A spark flickering against the wind of tradition, against the weight of a world that sought to smother her into submission.
That spark should not have mattered to me.
And yet?—
It did.
I had strict orders—do not get involved.
But watching her stand, her voice trembling yet resolute in the face of ridicule had stirred something within me.
A dangerous, unwelcome feeling.
How arduous it must have been to dare to speak against the tide in a room where her words were meant to be dust beneath their boots.
My chest tightened with a foreign instinct—an urge I had no right to feel.
Protect her.
Shield her.
It was an impulse that should have died the moment it was born.
This was not my battle.
This was not why I was here.
I was The Black Wraith—a specter, a shadow, a force of reckoning, not a man who tangled himself in sympathy.
Detachment was my armor.
My survival.
And yet?—
Here I was.
Watching.
Waiting.
Knowing that, despite every warning in my mind, despite the danger of my growing awareness of her?—
I was already too close.
“Lord Hassan, do you fancy another glass?”
The voice interrupted my thoughts, its edges laced with a sneer.One of the men, his smirk curled with amusement.
My spine straightened.Across the table, Thomas Alexander’s glacial gaze scrutinized me, assessing, calculating.
“Thank you, but no,” I replied evenly, masking the tumult inside me.
It took every ounce of discipline to remain composed, to silence the clamor in my mind, to smother the reckless pull of something that should not exist within me.
I waged a war in the quiet of my skull.
Each rational thought clashed against the unbidden empathy that had taken root.
