Chapter 4: A Public Claiming in the Great Hall
The Great Hall swallowed sound.
Gavin stood at the base of the dais, his boots planted on the black marble, his hands clasped behind his back. The eleven ladies formed a crescent before him—a constellation of silks and jewels and carefully constructed smiles. The morning light filtered through the high windows, casting long shadows across the floor, and the air smelled of old stone and colder things.
He hadn't slept.
After Seraphina had left his chambers—slipping out before dawn, her hair tousled, her gown wrinkled, her eyes avoiding his—Gavin had lain awake staring at the ceiling. The taste of her still lingered on his tongue. The feel of her still burned on his skin. And the memory of what he'd said—what he'd almost said—sat in his chest like a stone.
He'd told her he hated her.
He'd lied.
Now he stood before the women who had come to compete for his crown, and he felt nothing but contempt. For them. For himself. For this entire grotesque performance.
"You're all wondering why I've called you here," he said.
His voice carried through the hall, flat and cold. A few of the ladies shifted on their feet. Beatrice watched him with hungry eyes, still glowing from her night in his bed. Margaret stood near the back, her face pale, her hands clasped tightly in front of her.
Seraphina was on the far left, her expression unreadable. She didn't look at him.
"I've been told," Gavin continued, "that my terms were unclear. That some of you don't understand what it means to be my mate. What it means to belong to me."
He paced slowly along the line of women, his eyes moving from face to face. Lady Victoria met his gaze with cool calculation. Lady Cassandra looked away. Lady Beatrice licked her lips.
"So I've decided to demonstrate."
The silence that followed was absolute. Even the servants stationed along the walls seemed to stop breathing.
Gavin stopped in front of Seraphina.
She looked up at him, and for a moment, something flickered in her pale green eyes—confusion, wariness, a spark of the defiance he'd come to expect. He held her gaze, letting the weight of the moment settle between them.
"Lady Voss," he said. "Come here."
She didn't move.
For three heartbeats, she stood frozen, her chin lifted, her jaw tight. Gavin could see the war playing out behind her eyes—the instinct to refuse, to fight, to tell him to go fuck himself. He'd seen that look before, in the corridor outside his chambers, when she'd called him cruel and honest in the same breath.
But then something shifted.
Her shoulders relaxed. Her chin lowered a fraction of an inch. And she stepped forward.
The other ladies watched in stunned silence as Seraphina crossed the floor to stand before him. Beatrice's mouth fell open. Margaret made a small, wounded sound.
"Kneel," Gavin said.
Seraphina's eyes flashed. "What?"
"You heard me." He gestured to the floor at his feet. "Kneel."
For a long moment, she didn't move. Her breath came fast and shallow, her hands curling into fists at her sides. Gavin could see the battle raging inside her—the same battle he'd seen last night, when she'd told him to shut up and move instead of begging.
But she was smarter than the others. She understood the game.
She knelt.
The rustle of her gown against the marble was the loudest sound in the hall. Gavin watched her descend, watched her settle onto her knees at the base of his throne, and felt something dark and hungry stir in his chest.
"Good girl," he murmured.
Seraphina's jaw clenched, but she didn't respond.
Gavin turned to address the assembly, his voice carrying to every corner of the hall. "This is what I expect from my mate. Obedience. Submission. The understanding that I am your king, your alpha, your master in all things."
He reached down and gathered a handful of Seraphina's silver-blonde hair, twisting it around his fist. She gasped—a sharp, involuntary sound—but didn't pull away.
"You will watch," he told the other ladies. "You will learn. And you will decide if this is the life you want."
He pulled Seraphina to her feet and bent her over the arm of his throne.
The position was crude, deliberate—her hips elevated, her face pressed against the cold stone, her gown bunched around her waist. Gavin could see the curve of her ass, the dampness already darkening the fabric of her smallclothes.
"You're wet," he observed.
"Fuck you."
The words were muffled against the throne, but Gavin heard them clearly. He laughed—a low, dangerous sound—and yanked her smallclothes down to her knees.
"Such a filthy mouth," he said, running his fingers along her slit. She was slick, her cunt already swollen and eager despite her protests. "I wonder what I'll have to do to clean it out."
He heard a strangled noise from somewhere in the line of ladies. He didn't look. He didn't care.
"Watch," he commanded again.
He freed his cock from his breeches—already hard, already aching—and pressed the head against Seraphina's entrance. She flinched, her body tensing, but she didn't try to escape.
