Traitor.

  The man probably gave off some kind of stoic protector energy that dogs instinctively worshipped.

  Thorne leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. “Why are you here?”

  “Because I needed to be sure you were still breathing.” Nightbriar flipped another page.

  “I was.”

  “Unattended. Vulnerable. And prone to self-destructive stupidity.”

  Thorne narrowed his eyes. “I could have you reassigned.”

  “You could try.” The captain closed the book with a quiet snap.

  “Is this what I have to look forward to?” Thorne rose to his feet. “You hovering in doorways? Reading my books? Dropping cryptic insults while pretending they’re facts?”

  “I doubt I’ll make a habit of reading your books,” Nightbriar said, setting the volume on the side table with deliberate care.

  Thorne blinked. “What?”

  “Your books.” The captain gestured vaguely toward the shelves. “I probably won’t be borrowing them again.”

  Something cold settled in Thorne’s chest. Of course. Of course the captain had noticed. Had judged. Had probably catalogued every spine like evidence in an investigation.

  “Right,” Thorne said, voice tight. “Not your taste, I’m sure.”

  “Oh, I didn’t say that.” Nightbriar leaned back, one ankle crossing over his knee. His expression remained perfectly neutral—which somehow made it worse. “They’re just... aggressively unrealistic.”

  Thorne’s jaw clenched. “Unrealistic.”

  “Romantic nonsense.” The captain picked the book back up, flipped it open to a dog-eared page. “For example⁠—”

  “Don’t.”

  Nightbriar cleared his throat and read aloud, voice flat as parchment: “The guards heart thundered beneath the king’s palm, wild as a caged falcon. But as his lips parted on the kings name—breathless, desperate—Daemon knew he would forsake every duty for one taste of Xander’s surrender.’”

  Heat crawled up Thorne’s neck. Not embarrassment. Fury. Absolutely fury.

  “You’re done now,” he said.

  “Wait, there’s more.” The captain’s finger traced down the page. “Daemon pulled the guard closer, fingers digging into his armour like he could claw through metal to reach skin. ‘Take it off,’ he commanded, voice rough with need.”

  “I will have you executed.”

  “‘And when Xander finally stood before him—bare, vulnerable, every scar and sin exposed—he didn’t flinch. Daemon’s gaze devoured Xander like a man starved. ‘Beautiful,’ he whispered, tracing the map of violence across the guard’s chest. ‘Every mark. Every wound. You’ve bled for me in a thousand ways. Now let me worship every one.’”

  Nightbriar looked up, expression utterly bland. “No one talks like this. This man would be dead in the first chapter if he spent this much time philosophising about scars instead of, I don’t know, watching the perimeter.”

  Thorne lunged.

  Not violently. Not with intent to harm. But with enough rage-driven momentum to snatch the book from Nightbriar’s hands before the bastard could continue his literary autopsy.

  Pudge’s head popped up, ears swivelling.

  The captain didn’t even blink. Just sat there, looking vaguely pleased with himself in that infuriating, expressionless way of his.

  “You,” Thorne hissed, “are the most insufferable, invasive bastard I have ever had the misfortune of employing.”

  “I was establishing context,” Nightbriar said mildly. “Understanding my charge’s... interests. It’s tactically relevant.”

  “Tactically—” Thorne’s laugh came out strangled. “You read my private books and mocked them aloud like some kind of—of literary assassin, and you’re calling it tactics?”

  “I’m just saying.” Nightbriar spread his hands. “The strategic errors alone⁠—”

  “It’s fiction.”

  “Yes. Very fictional. Guards don’t actually fall in love with their charges and then conveniently survive to have poetic sex about it.”

  “I know that.” Thorne’s voice cracked, sharp and defensive. “You think I don’t know that? It’s—it’s not supposed to be realistic. That’s the entire fucking point.”

  “I wasn’t mocking you,” Nightbriar said, and there was something odd in his tone now. Something that almost sounded genuine. “I was being an asshole. There’s a difference.”

  Thorne stared at him.

  Pudge’s tail thumped once against the floor, as if voting on the distinction.

