Princes’ Lover

Chapter 27

POV Eva

The dungeon smells like despair.

Cold stone walls press in from every direction, slick with moisture that never fully dries. Torchlight flickers from brackets spaced too far apart, casting more shadows than illumination.

The air is thick with damp and rot and the lingering echo of every wolf who's suffered in these cells before us.

I've lived in this estate my entire life. I never knew this place existed.

Now it's my home.

Dominic is in the cell across from mine—close enough to see, close enough to hear his breathing, but separated by iron bars that might as well be miles.

The guards positioned us this way deliberately, I think. Close enough to torment each other with proximity. Too far to touch.

They underestimated us.

I press myself against the bars, stretching my arm through the gap between iron. The metal bites into my shoulder, my wounded shoulder that still throbs from the whip's kiss, but I don't care.

I reach further, fingers straining toward the opposite cell.

Dominic does the same.

Our hands meet in the space between cages—fingertips brushing, then palms pressing together, then fingers intertwining with desperate strength.

His hand is warm despite the cold, his grip steady despite everything they've done to him.

"Eva." His voice is hoarse, wrecked from the beating. "You shouldn't have done that. In the courtyard. You shouldn't have—"

"Don't." I squeeze his fingers tighter. "Don't tell me what I should or shouldn't have done. I'd do it again. A hundred times."

"They're going to kill me." The words come out flat. Accepting. "Your father won't let this stand. A low-ranking wolf touching his daughter…"

"Then they'll kill us both." I strain forward, trying to see his face in the dim light. "I meant what I said. I choose you. Whatever comes next, I choose you."

Silence stretches between us. Then Dominic reaches further, his fingertips brushing my cheek through the bars. The tenderness in his touch—the love he was forced to hide for so many years—makes my eyes sting with tears.

"I don't regret anything."

His voice drops to a whisper, rough with emotion.

"Not a single moment. Not the first time I carried you on my back when we were children. Not every year I spent watching over you. Not that night in your chambers when I finally stopped pretending."

"Nic…"

"Given the choice again, I would make the same one." His thumb traces my cheekbone through the iron. "A thousand times. A million. You are worth any punishment they give me. You always have been."

The tears spill over, hot against my cold skin. I turn my head, pressing my lips to his knuckles—a kiss through prison bars, desperate and devoted.

We stay like that in the darkness. Holding on. Breathing together. Two wolves condemned for the crime of loving each other.

I don't know how much time passes before footsteps echo down the corridor.

I pull back instinctively, heart hammering. The guards change shifts at irregular intervals—it could be anyone. My father. Khalil. An executioner coming to end this before dawn.

But the figures that emerge from the shadows aren't guards.

Matteo appears first, dark and dangerous, moving with the silent efficiency of a predator. Soren follows close behind, pale as moonlight, frost-colored eyes scanning the cells.

"We don't have much time." Matteo produces a ring of keys—bribed or stolen, I don't want to know. "The guard shift change bought us maybe fifteen minutes."

"What are you doing here?" I stare at them through the bars. "If you're caught…"

"Then we're caught." Soren moves to Dominic's cell, selecting a key. "But we don't intend to be."

The lock clicks open. Dominic emerges slowly, wincing at the movement—his back is still a ruin of half-healed lashes and fresh wounds.

Matteo opens my cell next, and I stumble out on legs that have gone numb from the cold stone floor.

"There's a plan." Matteo speaks quickly, urgently. "The eastern tunnels connect to the old wine cellars. There's an exit beyond the walls that comes out near the forest edge."

"Horses are waiting." Soren adds. "Fresh mounts, supplies for a week's travel. Matteo has safe houses arranged through his contacts—places your father's wolves won't think to look."

"Sebastian is covering our movements from inside." Matteo glances toward the corridor. "He's creating a distraction in the main hall. Something about challenging Khalil to a formal duel for insulting his honor."

Despite everything, a broken laugh escapes me. "Sebastian is challenging Khalil?"

"He's surprisingly fierce when he's angry." A ghost of a smile crosses Matteo's face. "Turns out the golden prince has teeth after all."

I look between them—these men who came here as rivals. As conquerors. Men who wanted to possess me, to claim me as a political prize.

Now they're risking everything to set me free.

"Why?" The question comes out hoarse. "Why are you doing this? Your alliances. Your packs. Everything you stand to lose…"

"Because some things matter more than politics." Matteo meets my eyes. "I told you that, remember? Sometimes the bravest thing is admitting what you actually need."

Soren steps closer, his pale gaze dropping briefly to my stomach.

"You carry my child. My heir." His voice softens unexpectedly. "I won't let either of you rot in a dungeon. I won't let your father destroy what we created, however accidentally."

"And if we're caught?"

"Then we face the consequences together." Soren's jaw tightens. "But I'd rather die fighting than watch you be executed for loving someone."

Dominic moves to stand beside me, his hand finding mine. His grip is weaker than usual, blood loss and pain taking their toll, but his presence steadies me.

"We agree," he says quietly. "Whatever you've planned, we're in."

"There's something you need to understand first."

Soren's expression turns grave.

"Even if this works, even if we get you out tonight, freedom won't be permanent. Your father will hunt you. Both of you. He'll send wolves to every territory, call in every favor. You'll never know true peace."

The words settle over us like a shroud.

I look at Dominic. His dark eyes meet mine through the torchlight, steady and certain.

"I've spent my whole life in a gilded cage," I say slowly. "Performing. Pretending. Suffocating under expectations I never chose." I squeeze his hand. "Running with him sounds like the first free thing I've ever done."

Dominic brings my hand to his lips. "Then we run."

"Together," I add. "Whatever comes."

Matteo nods, something like respect flickering in his dark eyes. "Then let's move. We have maybe ten minutes before Sebastian's distraction wears thin."

We follow them into the darkness—four wolves united by circumstance, bound by choices none of us expected to make.

The tunnel ahead is black and uncertain, leading toward a future that promises danger and hardship and the constant shadow of pursuit.

But Dominic's hand is warm in mine.

And for the first time in my life, I'm choosing my own path.

Whatever waits at the end, we face it together.