"You want this," he said.
"Go to hell."
"You're dripping for me, Seraphina. Your cunt is begging to be filled." He pushed the head inside her, just an inch, and she groaned. "Your mouth says one thing, but your body says something else entirely."
He slammed into her.
Seraphina screamed—a raw, broken sound that echoed off the vaulted ceiling. Her fingers clawed at the throne, her nails scraping against the gilded iron, and Gavin didn't give her a moment to adjust before he started to move.
Brutal. Punishing. Each thrust drove her forward, her hips slamming against the arm of the throne, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps. Gavin fisted his hand in her hair and pulled her head back, exposing the pale column of her throat.
"Look at them," he growled. "Look at the women who thought they could handle this. Look at them and tell me what you see."
Through the haze of pain and pleasure, Seraphina forced her eyes open. The ladies watched in frozen horror—some with mouths agape, others with hands pressed to their chests. Beatrice's face was flushed, her thighs pressed together. Margaret had tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I see—" Seraphina choked on a moan as Gavin angled his hips, hitting a deeper spot. "I see women who don't know what they're asking for."
"And what are they asking for?"
"You." She gasped as he slammed into her again. "They're asking for you, and they don't understand—" Another thrust. "—what that means."
Gavin laughed. "And you do?"
"I'm learning."
He fucked her harder. The sound of their bodies colliding filled the hall—wet, obscene, impossible to ignore. Gavin could feel the eyes of every woman in the room fixed on them, could feel the weight of their judgment and their envy and their fear.
He didn't care.
All he cared about was the woman beneath him—the way she tightened around his cock, the way she moaned when he pulled her hair, the way she fought him even as her body surrendered.
"You're mine," he said, his voice harsh against her ear. "You're my silver-haired cunt, my whore, my—"
She came.
He felt it in the way her body clenched around him, the way she cried out, the way her legs shook. And he followed her over the edge, spilling inside her with a guttural groan, his hips jerking, his vision going white.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Then Gavin pulled out.
He let go of Seraphina's hair, and her head dropped forward, her body collapsing onto the arm of the throne. She was trembling—he could see it in the way her shoulders shook, the way her hands gripped the stone.
He tucked himself back into his breeches and turned to face the assembly.
"Get out," he said. "All of you."
The ladies scattered like startled birds—silk rustling, heels clicking against the marble, whispers rising in a crescendo. Beatrice paused at the door, her eyes locked on Seraphina's prone form, her expression unreadable. Then she was gone.
Margaret was the last to leave. She stood at the threshold for a long moment, her tear-streaked face turned toward him.
"Was that necessary?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Gavin didn't answer.
She left.
The doors slammed shut, and the Great Hall fell silent once more.
Seraphina slowly straightened, pushing herself off the throne with shaking arms. She didn't look at him. She simply adjusted her smallclothes, smoothed down her gown, and walked toward the door.
"Where are you going?" Gavin asked.
"To my chambers."
"Stay."
She stopped. Turned. Her face was pale, but her eyes—those pale green eyes that had haunted him for days—burned with something he couldn't name.
"You're a monster," she said.
"I know."
"You just—in front of everyone—"
"I know."
She shook her head, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. "You think this proves something? You think this makes you strong?"
"It proves I'm honest." He crossed the distance between them, his boots echoing on the marble. "It proves I'm not going to pretend to be something I'm not. This is who I am, Seraphina. This is what I offer."
"I know."
"Then why are you still here?"
She didn't answer. She just stood there, her chest rising and falling, her hands trembling at her sides.
Gavin reached out and touched her face—a surprisingly gentle gesture after everything he'd just done. She flinched but didn't pull away.
"You're going to destroy me," she whispered.
"Probably."
"And you don't care."
"I care." He traced the line of her jaw with his thumb. "That's the problem."
She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, there was something different in her expression—a resolve he hadn't seen before.
"Then maybe you should try harder not to."
She pulled away and walked out of the hall, her footsteps fading into the corridor beyond.
Gavin stood alone in the vast chamber, surrounded by shadows and stone and the ghost of what he'd just done. He felt empty. Hollowed out. The same way he'd felt after Beatrice, after the picnic, after every empty, meaningless encounter that passed for connection in his life.
But this time, there was something else mixed in.
Something that felt dangerously like regret.