  “You’re still an asshole,” Thorne muttered.

  The captain’s head tilted, just slightly. “I established that.”

  Thorne stared at him. At the infuriating way Nightbriar just sat there, like he hadn’t invaded Thorne’s private rooms, wrapped him in a blanket like some fainting maiden, then made himself perfectly at home.

  Gods. He even looked smug about it. Not in expression—no, Captain Stoneface wouldn’t waste effort on that—but in the unbearable silence that followed. Thorne’s fingers twitched. He could have him reassigned. Or—or locked in a cupboard. A coat one. With a very sturdy latch. Maybe with a leaking roof above. And no books.

  The thought crystallized in Thorne’s mind with perfect clarity. He didn’t need to argue with this man—this wall of muscle and judgment who’d appointed himself guardian of Thorne’s every breath. He didn’t need to justify himself or his choices.

  He needed space. Air. Distance from those too-perceptive eyes that seemed to catalogue his every weakness. And Captain Nightbriar could enjoy some quiet time alone with his self-righteousness.

  “I’m going to find Rillian,” Thorne announced, voice deceptively light. “And the prisoners.”

  “Not alone.”

  “Of course not.” Thorne turned on his heel, striding toward the door with the confidence of a man very much about to do something stupid. Nightbriar followed—because of course he did—silent and looming.

  They moved through several corridors, weaving past aides and guards, down a quieter wing rarely used.

  Thorne stopped before a plain wooden door.

  He reached for the handle, then paused, glancing over his shoulder with mock gravity. “I assume my loyal guard dog wants to go first. Gods forbid there’s a team of assassins hiding on the other side.”

  The captain grunted.

  Thorne tugged the door open. “Be my guest.”

  The captain stepped inside.

  And Thorne’s smirk bloomed instantly. He reached for the door. Started to swing it shut⁠—

  Only to be hauled bodily forward as a hand lashed out, caught his shirt, and yanked.

  The door slammed shut behind Thorne with a dull thud. He was abruptly chest-to-chest with a wall of fury.

  Nightbriar didn’t say anything at first. His entire posture had shifted—shoulders squared, jaw set, every inch of him radiating a kind of violence that made the room feel ten degrees colder.

  Thorne blinked up at him.

  Ah.

  So maybe the captain wasn’t quite as easy to fool as he’d assumed.

  “Do you think this is a game?” Nightbriar said, low and lethal.

  Thorne grinned. “I mean, you walked into the trap. What was that you said before about tactical errors?”

  The captain stepped forward.

  Thorne stepped back—and hit a shelf.

  He didn’t back down, but gods, he felt the pressure now. Like standing in the path of a forest fire.

  Nightbriar’s hand was braced against the wall beside his head, the other curled in the front of his shirt. His breath came hot. Furious. And worse—he smelled good.

  Infuriatingly, dangerously good.

  Juniper bark. Cracked pepper. And underneath it all, something deeper—something primal and hot, like the breath of a forge just before it roars. Thorne’s brain stuttered.

  Absolutely the fuck not.

  Thorne blinked, scowled, and made the executive decision to hate it on principle.

  He also hated that his pulse was acting like it had something to prove.

  And the way Nightbriar’s eyes burned in the low light.

  …And how his body noticed that they were barely a breadth apart.

  If he inhaled again—and gods damn his lungs, he did—he’d get another hit of juniper and heat and⁠—

  Fuck.

  Nightbriar’s gaze locked with his, dark and searing, and Thorne’s breath hitched traitorously in his throat.

  “You have a death wish,” the captain growled, voice low enough that Thorne felt it more than heard it.

  “And you have boundary issues,” Thorne shot back, but the words lacked their intended sting. His skin prickled with unwanted awareness where Nightbriar’s fist still gripped his shirt, knuckles brushing against his collarbone.

  The captain’s jaw tightened. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”

  Thorne’s gaze dropped to Nightbriar’s mouth—the curve of it set in that hard line that shouldn’t be as distracting as it was.

  “You’re trying to control me,” Thorne said, voice rough. “There’s a difference.”

