HER PRISONER

(Cassian's Flashback)

I sat in the dim light of my study, the weight of the punishment I had just inflicted on myself still burning under my skin. My mind was far away from the present, lost in the shadows of my family's past—the kind of shadows that never fully left, no matter how much I tried to forget.

It wasn't just me. It was the bloodline.

Drevault blood.

My father had taught me the law when I was too young to understand it fully. But now? Now, every decision I made, every impulse I couldn't control, seemed to drag me deeper into it.

"Real men never hurt the ones they love," my father's voice echoed in my mind.

But it was more than that.

It wasn't just about love. It was about control. About rules. And the law of the Drevaults had one rule above all: If you hurt someone who belongs to you, you punish yourself. You do it with your own hands, or you face destruction.

I closed my eyes, remembering my cousin, Elijah.

Elijah had been my closest friend, my closest ally. We'd grown up together, trained together, shared our blood, and our name. He was strong. Stronger than I ever was.

But that night… the night that changed everything.

Elijah had been in love with a man—a beautiful, quiet soul who had captured his heart in a way I never understood. But Elijah had been driven by jealousy. He couldn't control it. It consumed him.

The man had stepped out of line, crossed a line that Elijah thought should never be crossed.

The fight was inevitable. Elijah was a Drevault. And when a Drevault feels betrayed, there's no turning back. He lost himself in anger and struck the man—the one he loved. He hit him. He hit him hard.

I remember the sound. The crack of bone. The sharp, painful scream that followed.

My cousin stood over the man, chest heaving, rage written all over him. But the moment he saw the blood, the moment he saw the fear in the man's eyes, it broke him. It shattered something inside of him that could never be put back together.

He had hurt him. The one he loved.

The Drevault curse. The law.

"A Drevault man bleeds for his mistake," I heard my father say. "You do not touch what is not yours to touch."

Elijah had punished himself. The same way every Drevault man who broke the law had to.

He took a knife to his own skin. He cut into his flesh until it bled like the wounds he had inflicted. He didn't stop. Not until he collapsed, his body broken from the inside out.

His lover was gone. And Elijah? He was left to suffer in silence.

It was a slow, agonizing death. Not from the wounds themselves, but from the curse of it all. The punishment. The madness. The regret.

I had been there that night. I had watched him. And I had learned something from him.

I had learned that there were no exceptions. No leniency. No mercy.

The punishment was the law.

And now, I had broken the law. I had hurt her. My little rabbit.

I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling the burn of the marks I had left on myself. It wasn't enough. It could never be enough. Not until she forgave me. Not until she learned that I could never hurt her again.

It wasn't about the kiss. It wasn't about the anger. It was about control. The kind of control I was taught to have. The kind of control that had slipped away from me when I touched her. And that was something I would never forgive myself for.

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