Chapter 18: Empty Bed

Naya woke to an empty bed, and this time the emptiness felt different than it had before. There was no argument left simmering, no cold silence deliberately drawn out between them. Ronan was simply gone, and the space where he should have been felt strange in a way she refused to name.

She told herself she was relieved. She had meant every word yesterday. Stop punishing me for being born into them. For once he hadn’t been able to argue back, and if that meant he’d finally understood she wanted nothing from him, then good. That was what she’d asked for.

Mira arrived to help her dress, and Naya went through her morning duties as usual, except the palace felt different without Ronan’s presence threaded through it. Normally she caught glimpses of him everywhere, his voice down some corridor, guards straightening before he’d even rounded a corner. Today there was nothing.

She was halfway through a stack of household requests when she finally saw him, walking with two council members down the opposite corridor. For a moment she expected him to stop, to look at her, to say something sharp the way he always did. His gaze passed over her so quickly it felt deliberate, and then he was gone around the corner without a word.

"I thought you wanted him to leave you alone," Mira said beside her.

"I do."

"Then why do you look offended?"

"I don’t."

"You do."

"I absolutely do not."

Mira’s mouth twitched, and Naya returned to her papers, irritated for reasons she refused to examine. "I simply find it strange," she muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing." She sighed. "He’s avoiding me."

"Perhaps he’s giving you what you asked for."

"I didn’t ask him to ignore me."

"Is there a difference?" Mira asked, and Naya opened her mouth to answer, then closed it, because annoyingly, she didn’t know.

That afternoon, while she was reviewing requests from several pack territories, one of the younger officials lingered after the others had gone. Darian, polite and unhurried, didn’t look at her the way most people in the palace did, like they’d already decided exactly what kind of woman she was.

"My lady," he said. "I wanted to thank you."

"For what?"

"The provision allocation you approved. Several families affected by the shortage have already received it."

Something in her softened at that. It had felt like nothing more than numbers on paper when she’d signed it. "Already?"

"They’re grateful," Darian said. "Most people here would have signed whatever was put in front of them. You didn’t."

Naya smiled despite herself. "That almost sounded like another compliment."

"It was," he said, and she laughed, an easy, real laugh, and that was the exact moment the guards straightened and the air in the corridor changed.

Ronan stood several feet away, his expression carefully blank, which told Naya immediately that something was wrong. His gaze moved from Darian to her and back again.

"My King," Darian said, bowing.

Ronan barely looked at him. "I need to speak with my wife."

"I’m busy," Naya said.

"Now."

Darian stepped back smoothly. "Perhaps I should leave."

"Perhaps," Ronan said.

"I’ll see you later, my lady," Darian said as he bowed out, and Naya smiled after him. "I look forward to it."

Once he’d gone, Ronan’s eyes settled fully on her. "You’re enjoying yourself."

"Is that a crime?"

"No."

"Good." She went back to her papers, aware of him standing there, watching, saying nothing. Finally she looked up. "What?"

"Nothing."

She waited, and when nothing else came, understanding rose slowly, and a smile spread across her face before she could stop it.

"What?" he demanded.

"Oh," she said, leaning back.

"Oh what?"

"Are you jealous?"

Ronan went completely still. "Don’t be ridiculous."

"You interrupted us."

"You were finished."

"How would you know?"

His jaw tightened, and Naya stood, stepping closer, not intimately but pointedly. "You ignored me all morning. You walked past me without even looking. And now you’re suddenly interested in who I’m talking to?"

"I don’t care who you speak to."

"Good," she said, and turned to walk away.

His hand caught her wrist, instinctive and immediate. She froze, looking down at his fingers around her skin, then up at his face. Something in his expression shifted, and the memory of yesterday passed between them without either needing to say it aloud. Look at what you’ve given me to trust. His grip loosened at once, and he let her go, but neither of them stepped back.

The silence stretched, and Naya braced herself for something cold, some command meant to remind her why she should keep walking. Instead, Ronan said, "You were right."

She stared at him. "Excuse me?"

"Don’t make me repeat myself."

"Oh, no," she said, stepping closer. "I definitely want you to repeat that."

"Absolutely not."

"Then perhaps I imagined it."

"You heard me."

"I don’t think I did."

His jaw clenched, and she could see him fighting himself before he finally said, low and serious, "About your family. I shouldn’t have held their choices against you."

Naya went still. She hadn’t expected this from him, not after everything. "Is that an apology?"

"No."

"Of course it isn’t."

"It’s the closest you’re getting."

Despite herself, she almost smiled, until the memory returned, the necklace, the punishment, the dagger, the way he’d looked at her as though she were already guilty before he’d asked a single question. Her expression sobered. "That’s not enough."

"I didn’t say it was," he said, and that surprised her more than anything, because he wasn’t arguing, wasn’t defending himself, only standing there and letting the truth of it sit between them.

"You hurt me," she said quietly.

Something flickered across his face, brief but real. "I know."

Three words. Simple, and clearly harder for him to say than anything else he’d managed in this entire conversation. She didn’t forgive him. Not yet. But something between them shifted, just slightly, into something she didn’t have a name for.

Then he ruined it.

"Stay away from him," Ronan said.

Naya froze, then turned back slowly. "There it is."

"What?"

"The part where you ruin everything." She stepped closer again, anger sharpening her voice. "You don’t get to ignore me all morning and then drag me away from someone the moment I’m actually enjoying myself."

"I didn’t drag you anywhere."

"You interrupted us."

"I needed to speak with you."

"About what?"

Silence.

"Exactly," she said.

"Naya—"

"No. You don’t get to decide who I speak to."

"You’re my wife."

The words landed heavily between them, and Naya stared at him. "And that means I’m yours?"

He said nothing, and his silence told her everything. Not because he loved her, not yet, not even because he understood what he was feeling. But somewhere beneath all his suspicion and control, he had already decided she belonged to him, and he didn’t know how to separate that from ownership.

Her expression softened, not with affection but with disappointment. "That’s the problem, Ronan."

She turned and walked away, and this time he didn’t stop her.

He stood alone in the corridor long after she’d gone, uncertain who had won whatever this was. He had tried. He’d admitted she was right. He’d acknowledged he’d hurt her. He’d come as close to an apology as he’d ever come to anyone in his life, and somehow they had still ended up fighting.

His gaze drifted toward the direction Darian had disappeared, and his jaw tightened again. He didn’t like the man. He didn’t like the sound of her laugh directed at someone else. He didn’t like the sharp thing twisting under his ribs at the thought of it, and he hated that he didn’t understand why, because he had never wanted this marriage, had never asked for a wife at all.

He could command an entire kingdom with a single word.

And yet he couldn’t manage one conversation with Naya Ripley without starting a war he didn’t know how to win.