Jealousy didn't arrive loudly.
It crept in on soft feet, uninvited and unwelcome, slipping into the bond like poison in wine. Slow. Insidious. The kind of thing you don't notice until it's already in your bloodstream.
I felt it before I understood it, a sudden tightening in my chest that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with something far more primal. Territory. Possession. Mine.
Except nothing was mine. Not him. Not this bond. Not even my own damn feelings half the time.
That should've been my first warning.
I was halfway through the gardens when it hit, strong enough to make me stop walking. My breath caught. My hands went cold. The roses around me were in full bloom, their petals soft as silk, their scent sweet enough to make you dizzy. The day was beautiful. Peaceful.
The emotion tearing through my chest was neither.
This wasn't mine.
Not entirely.
It came from Caelan, raw and ugly and unmistakably directed at someone else. No, not at someone. Because of someone.
My fingers curled into my skirts before I could stop myself, bunching the fabric tight enough to wrinkle.
Who?
The bond didn't answer with words. It never did. It answered with sensation, with impressions that bypassed language entirely. Tight control cracking under pressure. Irritation sharpened by something close to possessive fury. And beneath it all, a thread of something that felt almost like panic.
I hated how quickly my mind filled in the blanks. How easily I conjured scenarios I had no business imagining.
I should have gone back to my rooms. Should have taken a bath, read a book, done literally anything other than what I did next.
I followed it.
Again.
The great hall was alive with sound when I reached it. Laughter echoed off the vaulted ceiling, bright and performative. Conversation hummed like bees, everyone speaking at once and no one really listening. Glass clinked against glass in endless toasts to things that didn't matter. Another gathering. Another political performance where everyone wore their best faces and sharpest smiles.
I lingered near the entrance, already bracing myself for the stares. They came immediately. Eyes sliding toward me, then away. Whispers behind raised hands. The bond girl. The complication. The thing that didn't quite fit into anyone's carefully ordered world.
I'd gotten used to it. Mostly.
Then I saw him.
Caelan stood near the dais, positioned exactly where someone of his rank should be. He was composed and devastatingly calm, every inch the prince he'd been raised to be. His attention was fixed on the woman beside him with the kind of focus that made my stomach drop.
Lady Mireya.
Of course.
She was beautiful in that effortless way that some people just were, like they'd been designed by committee to be universally appealing. Dark hair pinned in an elaborate style that probably took an hour but looked casual. Smooth skin. Perfect posture. A smile that was measured and confident, the smile of someone who had never questioned their place in the world or wondered if they belonged.
Her hand rested on Caelan's arm. Not gripping. Not clutching. Just there. Comfortable. Familiar.
Too familiar.
The bond snarled inside my chest like a living thing with teeth.
I inhaled sharply, the emotion washing over me so completely I couldn't tell where his feelings ended and mine began. It burned through my veins like alcohol, warming me from the inside out in a way that felt both good and dangerous.
I didn't have any right to it.
That was the worst part.
I had no claim to him. No understanding between us. No promises made. We'd spent as much time pushing each other away as pulling closer. We'd said cruel things. Avoided each other. Pretended this thing between us was just magic, just biology, just anything other than what it actually was.
And yet here I stood, drowning in jealousy that wasn't even entirely my own.
They were talking quietly, heads inclined toward each other in a way that suggested intimacy. Privacy. The kind of conversation that didn't need to be loud to be important. She said something I couldn't hear. He responded, his expression serious but not unkind.
She laughed. Soft. Intimate. Musical.
He didn't pull away.
My chest burned.
This was ridiculous. Childish. Irrational. I was behaving like a jealous lover when I wasn't his lover at all. When he'd made it abundantly clear that I was a complication he didn't want, a weakness he couldn't afford.
And yet the feelings kept coming, wave after wave of them.
The bond pulsed again, thick with restrained anger and something dangerously close to regret. Not my regret. His. I could feel it sliding under his skin like broken glass, sharp and uncomfortable and impossible to ignore.
Caelan felt it too, felt me feeling it, the loop of emotion feeding back on itself. I could tell by the way his posture stiffened, spine going rigid like someone had shoved a rod through it. By the brief flicker of irritation that crossed his face, there and gone in a heartbeat.
Then his gaze lifted.
He saw me.
The connection snapped tight between us, sudden and electric, like a wire pulled to its breaking point. The air seemed to thicken. My heart kicked against my ribs.
His expression changed instantly. The careful princely mask slammed down, leaving his face guarded, dark, unreadable. But I felt what was underneath it. Frustration. Guilt. Want. Anger at himself for wanting.
It was a mess. We were a mess.
Mireya followed his gaze, her attention tracking across the room until it landed on me. Her eyes sharpened immediately, assessing me with the efficiency of someone used to identifying threats.
Ah.
So she knew.
Not just about the bond in abstract terms, but about me specifically. About what I might mean to him.
She leaned closer to Caelan, her fingers pressing lightly into his sleeve. The gesture was subtle but unmistakable. A claim. A reminder. Mine, or at least mine by right and custom and everything that mattered in this world.
The bond exploded.
Not outward this time, not in any way anyone else could see. Inward. A vicious knot of jealousy, frustration, and denial that nearly took my breath away. I felt Caelan's desperate effort to suppress it, to force it down beneath layers of training and pride and royal composure.
It slipped anyway, bleeding through the bond like ink through water.
My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against my sides.
"Who is she?" Mireya asked him, her voice smooth but edged with curiosity. The question of someone who already knew the answer but wanted to hear him say it.
I felt his hesitation like it was my own, a stutter in the rhythm of his thoughts.
"Seraphina," he said finally.
Just my name.
Not my title, though I technically had one now. Not my position in the court or the household. Not even an explanation of what I was doing there.