He turned and walked to his throne, sinking onto the cold stone with a heavy sigh. The room was silent, the shadows lengthening as the sun moved across the sky. He sat there until the light faded completely, and the only thing left in the darkness was the memory of silver-blonde hair and pale green eyes.
And the question he couldn't answer: What had he become?
The question sat in his chest like a splinter.
He didn't leave the throne for hours. The servants came and went, lighting candles, stoking the braziers, their footsteps soft against the marble. None of them looked at him. None of them spoke. They'd heard what happened in the hall—the whole palace had heard—and now they moved around him like he was something dangerous.
He was.
Gavin stared at the empty space before his throne where Seraphina had knelt. He could still see the imprint of her body against the stone, still smell the musk of her cunt lingering in the air. His hands remembered the weight of her hair, the heat of her skin, the way she'd clenched around him when she came.
She'd called him a monster.
She wasn't wrong.
But she'd also stayed. After everything—after the humiliation, the cruelty, the performance—she'd stood there and let him touch her face. She'd looked at him like she could see through the armor, past the throne, into the ugly, tangled mess of whatever he was underneath.
And she hadn't run.
He didn't understand her. He didn't understand why she didn't hate him, why she didn't leave, why she kept showing up to every meal and every dance and every brutal test he threw at her. She should have been gone by now. Any sensible woman would have fled back to her northern pack and never looked back.
But Seraphina Voss wasn't sensible.
She was stubborn, infuriating, sharp-tongued, and utterly impossible to predict. She fought him at every turn, refused to bend, refused to break, refused to give him the satisfaction of watching her crumble. And when he'd taken her in front of the entire court, she'd looked him in the eye afterward and told him exactly what he was.
No one else had ever done that.
Not Margaret, who was too soft, too trusting, too willing to forgive him for things he didn't deserve forgiveness for. Not Beatrice, who wanted his crown more than she wanted him, who moaned his name like a prayer but never bothered to learn his heart. Not Marcus, who loved him too much to tell him the truth.
Seraphina had no reason to lie.
She'd told him he was a monster, and she'd meant it. She'd told him he didn't care, and she'd meant that too. But she'd also told him she saw him—the real him, the broken parts, the empty spaces—and she hadn't flinched.
Gavin rose from the throne.
His legs were stiff, his joints aching from hours of sitting still. He walked through the empty hall, his footsteps echoing off the vaulted ceiling, and pushed open the heavy doors that led to the corridor beyond.
The palace was quiet.
Most of the ladies had retreated to their chambers hours ago, and the servants had been dismissed for the night. Gavin moved through the shadows, his mind churning, his chest tight with something he couldn't name. He didn't know where he was going until he was already there.
Seraphina's door.
He stood outside it for a long moment, one hand raised, his knuckles hovering inches from the wood. He could hear her moving inside—the soft rustle of fabric, the creak of a floorboard, the muffled sound of her breath.
He knocked.
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Then: "Go away."
"I can't."
Another pause. Then the sound of footsteps approaching the door. It swung open, and Seraphina stood before him, her hair loose around her shoulders, her gown replaced by a simple shift that clung to her curves. Her face was pale in the candlelight, her eyes red-rimmed, her lips pressed into a thin line.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"I don't know."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
She stared at him, searching his face for something—a lie, an angle, a hidden motive. He knew what she saw: a king who'd humiliated her, used her, treated her like a possession to be displayed. He knew she had every right to slam the door in his face.
Instead, she stepped aside.
Gavin walked in.
Her chambers were smaller than his, but warmer—a fire crackled in the hearth, and the windows were draped in thick velvet that blocked out the night. A book lay open on the table beside her bed, and a half-empty cup of tea sat beside it.
"I was trying to read," she said, closing the door behind him. "I thought it might help me forget what happened today."
"Did it?"
"No." She crossed her arms over her chest, a defensive gesture that made her look younger, more vulnerable. "What do you want, Gavin? Really?"
He turned to face her.
"You," he said.
She laughed—a short, bitter sound. "You had me. In front of everyone. You made sure the entire court saw exactly what kind of man you are."
"That's not what I mean."
"Then what?"
He crossed the room and stopped inches from her. She didn't back away. She never backed away.
"I mean I want you," he said. "Not as a conquest. Not as a display. Not as proof of anything." He reached out and touched her face, his thumb tracing the curve of her cheekbone. "I want you because you're the only person in this palace who tells me the truth."
