Chapter 187
Ellie POV
Dominic stepped into our space with ease. He was smiling, the air changed immediately, the way it does when a predator enters a room and everyone pretends they don’t notice.
I couldn’t help but shrink as his hand closed over mine, as if he could feel the tremor running through my fingers.
He looked at me. I couldn’t look away. I felt… like I was going to puke.
He then looked to Lucas, his gaze hardening.
“May I have this dance with my wife?”
Lucas’s mouth twitched into a smirk, a flash of satisfaction that made my stomach twist.
“Of course,” Lucas said smoothly, releasing me with deliberate slowness, as if making a point. “I wouldn’t want to keep her too long from you. Who knows what would happen.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened a tick as Lucas disappeared.
Once he was gone, Dominic exhaled through his nose and looked back at me.
“What was that about?” he asked lightly, a quiet chuckle slipping into his voice like he was trying to coax me back into something normal. “You look like you’re about to puke.”
I was.
I was staring at his hand. At the way his fingers laced so easily through mine.
My mind wouldn’t stop moving. It kept replaying Lucas’s words. Dominic’s vows.
“Ellie?”
“Did you…” My voice faltered. I swallowed and tried again. “Did you trap me?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“No.”
My brows lifted before I can stop them.
That was… fast.
Too fast.
“I’m marrying you because it’s what I want, Ellie. And because it works. Your health is stable. Your mother is free. We protect each other. We make a good team.”
A team.
“Do you love me?”
His expression shifted into frustration.
“I do love you,” he said. “That hasn’t changed.”
“But you said you would heal me every day so long as we’re side by side.”
His face paled a little.
I stepped back.
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“That means,” I said, forcing the words out before I lost my nerve, “you tied my healing to you. To our marriage. To our bond.”
His hand lifted like he was going to touch me again.
Stopped.
Froze.
“If I ever leave you,” I continued, my voice barely above a whisper now, “I get sick again.”
Silence settled between us.
Heavy.
His hand lowered slowly.
He didn’t deny it.
“Well,” he said finally, his voice quieter now, roughened around the edges, “are you trying to leave?”
My chest tightened, heat rushing up my spine as anger surged forward to cover everything else.
“That’s not the point,” I snapped. “It doesn’t matter if I was. What matters is that if I wanted to, you made it so I can’t.” My hands curled into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms. “Do you understand how messed up that is? You tied my body to you. Without telling me. Without giving me a choice.”
His jaw flexed.
I step closer, pressing my finger hard into his chest, right over his heart, feeling the solid strength of him beneath the thin fabric of his shirt.
“You knew,” I whisper fiercely. “You’re not stupid, Dominic. You knew what those words would do. You knew what it meant.”
His eyes darkened.
“We’re married,” he said. “So why does it sound like you were already planning on leaving before our own wedding night?”
“I-I wasn’t.”
The lie came too fast.
His mouth curved slightly, not in humor, but in something bitter.
“Who’s the liar now?”
My stomach dropped.
He knew.
He must have overheard Sarah and me. The whispered plans. The stupid, desperate hope that maybe I could still escape this somehow, before or after our wedding.
So…he trapped me.
It was true.
The realization settled heavy in my chest, equal parts fury and something far more fragile that I refused to name.
“So,” I said slowly, forcing the words past the tightness in my throat as I lifted my gaze to his, “you knew I would try to leave, so you built it into your vows. Some clever little loophole. Some Moon Goddess technicality.” My laugh came out hollow and brittle. “How romantic.”
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For a second, he just stared at me.
“Ellie,” he exhaled, his voice low and strained, “your mind has absolutely no respect for reasonable conclusions.”
“That’s not a denial,” I shot back immediately.
“Yes, I knew you were planning to leave. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“1-”
“I don’t need a goddess to trap you with me. She’s already doing that herself.”
I blinked.
Because… annoyingly, that part was true.
My body already chose him long before either of us signed anything. Long before vows or contracts or desperate deals.
The Moon Goddess tied us together and threw away the key like it was funny.
“Perhaps. But what happens if I’m stuck with someone who hurts me,” I said. “And I can’t leave.”
The words hung there.
His eyes widened slightly.
“You think I would hurt you?” he asked.
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
Because I couldn’t…say without a doubt he will always protect me. He didn’t before, and this wasn’t our first wedding.
He exhaled slowly, running a hand through his hair, his composure cracking just slightly.
“You’re afraid of a version of me that doesn’t exist,” he said. “You’re afraid of something that hasn’t happened. Something that might never happen. And instead of waiting to see, instead of trusting me to be decent, you planned to leave before I ever had the chance to prove you wrong.”
His voice wasn’t loud.
It hurt anyway.
“No-”
“No?”
His hand moved suddenly, gripping the skin of my thigh where the fabric of my dress parts slightly, his fingers firm but not hurting.
My breath stuttered. Heat flooded through me, traitorous and humiliating and impossible to control as he gripped the sheath.
“Then what was this for?” he asked quietly.
His hand jerked back, and suddenly he was holding the small blade for all to see.
“1-t doesn’t it matter,” I whispered. “Dominic, back…back up-”
The words tasted like failure.
His face twisted, something exhausted and wounded flickering across his features before he could hide it.
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“You think I would-“The metal caught the light as he shifted it slightly, turning it in his fingers without thinking.
Without thinking.
Without thinking.
And suddenly I was not here anymore.
I was somewhere else.
On cold stone.
Hands gripping my wrists.
A blade above me.
The smell of iron.
The certainty-the absolute, sickening certainty-that this is it. That this is how it ends. That no one is coming.
That I am going to die.
My heart slammed so hard it hurt from the memory.
Dominic took a step closer. I took one back.
He froze. “Ellie-”
I snapped.
It wasn’t a decision. It wasn’t thought or logic or reason.
It was instinct.
I surged forward, my hand shooting out, grabbing his wrist. He startled, not expecting it.
I ripped the dagger from his grip.
The blade sunk into his side. The resistance was sickening. Flesh giving way beneath steel with a wet, horrible ease that vibrated
up my arm.
His breath left him in a sharp, stunned sound.
I didn’t realize what I’d done until I felt the warmth.
Until I saw the red blooming instantly across his white shirt.
Until I saw his eyes.
Shock.
My hand was still gripping the dagger, buried in him.
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