Page 9 of The Beast's Captive Bride
We stay like that for several minutes, feeding chickens in companionable silence. It's surreal—me and my kidnapper, sharing a peaceful moment with a flock of named hens. I should be looking for weapons, for escape routes. Instead, I'm noticing how the sunlight catches in his eyelashes, how his hands look less threatening when they're gentle with small creatures.
"There are rabbits, too," he says eventually, collecting the empty grain container. "Wild ones. They come to the garden at dusk sometimes."
"You don't chase them away? They must eat your vegetables."
He shrugs. "There's enough to share."
The words strike me as significant somehow, revealing a generosity at odds with the man who stole me from my life.
We move on to the vegetable garden, where Cullen shows me tomatoes ripening on the vine, lettuce growing in tidy rows, herbs that fill the air with fragrance when he brushes his fingers across them.
"You grew all this yourself?" I ask, trying to reconcile the image of this large, intimidating man patiently tending seedlings.
"I find it... calming." He plucks a ripe cherry tomato and holds it out to me. "Try it."
I hesitate only a moment before accepting the offering, popping the tiny fruit into my mouth. It bursts with flavor—sweet and tart and nothing like the bland supermarket tomatoes I'm used to.
"Mmm," I murmur, closing my eyes to savor it. When I open them, Cullen is watching me with an expression I can't quite decipher—hunger, but not for food.
He looks away quickly. "There's more to see inside."
The rest of the tour passes in a blur of grand rooms and forgotten corners. Cullen clearly loves this house, for all its isolation. He knows every creaking floorboard, every draft, every piece of history embedded in its stones. As he speaks, his voice loses that hard edge, becoming almost passionate when he describes the craftsmanship of a particular piece of furniture or the story behind a painting.
I find myself drawn to this version of him—the man who names chickens and grows tomatoes and cares about beauty and history. It's confusing, this duality. The man who kidnapped me, who holds me prisoner to punish my father, and the man who carefully repairs door hinges and speaks gently to animals.
By the time we return to my room—my prison—I'm no longer certain what to think. What to feel.
"Thank you," I say as we pause at my door. "For showing me."
He nods, that familiar distance returning to his eyes. "The library is yours to use. And the garden, when I'm with you."
"And the chickens?" I ask, a small smile playing at my lips.
Something in his face softens. "The chickens too."
Our eyes hold for a moment too long, and I feel that same spark from earlier, stronger now. It's not static electricity this time. It's something else—a recognition, a connection that makes no logical sense but feels inevitable somehow.
I think of my dreams—the ones I've had since I was a little girl. Dreams of a dark prince with ice in his eyes and fire in his heart, coming to steal me away from a life that never quite fit. Dreams I've never told anyone about, because who would understand?
"Goodnight, Cullen," I say softly.
"It's still afternoon," he points out, but his voice has roughened again.
"Nevertheless." I slip inside my room, needing distance from the confusion he stirs in me.
As the door closes between us, I press my hand to the wood, imagining I can feel him on the other side, doing the same. My captor. My dark prince. The monster who isn't quite so monstrous after all.
I should be plotting escape. I should be hating him with every fiber of my being.
Instead, I find myself wondering what other secrets Cullen Blackwood is hiding behind those walls he's built so high—and why, despite everything, I feel like I've been waiting my whole life to discover them.
four
. . .
Cullen
I haven't sleptin days. Not since she laughed in the garden, her face tilted toward the sun like she wasn't a prisoner, like the world wasn't a cesspool of betrayal and pain. That laugh keeps echoing in my head, crowding out the vengeance that's sustained me for fifteen years. I pace my study like a caged animal, phone clutched in my hand. Richard Lockhart's latest message glows on the screen: "Whatever you want, name your price. Just don't hurt her." As if she could be reduced to a transaction. As if I would ever harm a single honey-gold hair on her head.
