "I would have understood a refusal."

Arik shut his eyes.

She did not see it, but she could feel it in a way that was disturbing even to her.

"I know," he said at last.