CHAPTER 117: SHACKLED IN INSECURITY

Lorraine sat with her hands clutched over her lap, head bowed, as the carriage jolted down from her house. Her heart thundered against her ribs, her skull ached with the pounding of it. She knew she had to do something, but her mind was a blank page, torn clean of thought.

A touch brushed her ear.

She flinched violently, shrinking back as though burned. Her father was smiling at her.

Her skin crawled. Every muscle in her body recoiled as his fingers cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing over her skin like he had every right.

"I’ve never noticed it before..." Hadrian murmured, his smile too gentle, too wrong. "You’ve grown into something... beautiful. You look like your mother."

His teeth glinted, and hers clenched until her jaw ached. The words turned her stomach. That smile had always come before pain.

She slapped his hand away. Father or not, she couldn’t stand his touch. Scooting to the far side of the carriage, she pressed her arms against the cushioned wall, her chest rising in sharp bursts.

But the moment he mentioned her mother, the numb ice inside her cracked. Her brother’s words rushed back.

This man who was smiling as though he cherished the past, and touching her like she belonged to him... He was a murderer. He killed her mother.

The smile faded from his lips.

Hadrian seized a fistful of her hair at the nape of her neck and wrenched her face toward him. Lorraine choked on the pain shooting down her spine, but forced herself to meet his gaze.

"Oh... those eyes," Hadrian chuckled. "Where did you get them from, I wonder?"

Lorraine lowered her gaze, hiding behind her lashes. But she could feel his eyes crawling all over her, stripping her bare.

"I underestimated you..." His hand slid down, fingers clamping hard around her chin until her jaw throbbed. She gasped at the pain as he forced her head up. "All those hours hiding in the library with your books. You weren’t just reading, were you? You learned... tricks. The Art of Seduction." He squeezed harder, a cruel smile twisting his lips. "If I’d known how good you’d become at luring men, I’d never have married you off so young."

Lorraine’s hands flew to his wrist, gripping, trembling. She wanted to claw him off, to draw blood, to make him let go, but fear froze her. Fear that resisting would unleash something far worse.

Her whole body was aflame, a furnace of rage and terror locked inside her skin.

"It’s not too late," Hadrian said, his voice dropping low, his mouth curving into a smirk that reeked of possession. "I had other plans for you... but fate has such a neat way of delivering what I want. You always knew what your father desired, didn’t you? You’ve come right back into my hands. And I’ve already thought of a hundred ways to make use of you..."

Lorraine’s heart hammered, a pain so sharp it felt like it might split her chest.

Do fathers treat their daughters this way?

Who had she seduced? Who had poisoned him with this idea of her? Or was it just his sickness, his anger, twisting her into prey?

Her breath shuddered, exhaustion and terror and fury clawing at her insides. She couldn’t stay here. If this continued, she would be broken... or worse, sold off like property.

I need help.

Her heart screamed it, raw and desperate.

She tried to move. She tried to fight off. She might not succeed, but she should at least try.

But she couldn’t move. Her hands trembled. She could slap her husband when he touched her without her consent. But this man... she could do nothing to him.

What is wrong with me?

Like a cruel trick of her mind, she remembered the story. She met someone from a distant kingdom, famed for taming its elephants for logging work. She had never seen one, only a sketch in a travel book. A beast so vast that a man standing beside it looked like a toy. She had wondered then—how could something so immense, so mighty, bend its will to a man with nothing but a stick in hand?

The answer had been simple. They chained them when they were small. Too young to fight back, too weak to break free. No matter how they struggled, the iron links cut into their skin until the pain itself taught obedience. And even when they grew, towering and strong enough to trample on armies, their minds never grew past the chain they had around their ankles when they were young. The memory of pain was enough. The phantom of the shackle was heavier than any iron.

And as Hadrian’s fingers dug into her jaw, Lorraine realized... she was that elephant. She had grown, sharper, cleverer, stronger than she once was. Strong enough to ruin him. Strong enough, perhaps, to ruin kings.

And still... when his smile curved the way it did in her childhood—lazy, triumphant, amused at her pain—her body remembered. Her skin crawled with old fear. Her bones remembered the chain.

Her breath shuddered. Her body shook.

Maybe she had never escaped. Maybe she never would. She needed someone to break her chains.

But who did she have? No one.

She closed her eyes. Resigned. Perhaps this was how it ended... like the elephant in its pen, mighty but still shackled by chains that weren’t strong enough to hold her. Pathetic. Pitiful. Hated by everyone.

Her father’s smile hovered above her like a noose tightening, proof that she was still his possession. And in the hollow of her chest, where her heart kept pounding, the question echoed again...

What am I holding on for?

Hadrian studied her as though he were seeing the child he had broken, not the woman she had become: obedient, trembling, head bowed... She was exactly as he remembered her. What else could a mongrel do but kneel? She had always been useless. Always weak.

How foolish of him to think otherwise, even for a moment. When Leroy had dared to speak of her with such conviction, as if she were worth something, Hadrian almost believed she had wised up. That she had grown a spine. That she could shed the shame she carried on the Arvand name.

But here she was. Shivering. Powerless. Still, the disgrace he had always known.

And what better moment could fate deliver him?

Leroy had barged into his mansion, spat on his name, dared to threaten him, and worst of all... humiliated his beloved daughter, Elyse. His delicate Elyse, who now could not even bring herself to step beyond her room’s threshold.

Hadrian’s lips curled, his eyes glinting with the vicious delight of a predator that had found its prey. The gods had placed before him a perfect offering: a chance to wound Leroy deeper than he had ever been wounded himself.

Leroy should have thought about everything if he dared to sneak into his bedchambers to threaten him.

If Leroy thought he could outsmart him and humiliate him, then Hadrian would carve that shame tenfold upon Lorraine. He would see her broken so completely, so utterly humiliated, she would not be able to raise her head again. Not before the court. Not before the man she loved. Not before herself.

Yes! He would grind her into dust, and when she shattered, Leroy would crumble after her. Because even warrior princes could not live without their hearts.

Leroy... you should never have touched my daughter.