Chapter 3 Chapter three

Chapter 3

Ravenna's POV

A soft scrape against the stone ledger outside my window made me jolt upright, my heart hammering against my ribs.

The heavy wooden frame slid upward with a tiny groan, letting a gust of freezing midnight air into my small room.

Julian tumbled through the opening, landing lightly on his feet before quickly pulling the window shut behind him.

His expression looked incredibly tense, his jaw tightly clenched, but the second his green eyes found me in the dark, they filled with a burning passion that made my breath catch.

He did not waste a single second, crossing the small space and dropping onto the edge of my creaking mattress.

"I had to see you," he whispered, his voice rough as he reached up to cup my face in his warm palms.

"My mother has been hounding me all evening, Ravenna."

"She is pressing me to abandon you, saying you are nothing but a risk to our family's standing."

A cold wave of dread tried to wash over me, but Julian shook his head fiercely, his thumbs wiping at the tear stains still dry on my cheeks.

"I told her to stay out of my business," he muttered, his eyes locking onto mine with absolute intensity.

"My loyalty belongs entirely to you, and nothing she says will ever change that."

I leaned into his touch, my hands coming up to grip his wrists as all the fear from the afternoon came rushing back to my throat.

"She cornered me in the hallway, Julian," I confessed, my voice trembling in the dark.

"She said I smell like an Omega, and Aurelia spent the whole day trying to crush my spirit in the throne room."

"The pressure from my mother and the entire court is starting to completely suffocate me."

"What if tomorrow comes and I fail everyone?" I cried softly, looking at him in total desperation.

Julian did not answer with words.

He leaned forward and silenced my doubts completely by slamming his lips down onto mine in a deep, breathless kiss.

The sudden heat of his mouth completely ruined my ability to think about my sister, or the Duchess, or anything other than the raw electricity of his touch.

My mind went entirely blank as he wrapped his strong arms around my back, pulling me tight against his chest.

He shifted his weight, pushing me gently back onto the small, lumpy mattress until he was hovering directly over me.

His hands trailed absolute fire across my bare arms and down my waist, making my skin prickle with a fierce, desperate need.

"Stop thinking about them," Julian murmured against my lips, his breath hot and fast against my face.

"No matter what the sacred embers reveal tomorrow, we are fated to be together."

"I am your alpha, Ravenna, and you are my queen."

His words sent a wild rush of hope straight through my chest, drowning out the cruel whispers that had been torturing me all night.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him down closer as the high-stakes passion of the moment took over the tiny room.

Julian shifted his mouth down to my jawline, his kisses trailing lower until he reached the soft, exposed skin of my shoulder.

He paused for a single second, his hot breath pooling against my skin before he suddenly leaned down and bit hard into my flesh.

A sharp jolt of pain pierced through me, quickly melting into a massive, rushing wave of deceptive warmth that flooded my entire body.

He was leaving a temporary alpha mating mark on me.

It felt like a heavy, golden chain binding my soul directly to his, making my blood hum with a fake sense of absolute completion.

I clung to him shamelessly in the dark, burying my fingers deep into his golden hair as I let the phantom pull of the mate bond take over my senses.

With this mark on my skin, I felt completely invincible.

I believed with absolute certainty that this bite would protect me from whatever horrible political games my mother was planning for the morning.

Julian stayed with me for what felt like hours, holding me close in the dark until the sky outside the window began to turn a faint, smoky grey.

He kissed me one last time, a lingering, desperate touch that left my lips tingling.

"I have to go before the morning guard changes," he whispered reluctantly, pulling his boots back on.

"I will be standing right at the front of the stage when you present, Ravenna."

"Just look at me, and remember who you belong to."

He slipped out through the servant window just as quietly as he had arrived, disappearing into the early morning shadows before dawn could fully break.

I lay back down on the mattress, my body exhausted but my mind completely buzzing with a new, fierce confidence.

I lifted my hand, my fingers gently tracing the raised, tender skin of the fresh bite on my shoulder.

It felt warm beneath my fingertips, a physical proof that I was no longer the invisible, broken princess they could just step on.

For the very first time in my miserab

le life, I stared at the rising sun through my window and felt like a true future queen.