  Nightbriar’s eyes narrowed, flicking briefly to Thorne’s own mouth before returning to meet his gaze. “And you’re trying to evade me.”

  “Maybe I just wanted to see what you’d do.”

  “Try it again, Your Highness.” The captain leaned in, voice a deadly whisper. “See what happens.”

  “Are you threatening me, captain?” Thorne challenged, heart racing.

  “No,” Nightbriar’s eyes glittered. “I’m warning you.” His fingers tightened in Thorne’s shirt, knuckles pressing against his skin.

  “Not used to someone standing up to you, is that it?”

  “You think this is standing up?” Nightbriar’s voice dropped lower, something almost like amusement darkening his tone. “This is suicide by stubbornness.”

  “And yet here I am. Still breathing.” Thorne forced himself to focus. He wasn’t trying to start a… whatever this was. He was trying to end a career.

  It had worked before.

  Guards came and went like smoke when you pushed the right way—just enough contempt, just enough chaos. Before Dru, one captain had lasted six hours. Another, three.

  He could get rid of this one too.

  Just needed the right angle.

  “You always this talkative?” Thorne asked, voice dripping disdain. “Or do you save the grunting and glaring for special occasions?”

  Nightbriar’s jaw flexed. It was subtle. Barely there. But Thorne saw it. Marked it.

  He pressed in, not physically, but verbally—cutting sharper. “Maybe you’re just desperate for purpose. No real war left, no glory to chase, so here you are—trailing after someone you clearly think isn’t worth your time.”

  Nightbriar’s voice came low and quiet, “You’re not.”

  “Then go find a real battle to fight, Captain,” Thorne folded his arms across his chest. “I’m sure there’s a village somewhere missing its mindless enforcer. Someone who’d throw a child in front of a blade if it meant completing the mission.”

  Something flashed in Nightbriar’s eyes—not anger, but something deeper. A nerve struck.

  Good.

  Thorne pressed his advantage, lips curling into a cruel smile.

  “Or is that why they sent you here?” Thorne hissed, words cutting through the charged air between them. “Because you’re too broken by what you’ve done to do more than babysit a prince? Too damaged to trust with real soldiers?”

  Thorne waited for the snap, the inevitable explosion of rage that would give him every reason to have this man reassigned by nightfall. Instead, Nightbriar simply released him. Stepped back. The fire in his eyes banked to embers.

  “Go. Back. To your chambers.”

  It wasn’t a request. It wasn’t even an order. It was a warning. A final one.

  Thorne’s mouth curled into a same smug smile, all teeth and defiance. “Make me.”

  “If you don’t turn the fuck around,” Nightbriar’s voice was thunder again, “and put your arrogant ass back in that room, I will drag you there by your gods-damned collar.”

  Thorne’s lungs stalled. Just slightly. Because there was no mistaking it now—the captain meant it. He was one second from grabbing Thorne by the neck like a disobedient whelp and marching him through the halls. And something low in Thorne’s spine snapped at the sheer audacity of it.

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  Nightbriar moved so fast Thorne barely registered it. One moment he was smirking in defiance, the next his feet left the ground as the captain’s hand fisted in his shirt, the other arm wrapping firmly around his waist. With seemingly effortless strength, Nightbriar lifted him completely off the floor.

  “What the—put me down!” Thorne gasped, shock replacing smugness as he found himself suspended in the air, held against Nightbriar’s chest like he weighed nothing.

  The indignity of it burned through him.

  The captain’s face was inches from his own, those dark eyes burning with barely restrained fury. “You wanted me to make you,” he growled. “So I’m making you.”

  Thorne’s hands instinctively grabbed Nightbriar’s shoulders for balance, his fingers digging into hard muscle. His heart hammered against his ribs, blood rushing in his ears. The sheer strength required to hold him like this was staggering, and worse—much worse—was the fact that his body was reacting to it in ways he absolutely didn’t want to acknowledge.

  “This is treason,” Thorne hissed, trying to ignore the heat spreading through his limbs as the captain’s arm tightened around his waist. “I’ll have you court-martialled.”

  “Charge me after you’re safe,” Nightbriar replied, already turning toward the door, still carrying Thorne as if he were a wayward cat instead of the Crown Prince.

