Chapter 3 Live, little thirn

Seraphina.

Thick darkness surrounded me. It clung to my skin, suffocating. I gasped, but no air entered.

I heard voices. Dozens of them. They were pointing fingers at me. All of them.

My father's voice rose above the rest.

“You are not my daughter.”

My mother: “The heavens cursed us with her.”

They pointed. They screamed. I begged them to stop.

“I don’t know what happened! I swear I don’t know—!”

But no one listened.

I felt a piercing stare and I raised my head towards the direction. Amid the darkness, far from the chaos, stood a man. Those same eyes.

His gaze pierced straight through me. My voice choked in my throat. He opened his mouth to speak, I thought—but instead, blood poured from it. It spilled in torrents, drowning me in crimson. I screamed as it filled my lungs.

I woke up with a jolt.

Chilled to the bone, soaked through. My gown clung to my skin like a second, painful hide. My breath came in ragged bursts. Glad they weren't bloods.

Laughter. Cruel mocking laughter.

I looked up.

Three men stood over me, my stepbrothers.

Edward, the eldest, stood with his wife, Lady Celestine, her arms draped lazily around his. William, the second, stood beside his pregnant spouse, Marianne. And the youngest, Alistair, just a year older than me, smirked with his betrothed, Lavinia.

Anne, my maid, stood behind them. Her eyes were red. A bucket trembled in her grip.

“Anne,” I whispered.

“I’m sorry, my lady,” she said, voice cracking. “They… they told me to—”

“You should’ve seen yourself,” William sneered. “You looked like a drowned rat.”

Alistair laughed. “I thought whores were supposed to like being wet.”

I carried my eyes away from Anne, and directed them in shock towards my brothers.

I stared at them, my throat tight. “You… you came to mock me?”

“You thought we came to console you?” Edward asked, raising an eyebrow. “You dragged our family name through the filth Seraphina. What honor is left in us now?”

“I didn’t—” I began, voice shaking.

Celestine’s laugh was high and cruel. “Your betrothed and his father came by just this morning. The wedding is off.”

My breath hitched. Off? Ferdinand doesn't want me? He did this to me? Why wouldn't he want me?

I blinked. “Lies…”

She scoffed before adding, “He said you drugged him,” Edward added, coldly. “And that this wasn’t the first time.”

“No…”

“Yes,” Alistair chimed in. “Seems you’re not only a slut, but a liar with a history.”

“You just have to stop! Stop please and hear me out!”

None of them listened. Not Alistair, no one.

My knees gave out. The pain surged anew. Unable to stay there all drenched while watching them mock me, I darted out of the room. I ran.

Their laughter chased me like wolves.

I ran through the hall, past shocked servants, out into the gardens. I didn’t stop to see if they followed. I don't care that I'm wet and might slip, I just keep running while letting my heart out.

I tore through the trees, blood seeping from my wounds. I stumbled over roots, scratched by branches. I didn’t stop.

Not until I reached the cliff. Our place.

The cliff that overlooked the river, the place I’d once picnicked with Ferdinand, laughed beneath the stars, dreamed of forever.

Now it stood as a silent witness to betrayal.

I collapsed at its edge. Sobbed until I choked. If it was true, if no one would believe me, if I was already condemned, then what was left?

I would never be wanted again.

“She’s not going to stop us…”

Ferdinand? I stopped crying, letting myself listen.

I turned. Followed the sound into the woods, past the cliff, to the grove under the oak tree, our place.

Ferdinand had came. Maybe he had waited for me. Now he could give explanations to everything. He would prove my family lies wrong.

I heard his voice again, but this time, it sounded like he wasn't alone, and hell how right I was because standing right under our Oak tree was the man I call the ultimate love of my life kissing my friend. Georgina.

My best friend.

They laughed as they pulled apart. He spoke with ease, with scorn.

“She actually believed I loved her.”

Georgina giggled. “She’s pathetic.”

“The only mistake,” he said, “was not defiling her properly.”

I stood there, glaring at them. Both had planned it, Ferdinand and Georgina had planned my ruin.

Gently, without screaming, calling it making a scene, I turned. I Staggered toward the cliff again.

What was left?

No family, no lover and absolutely no name.

I stepped forward, ready to end it all. I couldn’t go back, not to that house, not to the place where I was no longer wanted. Perhaps if I died, the shame would die with me. My family could go on, liberated by the belief that I had finally received what I deserved.

I closed my eyes. Inhaling one last, trembling breath, I let myself fall.

It’s over, Seraphina. Everything is over.

But instead of the plunge, I felt a hand.

Strong. Unyielding.

Not catching me—seizing me.

Seizing the very liberation I thought I’d earned.

With an effortless pull, I collided against a chest. Broad, solid, and unyielding. My heart pounded violently against my ribs.

My eyes remained shut as an unfamiliar scent, something wild, like wind through ancient woods, filled my lungs, overwhelming my senses. It drew my eyes open.

And there they were. Fierce grey eyes, staring straight into mine, into my soul.

His other hand, the one not locked around my waist, rose to my chin and tilted it upward, guiding my eyes to meet his.

A chill seeped into my bones as recognition struck me. I shuddered.

He had been there yesterday. I saw him...

I was too lost in his gaze, too consumed by his presence to pull away.

His lips curved, though I couldn’t call it a smile. It looked more like a warning, tight, cold, and edged with fury. The kind of fury that could kill without lifting a hand.

Then his lips parted, and the voice that came was the deepest I’d ever heard. Quiet, calm… and terrifying.

“If you crave death so deeply,” he said, his voice low and unhurried, like velvet drawn over steel. His face lowered slightly, and I felt his breath against my cheek. I couldn’t look away. “Wait a little longer. I’ll give you the kind that doesn’t hurt.”

He paused, his eyes still locked with mine—steady, unreadable.

“Live… for now, little thorn.”

I parted my lips to speak, anything, even if I didn’t know what, but before a single word could form, he was gone.

Vanished.

As if plucked from the world entirely.

One moment he was holding me, and the next, I nearly stumbled from the absence of his touch. The only proof he’d ever been there was the lingering scent of woods and wind, still clinging to my skin.

“My Lady!”

I jolted at the sound of my name. It struck like a crack of thunder. No one called me that anymore—not since the disgrace.

Disoriented, I turned toward the voice.

And in that instant, my lips parted, pulling me back from the grasp of my intruder. I was no longer standing at the cliff’s edge. I wasn't anywhere near the forest! I was standing right in the middle of the garden, my garden. Another place I loved to be.

I blinked rapidly.

How?

I hadn’t taken a single step. I didn’t remember walking back. I wouldn’t have—not for any reason.

I looked around, still trying to convince myself that maybe I hadn’t truly run into the forest. Maybe I had only made it this far, thinking of the cliff, but never reaching it. Maybe I hadn’t seen Ferdinand with Georgina at all. Maybe I had imagined the whole thing, imagined standing at the edge, imagined falling, imagined the not-so-warm embrace of the stranger I had seen only yesterday.

Maybe…

Anthony approached slowly, cautiously. “We were looking for you, young mistress.”

I said nothing. I simply stared, breathless, eyes stained with dried tears. I… I couldn’t speak. No words came.

He hesitated. “Are you… are you well?”

He shouldn’t have asked that. We both knew the answer. No one in my place would be well. Perhaps I looked so ghostlike, so shaken, that he felt the need to ask anyway.

I swallowed hard, unsure how to respond.

But before I could find the words, he spoke again.

“Your father seeks your presence. At once.”