Alexander
The morning sun spilled softly across Victoria’s bedroom, warming the room with a gentle glow. I glanced toward her sleeping form, her breathing steady for the first time in days. Fresh bandages wrapped her thigh and calf, and the doctor had covered the wound on her head with special herbs and linen.
I hadn’t taken my eyes off her since we brought her home. Two days had passed since we found her half conscious in the depths of that cursed forest. Even now, it unsettled me to think she had managed to walk, fight, while poison surged through her veins.
That she survived it at all was nothing short of impossible… until Duke Lombardy explained why.
My gaze drifted to the table where the jewel lay. The small violet stone shimmered faintly in the sunlight, deceptively ordinary to