Just Seraphina, hanging in the air between us like an admission of defeat.
Something about that hurt more than it should have. Like I was an afterthought. A footnote. Someone who didn't merit a full introduction.
Mireya's gaze swept over me, slow and assessing, taking in every detail. My simpler dress, less elaborate than hers. My hair, pinned but not styled with the same precision. The way I stood, neither fully in the room nor fully out of it, occupying the space of someone who didn't quite belong.
"Ah," she said, and the single syllable contained volumes. Understanding. Dismissal. A certain satisfaction. "The bond."
There it was.
Not my name. Not who I was or where I came from or anything about me as a person.
Just the bond.
A thing. A circumstance. An unfortunate magical accident.
I stepped forward before I could stop myself, drawn by something I couldn't name. Pride, maybe. Or stubbornness. Or the simple human need to be seen as more than a magical inconvenience.
"Nice to finally meet you," I said, and my voice came out steadier than I felt.
Her smile didn't reach her eyes. "I'm sure it is."
The dismissal was so casual it almost slid past me. Almost.
Caelan stiffened beside her. "This isn't necessary."
"Oh, I think it is," Mireya said, her tone pleasant but firm. She had the confidence of someone used to being heard, to having her judgments matter. "If she's going to be involved, we should at least understand the situation."
The word scraped across my nerves like sandpaper.
Involved.
As if I'd chosen this. As if I'd walked into the palace one day and decided to upend everyone's carefully laid plans for the sheer fun of it.
I laughed softly, though there was no humor in it. "Trust me. This wasn't my plan either."
Her eyebrow lifted, a perfect arc of skepticism. "Was it his?"
The silence that followed was brutal.
The kind of silence that has weight and texture, that presses against your eardrums and makes you want to fill it with noise, any noise, just to make it stop.
The bond throbbed between us, angry and confused, tugging in every direction at once. I felt Caelan's struggle, the war being waged inside him between what he should say and what he wanted to say and what he could afford to say in front of an audience.
His jaw tightened, muscle jumping beneath skin.
"No," he said finally.
One word. Simple. Clear.
It should have been reassuring. Should have felt like an alliance, like us against the world, like proof that we were at least on the same side of this mess.
It wasn't.
Because he didn't look at me when he said it.
His eyes stayed fixed on some middle distance, not quite meeting Mireya's gaze, definitely not meeting mine. Like if he didn't look at me, the words wouldn't hurt. Like distance would make them true.
Mireya's smile returned, sharper now, edged with something that might have been triumph. "Then you'll forgive me for being cautious. Bonds are unpredictable things. Powerful. They've been known to override better judgment."
The implication was clear. I was the override. The glitch in the system. The thing that might make him forget who he really was and what he really owed.
"You don't say," I replied, my voice dry as dust.
Her attention flicked back to Caelan, and her expression softened into something that looked almost like concern. Almost like affection. "You should be careful. Attachments like this tend to complicate things. They cloud judgment, create vulnerabilities. Enemies will look for any weakness they can exploit."
She wasn't wrong. I hated that she wasn't wrong.
But something in me snapped anyway.
Maybe it was the casual way she talked about me like I wasn't standing right there. Maybe it was the way Caelan just stood there and let her, like he agreed with every word. Maybe it was three days of avoiding each other followed by this, followed by feeling his jealousy and confusion and having no right to do anything about it.
"Funny," I said quietly, and both of them turned to look at me. "That's exactly what he said about me. That I'm a complication. A weakness he can't afford. So really, you're just telling him what he already believes."
The bond flared between us, hot and furious and deeply conflicted.
Caelan turned to me sharply, something dangerous flashing in his eyes. "Enough."
But I wasn't done.
"I didn't ask for this," I continued, and my voice stayed level even though I felt like I was cracking open from the inside out. "I didn't ask to be bonded to someone who resents my existence half the time and can't decide what I am to him the other half. I didn't ask to be talked about like I'm not in the room or dismissed as just 'the bond' like I'm not an actual person with thoughts and feelings."
I looked at him then, really looked. At the tension in his shoulders. At the way his hands had curled into fists at his sides. At the way he stood there between obligation and instinct like a man being slowly pulled apart, muscle from bone, piece by piece.
"You don't get to hide behind silence," I said softly. "Not when everyone else is so comfortable deciding what I am to you. Not when you won't say it yourself but you'll let her say it for you."
His breath hitched, sharp and sudden.
The sound felt like victory and defeat all at once.
That was the confirmation I needed, even if I wasn't sure what I was confirming.
I stepped back, breaking whatever invisible line had been holding us in that awful tableau.
The hall felt too loud suddenly, too bright, too full of people who were definitely watching now, who would be talking about this for days. The bond girl making a scene. How predictable. How common.
"Enjoy your evening," I said, and somehow my voice stayed steady, stayed polite, even though I wanted to scream. "Both of you."
I turned and walked away before either of them could stop me.
My steps were measured. Controlled. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing me run.
The bond screamed in protest, a physical sensation like hooks being dragged through my chest. It didn't want distance. It never wanted distance.
Too bad.
Jealousy followed me like a shadow, thick and unresolved, settling deep in my bones where I'd probably feel it for days. Mine or his, I couldn't tell anymore. Maybe there wasn't a difference. Maybe that was the point.
This wasn't just about attraction anymore, if it ever had been.
It was about ownership. About the terrible vulnerability of wanting someone who might not want you back, not enough to choose you over everything else. About fear, the kind that makes you lash out at the people you care about because caring is too dangerous.
About what happens when people pretend they don't care, right up until someone else shows interest. Then suddenly all those feelings you'd been denying come roaring back.
And somewhere behind me, I felt Caelan make a choice.
I just didn't know yet whether it would save us or ruin everything.