Candice slowly woke up from sleep.
For a brief moment, she did not remember where she lay or what had happened. There was only the steady rhythm beneath her hand of the quiet rise and fall of a chest and the comforting weight of an arm curved around her waist.
The fire still glowed faintly in the hearth, casting soft amber light across the room. She felt held and safe.
She took a deep breath and the scent reached her before the memories did. The scent of musk, mint, and something faintly sharp beneath it like ink.
She opened her eyes and blushed as the memories flooded her.
She found Cassius asleep beside her and they were both naked.
His face was turned slightly toward her, his features were relaxed in a way she had never seen before and the mask was gone.
Her breath caught, and she stilled at once, afraid that even the smallest movement might wake him up and steal this moment precious away from her.
Without the mask, he looked younger. The harsh lines of control and command had eased away, leaving his face vulnerable and exposed. His brow was smooth, his lashes dark against his skin. His lips, so often pressed in a tight line, were fuller now, parted slightly as he slept. There was a faint scar near his temple in the shape of a crescent, she had not noticed it before but she wondered now how he had gotten it.
He looked so handsome, as he rested peacefully beside her.
This was not the distant lord, nor the cursed figure whispered about in hushed tones. This was simply a man, exhausted and unguarded, trusting her enough to sleep without clothes or armor present between them.
Candice shifted her body close enough to study him.
She traced his face with her eyes, committing every detail to memory. The strong line of his jaw. The way his curly black hair had fallen loose across his forehead. The warmth of his tan skin beneath her palm when she placed her hand against his chest.
His heart beat slow and steady beneath her touch.
He was alive and real. Not some elusive ghost.
Something warm and tender unfurled inside of her. Love at first sight? She was not sure.
She smiled as she thought, this was the man she had felt last night beneath her. The one no longer bound by restraint and fear. The one who had held her passionately not as a possession or a conquest, but as something precious to behold.
Her eyes burned unexpectedly with tears at feeling loved for a moment, and she blinked it quickly away to keep them from falling.
She wanted to stay awake, to keep watching him, to hold this image forever. But sleep was lulling her back in, gentle and insistent. She was drawn by the warmth of his body and the quiet certainty of being held and loved.
When she slept again, she did so with her hand still resting over his heart.
However, she woke up the second time to absence.
The warmth was gone. In its place was the cold.
The change was immediate and unmistakable. Her body knew it before her mind could register the absence. The space beside her felt wrong, too wide, and too cold. The fire had burned down to embers, and the light in the room now painted shadows against the walls.
Her heart began to race.
She turned sharply.
The bed was empty.
"No," she whispered, the word barely leaving her throat.
She sat up, clutching the sheet around herself as though it might anchor her. The room felt different now, stripped off his presence. His coat was no longer draped over the chair. The air felt thinner, the empty bedroom less inviting.
She rose and crossed the room, calling his name softly, then louder. There was no answer. Each step made the ache in her heart settle deeper and heavier.
Then she saw the letter.
It rested on the desk, a single sheet of paper held in place by his signet ring. The sight of it sent a sharp pain through her chest.
Her hands trembled as she picked it up.
The paper was thick. The ink was long dry and the writing was neat, deliberate. Every line bore the weight of careful thought.
Candice,
If you are reading this, then I have already gone.
An anguished cry escaped her lips as she sank into the chair near the fire.
I did not wake you because I knew you would try to stop me. I would not have been strong enough to refuse you.
Her vision blurred, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, forcing herself to continue.
What we shared was real. Every moment of it. You gave me something I believed I had lost. I will carry your love with me wherever I go.
Her fingers tightened around the paper.
There are things I have not told you. Not because you did not deserve honesty, but because I feared what that honesty would cost you.
The enchantress who cursed me still lives.
Candice pressed a hand to her mouth.
She bound me not only with magic, but with devotion that twisted into something darker. I have told myself over the years that what remains between us is only resentment.
That is not entirely true.
I still love her.
The words struck her like a slap across the face.
Tears flowed freely now, splashing onto the page.
I do not know whether that love is truly mine or something her magic carved into me. I only know for sure when I face her. Until then, I will never be free and if I am not free, then I have no right to ask you to remain beside me as my wife. You are free to be with whomever you wish. To be anywhere you wish to be. To live freely.
I am going to find her. To seek answers. To end this cursed bond.
If I return, it will be as a man unchained from his dark past.
If I do not, then know that leaving you was the hardest choice I have ever made. I believed it was kinder than asking you to wait for something I could not promise, my return.
Please do not follow me. The path ahead is dangerous, and I could not survive knowing you were harmed because of me.
Forgive me, if you can.
Cassius.
The letter slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor.
Candice sat motionless, the silence punishing her. Only hours ago, she had awakened to warmth and trust, to the unguarded face of a man who had let himself be seen. Now there was only his absence and the echo of words she could not hide herself from.
She pressed her palm to her chest.
"You should have let me choose," she whispered into the empty room.
Outside, dusk deepened, the first stars slowly appearing in the sky. Somewhere beyond the walls, he was already far away from her, chasing a past that still held him captive.
Her heart ached with loss. Was love from a man always going to elude her, she wondered.