I think I’m drowning.

But not into her blue eyes like I happily would.

No, I’m sinking into the floor, letting it swallow me whole.

I can hardly breathe under the crushing weight of Kitt’s words.

My ears ring. My heart pounds.

The command echoes in my skull, though I have no idea why he would want this. Why he would want her. Not now. Not after everything.

And yet, I still want her after everything.

I’m surrounded by the entire court and the only thing I can focus on is not falling to my knees beside her.

Marriage.

Marriage to someone who isn’t me. Marriage to someone I will spend the rest of my life serving.

I’ll lose her forever while being forced to watch.

I can’t even look at her.

I’m a coward, morphing back into the monster I was when she found me.

My vision is blurry, eyes fixed on the dais above.

This is how I lose her.

Not by death but by something just as binding.

The command rings in my head.

And to think I wasted so much time trying to hate her.

To think I won’t have enough time to love her.

My heart aches because every beat belongs to her.

And I may never get to tell her that.

Is this how she will remember me? Escorting her to this fate? Bound by duty alone?

I could laugh. I could cry. I could burn this palace to the ground like I did her house, just for a chance to confess my love before the flames consumed me.

Because I am bound to her very being. Hers until the day she realizes I don’t deserve to be.

The king’s eyes are on me while mine are somewhere far away. Somewhere with her. A place where I am nothing and no one and happy being powerless, so long as she is beside me.

My gaze falls from the fantasy, finding its way to her.

This is not how I will remember us. Not as enemies or traitors or monsters, but as two people dancing in the dark, swaying beneath the stars. Her feet atop mine, her head on the heart that beats only for her. Just Pae and Kai.

I step away from her kneeling form, masking every emotion with a blank stare. I’m leaving her to face him. Her future husband.

I melt into the crowd, standing at a safe enough distance to prevent myself from stealing her away.

This will be the rest of my life. Forced to love her from a distance. Mourn the loss of her each day.

But I will.

I will smother every emotion but the one that belongs to her. I will love her until I am incapable of the feeling.

She is the torture I may not survive.

Eagerly, she is my undoing.

Her gaze lifts, meeting eyes that are not my own.

Eyes of the man who gets to have her—if she allows it.

She was supposed to be my forever.

Now I’ll watch her become someone else’s.

Because the beast doesn’t get the beauty.