"NO! NO! MY LORD! LORD KALDRIC!" A scream arrived. Ardelle sobbed, the sound violent, no longer in her senses, frightened for her leftover dignity.
The voice was unrecognizable, a high, thin wail of pure terror. Lord Kaldric froze, his hand still holding the flap open. His eyes went wide before narrowing into bafflement.
"Please! I apologize! I'll go back to the hole I came from!"
He scanned the cot, but it was empty. Then, he heard the scratching of the ground under it. An unforeseen, undesirable shaking sensation emerged from his core before converting into wrath.
She was curled into a ball, her eyes squeezed shut, her knees close to her chest, frightened for her leftover respect.
"Please, spare me my dignity! Tell this man to leave! Please, Lord Kaldric, help me!"
The air in the tent turned heavy. Lord Kaldric stood motionless, the beautiful dress clutched in his hand. Every word she screamed was a blade, carving into the silence, shattering the honor he clung onto as his lifeline.
She thought the shadow outside- the man who had sat there all night to guard her life- had been a predator waiting for her to break.
And she was calling for 'him' to save her from the very man he was.
Lord Kaldric's chest tightened. He looked at the dirt on her face, the way she was shaking so hard the cot rattled against the floor.
The sight was a mirror, reflecting the monster she considered this world to be.
He didn't feel pity; he felt a surge of loathing so intense it made his hands shake.
Hating for the weakness she displayed, and perhaps, for the first time, a flicker of hate for the man who had driven her to such a state. Himself.
He stepped forward, the spurs on his boots jingling. Ardelle let out a choked scream, burying her face in her arms.
"Please–"
"Ardelle."
Her body recoiled. His lips called her name for the first time, enough to immobilize her.
The sound of his voice snapped her eyes open. She blinked, her vision blurred by tears, looking past the legs of the cot.
She saw the obsidian greaves. The heavy boots. She followed the silhouette up until she met those piercing silver eyes, amplifying her heartbeats to the point she was a panting and trembling mess.
The realization hit her. The shadow that had settled over her all night... it hadn't been a drunkard.
It had been him. Protecting her.
He had sat in the cold while she cowered in it.
The silence that followed was agonizing. Ardelle stopped screaming, her breath hitching in her throat, her gaze fixed on him in a mix of shock and lingering horror.
Lord Kaldric's lip curled in a sneer of pure, cold disgust to find her hiding under a bed like a frightened dog.
"The clothes you begged for," he scoffed, controlling his eyes to not stare at her body.
He threw the bundle of green wool and fur onto the cot. The fine fabric landed with a soft thud above her head. He didn't reach down to pull her out. He didn't offer a hand to help her stand.
"Dress yourself and be ready to move in ten minutes," he commanded, his eyes hardening back into the heartless stone she knew.
"Or I will leave you here for the wolves to find. I find myself losing my patience for this... drama."
He turned on his heel and walked out, the tent flap falling shut and plunging her back into a dim, suffocating gloom.
Ardelle stayed under the cot for a long moment, staring at the spot where he had stood.
She reached out a trembling hand and touched the soft wool of the dress hanging over the edge.
It was warm. It was beautiful. It was everything she had ever wanted.
And as she pulled it toward her, she realized she had never felt more humiliated in her life.
Meanwhile, Lord Kaldric waited outside. His knee was shaking with impatience when ten minutes turned into twenty, then thirty.
His patience shattered as he barged inside. He intended to drag her out by her hair if necessary.
He intended to leave her in the mud if she uttered a single word of protest. He tore the tent flap aside, a roar already forming in his throat.
"Woman, I said—"
The words died.
Ardelle was not hiding under the cot anymore. She was standing in the center of the tent, her face flushed a deep, frantic crimson.
The forest-green gown was half-on, but she was hopelessly entangled.
The intricate laces of the bodice were looped around her fingers, knotted in the wrong eyelets, and the silk lining was twisted across her shoulders.
She looked like a bird caught in a net, her eyes wide and wet with a new kind of frustration.
She was a beggar, the mechanics of nobility were foreign to her.
"I... I can't," she whispered, her breaths hitching. "The strings... I can't reach it. My Lord… help…"
Kaldric's fury didn't vanish; it curdled into frustration. He closed his eyes for a pained second and prayed: Oh Lord, give me strength.
And let out a loud sigh, "By the God, woman. Is there nothing you can do for yourself?"
He strode toward her, his heavy boots thumping on the dirt. He didn't ask permission. He grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around so her back was to him.
Ardelle gasped, her skin prickling where his cold gauntlets touched her.
"Hold still," he commanded in annoyance.
He began to work the laces. His fingers, despite the heavy leather of his gloves, moved with a practiced precision.
He pulled the silk cords tight, his breath hot against the back of her neck, causing her hair to stand on her edge when a man's breath reached her skin outside the context of lust.
"Utterly useless. Curse Aldwin for finding the most intricate piece." He muttered, his lips nearing her skin, his frown deepening with every knot he untied and reset.
Her knees weakened due to their extremely closeness he wasn't paying heed to.
"Ah- My- My Lord."
"Be still, Ardelle." The name escaped his lips again, softer this time, making her heart skip a beat.
He reached the center of the bodice and gave the laces a sharp, violent tug to straighten the fit.
The dress cinched tight—too tight.
The sudden pressure forced her to gasp, her back arching instinctively.
The low-cut neckline of the gown dipped precariously, and the sudden swell of her chest was thrust upward, her cleavage shimmering in the dim light of the tent.
"I should have bought you a sack and a rope; it would have been more suited to your intellect–"
Lord Kaldric's hands froze when his eyes landed on the inviting blossom. The perfect line, the skin nearing his.
The air in the tent seemed to vanish. His gaze, which had been fixed on the laces with a focus, dropped. He stared at the soft, vulnerable curve of her skin, at the way her heart beat rapidly against the emerald wool.
For three long, suffocating seconds, the Obsidian Pillar glitched. The stone-cold commander disappeared, replaced by a man paralyzed by a beauty he couldn't ignore, not when it was too near that the heat traveled in him.
His lips parts, his silver eyes darkening with a sudden, predatory heat he hadn't authorized. His fingers inches apart to feel the skin he had all authority to access now.
The skin hundreds of men were dreaming about. He could easily brush his fingers against every inch of it yet controlled himself.
Ardelle felt it- the change in the atmosphere. Her cheek burned. She looked at the man staring at her chest, her breath shallow.
She gulped, "M-My Lord?"
The sound of her voice snapped the spell. Lord Kaldric flinched as if he had been burned, harshly dragged back to his lost senses.
A flash of pure, self-loathing rage crossed his face. He quickly loosened the laces with a rough, clumsy jerk, hiding the view he had just been devouring.
"Finish it yourself," he hissed, his voice sounding strangled.
He didn't look at her again. He turned and left the tent as if fleeing a battlefield.