  Thorne struggled, dignity forgotten as panic and something far more dangerous flared in his chest. “I swear to Thenira, if you don’t put me down⁠—”

  “You’ll what?” Nightbriar’s voice was dangerously soft against his ear. “Order me executed? Go ahead. I’d rather die for keeping you alive than watch you throw your life away because you’re too stubborn to accept protection.”

  The raw honesty in the captain’s voice cut deeper than any insult could have. He meant it. He said it like he’d actually stand before an executioner’s blade without regret if it meant Thorne lived another day.

  And that... that was terrifying.

  Because Thorne had seen that look before. In Druithen’s eyes. Right before he’d stepped between Thorne and death.

  “Put me down,” Thorne said again, but the fight had drained from his voice. “Now.”

  Nightbriar’s only response was to tighten his grip.

  “I hate you,” Thorne managed, the words lacking any real conviction as the captain kicked the door open and strode into the corridor with Thorne still hoisted against his chest.

  “Noted,” Nightbriar replied, not breaking stride.

  Guards they passed froze in shock, eyes wide as their Crown Prince was carried bodily through the halls like a recalcitrant child.

  The heat crawling up Thorne’s neck wasn’t just embarrassment—it was fury, indignation, and something far more treacherous. His body betrayed him with every step Nightbriar took, hyperaware of the arm locked around his waist, the hard chest against his, the sheer effortless strength that held him aloft.

  Which was ridiculous. Thorne wasn’t small—he was tall for an Elvari, lean but solid. Yet Nightbriar held him as effortlessly as if he were made of parchment.

  “This is ridiculous,” he snarled, voice lower now as they passed a cluster of wide-eyed servants who immediately found the floor fascinating. “I am the Crown Prince of⁠—”

  “I’m aware of who you are,” the captain cut him off, not even breaking stride as he rounded a corner. “I’m also aware you’ve had two assassination attempts in one week.”

  “Then perhaps you could protect me without manhandling me in front of the entire court,” Thorne was increasingly aware of every set of eyes following their progress through the corridors.

  Nightbriar didn’t respond, just kept walking with that infuriating, unshakable calm, as if carrying royalty through the palace was a perfectly normal Tuesday activity.

  By the time they reached Thorne’s chambers, his embarrassment had crystallized into something sharper. The guards outside had the good sense to look anywhere but at them as the captain strode for the door.

  Unfortunately, Thorne’s humiliation reached new depths as Nightbriar kicked the door open without ceremony, revealing Rillian sprawled on the floor beside Pudge, one hand buried in the dog’s fur, a glass of what was definitely Thorne’s best wine dangling from his fingers.

  His friend’s eyes went comically wide, then narrowed with barely suppressed mirth as he took in the sight of Thorne still hoisted against the captain’s chest.

  “Well,” Rillian drawled, his voice tight with the effort of not laughing. “This is... unexpected.”

  Thorne wanted to die. Right there. Immediately.

  Rillian pressed his lips together, the corners of his mouth twitching violently as he made a show of examining the wine in his hand. “Should I... come back later? When you’re not being...” he gestured vaguely at their position, “...protected?”

  “One more word and I’ll have you both executed,” Thorne snarled, his voice strangled by both rage and a mortifying awareness of how this looked. “Slowly. Painfully. With rusty implements.”

  Nightbriar finally set him down, his hands releasing Thorne’s body with an infuriating deliberateness that made his skin burn where they’d been. Thorne stumbled slightly before catching himself, straightening his rumpled shirt with as much dignity as he could muster.

  “If you’re quite finished,” he said through clenched teeth, glowering at Nightbriar with enough venom to drop a bear.

  The captain merely inclined his head, not a trace of remorse in his expression. “For now.”

  Rillian cleared his throat, the cough badly disguising his laughter. “I just came to update you,” he said, his voice regaining some composure, though his expression remained lit with amusement. “And to inform the captain he’s free to interrogate the prisoners whenever he wishes.” His eyes darted between them. “Though I see you two have found other activities to occupy yourselves with.”