Gabriel tapped Marcus's waist with the back of his leather bag, grinning as he motioned to the boy crouched near the short gun.
"Look at your nephew."
Marcus turned slightly. Eliot was still utterly immersed—cradling the weapon like a newborn, eyes fixed in calculated wonder. He hadn't even slung the strap over his shoulder.
When the men weren't looking, the little prince would raise it and pretend to fire, lips pressing tight with concentration. Into a tree, into the mist, into the wind—anything that moved or dared to exist before his line of sight.
"We're staying the night," Gabriel said, settling beside the fire. "You sure your brother won't skin you alive for letting his son sleep in a forest of monsters?"
Marcus scoffed, voice low. "Yeah."
"I can take care of him better than my brother ever did," he added after a beat. "Keeping him locked in that tower… it'll turn him soft."
Gabriel chuckled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "He's not that soft. Just… polished."
Marcus hummed in thought.
"Look at him," he continued. "If it weren't for that hair, people might mistake him for a girl."
He wasn't mocking—there was a strange warmth behind his words, almost teasing.
"When I left him six months ago, he was pale and frail. But now…" He studied the boy's profile again. "He's sharper. I see it in his eyes."
Then, quieter
"The moment they declared him heir, I pictured it—those noble bastards, lining up with their blades sharpened. Every single one of them dreaming of slitting Eliot's nape in the night."
Gabriel didn't laugh this time. He only listened, as Marcus's voice dropped further.
"But I won't let them. Not a damn soul. My nephew will take the throne. I don't want anyone else sitting on it."
There was a pause, and when Marcus spoke again, his expression shifted. His eyes softened, creased with something far more delicate than resolve. He gazed at Eliot with the kind of look that didn't belong to an uncle—it belonged to a father.
His smile was faint, almost dreamy, laced with a tenderness he rarely let show.
"You love him more than the mother, don't you?" Gabriel asked carefully.
Marcus didn't answer.
The fire crackled between them. Shadows of memory danced along the edges of their silence.
"We agreed on the marriage to forge an alliance with the Beast people," Marcus finally said, not to explain himself, but to remind himself.
Gabriel leaned back against a root, glancing toward Eliot again. "Those sickening old nobles wouldn't dare touch the throne if they knew what flows through that boy's veins."
He paused. "Willow's blood mixed with the Princess of Beasts? That's a weapon they'll never tame."
Around them, the others were settling in—Andre, Vex, Silas, and Tomas. The five of them were Marcus's inner circle, bound not by rank, but by blood earned in battle and secrets buried deep. They were the opposite of Lukas's sterile court—no masks, no lies.
Gabriel eyed Andre. "You'd call them monsters, wouldn't you?"Andre raised a brow.
"You can't tame a beast," he muttered, tossing dried meat onto a pan.
Gabriel snorted and jabbed a finger into his side. "He did."
They all looked at Marcus.
Most people knew the tale. Knew that once, a beast princess fell in love with a man from Willoq. That the man let her go—not because he stopped loving her, but because the future demanded more than love.
The fire cracked again. No one spoke.
Because in the flicker of flame, and the edge of Marcus's gaze, the past still lingered.
And Eliot—the boy playing war at the edge of the woods—was the living proof of a decision that had broken two hearts but might someday unify a kingdom.
Marcus didn't answer Gabriel's remark.
Instead, his eyes dropped to the flame, and a silence took over—long, thick, laced with memory.
A voice whispered in his mind, soft as the night wind.
"It's a shame you let go of what was yours."
She had held him close that night. Her arms warm, her eyes—eyes wild with something between fury and sorrow—had searched his like a map searching for an escape.
"You were born to reign, Marcus. But you won't even fight for it."
He had cried. Only once. Quietly, into her shoulder where she couldn't see. And when she pulled away, it wasn't coldness he felt—it was finality.
" Ineed a man who can protect my children. The humans fear us. If I chose you—someone with no title, no claim—how long before they tear the treaty apart?"
And then she was gone. Promising to return
"If you dare, slay Lukas. Then i'll be yours"
He hadn't.
He couldn't.
Because that meant killing his own brother.
Because that meant proving he was worthy—and Marcus never believed he was.
Now, all these years later, her words tasted bitter on his tongue.
If she refused me…"
he whispered under his breath, eyes fixed on Eliot as the boy grinned at his toy gun,
"…then I'll take the thing she adored most."
He stood up.
"Watch over him," Marcus said to Gabriel, his voice smooth, casual. "I need to take a piss."
Gabriel waved him off without suspicion.
But Marcus walked farther than he should. Past the edge of their camp. Past the clearing where the forest grew denser.
There, beneath a gnarled tree twisted like bone, Marcus knelt and reached into his belt pouch. He pulled out a totem made of beast bones and dyed hair—a relic he swore never to use.
Whispered chants spilled from his lips, syllables scraping from his throat like something half-forgotten. The ground beneath his feet stirred. The roots pulsed.
The wind thickened.
Something old and wrong opened its eyes in the dark. Something that would freak his sweetie pie thinking this is the same thing that haunts him.
Crawling back to him, from the dust.
A curled, hunched form emerged, limbs too long, skin like drenched paper. It breathed through a hollowed throat, sniffing the air like a dog.
Marcus looked it in the face, unafraid.
'I need you to test him.
The creature didn't speak. But it understood.
'Scare him. Push him. Leave him trembling if you must… but don't kill him. Not unless he's too weak.'
Then Marcus turned, walked back to the camp.
But not before muttering under his breath, just once
"Let's see if the thing she loved most can survive without her."
He chuckled briefly.