Seraphina's breath caught. "Gavin—"
"I visited every woman in this court before you arrived. I took them to my bed, and I forgot their names by morning. I've spent two years proving to myself that I don't need anyone—that I can rule alone, that I can be alone, that I don't need a mate to be whole."
"And?"
"And you ruined it." He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You ruined everything. I can't stop thinking about you. I can't stop wanting you. I can't stop—"
She kissed him.
It was different from the night before. Softer, slower, less about hunger and more about something else—something that felt dangerously like trust. Her hands came up to cup his face, her lips moving against his with a tenderness that made his chest ache.
"Don't stop," she whispered against his mouth.
"I won't."
He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed.
The sheets were soft beneath her, the firelight casting a golden glow across her skin. Gavin took his time—unlike before, unlike the brutal, punishing rhythm he'd used in the Great Hall. He kissed every inch of her, peeling away her shift with reverent hands, pressing his lips to the hollow of her throat, the curve of her breast, the soft plane of her stomach.
"You're shaking," she murmured.
"I know."
"Why?"
"Because I'm afraid."
She looked up at him, her pale green eyes wide with surprise. "Of what?"
"Of this." He kissed her belly, just above her navel. "Of you. Of what I'm about to do."
"What are you about to do?"
He lifted his head and met her gaze. "Make you mine."
The words hung in the air between them, heavy with meaning. Seraphina's breath hitched, but she didn't look away.
"You already did that," she said. "In the hall. In front of everyone."
"No." He shook his head. "That was a performance. This—" He slid his hand between her legs, finding her wet and ready. "—this is real."
He pushed a finger inside her, then two, curling them upward until she gasped. She was so tight, so hot, so perfectly responsive—her hips rising to meet his hand, her breath coming in short, sharp bursts.
"Gavin—"
"Shh." He replaced his fingers with his mouth, tasting her, drinking her in. She tasted like salt and honey and something uniquely her—a flavor he'd been craving since the first moment he saw her. "Let me take care of you."
He licked her slowly, deliberately, learning the rhythm of her pleasure. When she arched off the bed, he pinned her hips down with one hand and kept going—circling her clit with his tongue, pressing two fingers back inside her, bringing her to the edge and then pulling back.
"Please," she gasped. "Please, I need—"
"I know what you need."
He rose up over her, his cock aching, his heart pounding. She reached down and guided him to her entrance, and when he pushed inside her, she moaned—a long, low sound that vibrated through his entire body.
"Fuck," he breathed.
"Don't stop."
"I won't."
He moved slowly at first, his forehead pressed to hers, his hips rolling in a steady rhythm. This wasn't about dominance or display. This wasn't about proving anything to anyone. This was about her—the way she held onto him like he was something precious, the way she whispered his name like a prayer, the way she looked at him like he was a person instead of a throne.
"I've decided," he said, his voice rough.
"Decided what?"
"On you." He thrust deeper, and she gasped. "I'm choosing you, Seraphina. As my mate. As my—"
She kissed him before he could finish.
They moved together, faster now, the rhythm building toward something inevitable. Gavin felt her tighten around him, felt her climax building, and he drove into her harder, chasing his own release.
"Come for me," he commanded.
She did.
Her body clenched around him, her nails raking down his back, her scream muffled against his shoulder. And Gavin followed her over the edge, spilling inside her with a groan that sounded like surrender.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
He collapsed beside her, pulling her into his arms, her head resting on his chest. The fire crackled in the hearth, and the world outside faded into nothing.
"So," she said softly. "You've chosen me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
He was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Because you're the only person who's ever looked at me and seen someone worth saving."
She lifted her head and met his eyes. "I don't want to save you, Gavin."
"Then what do you want?"
"I want to stand beside you." She touched his face, her fingers gentle against his jaw. "Not behind you. Not beneath you. Beside you."
He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, something had shifted in his expression—something softer, something almost vulnerable.
"That's going to be difficult," he said.
"I know."
"I'm not easy to live with."
"I know that too."
"I'll fuck up. I'll hurt you. I'll—"
"Gavin." She pressed her fingers to his lips, silencing him. "I'm not asking for perfection. I'm asking for honesty. I'm asking for you to try."
He kissed her fingers, then her palm, then her lips. "I'll try."
"That's all I need."
They lay together in the darkness, their bodies tangled, their breaths synchronized. And for the first time in years—maybe for the first time ever—Gavin felt something he'd never allowed himself to feel.
Hope.