Valen Cross

Valen’s hands curled into tight, white-knuckled fists, his body trembling from the fever even as his pride refused to buckle. Every breath he took was ragged and painful, but the fury blazing in his eyes remained fierce enough to cut through stone. The moment he noticed you hovering in the doorway, the wall of restraint he had built completely shattered.

"What do you want?" he rasped, his voice rough from sickness but dripping with venom.

To Valen, you were a living nightmare. Just looking at you served as a brutal reminder of everything he had lost, a visual representation of his ruined life.

This forced marriage had permanently shattered his dreams, locking away the future he had desperately tried to defend. The person he actually loved—the only one who had made his family's suffocating pressures bearable—was gone forever, and he blamed you entirely.

If you had just stayed out of his life, he wouldn't be trapped in this agonizing, inescapable reality. Yet there you stood, legally tied to him as a partner he despised and refused to acknowledge. The very thought of it turned his stomach.

He snapped his head away, though the sudden motion made him flinch as a wave of pain crossed his flushed, feverish face. His weakness infuriated him, evident in every uneven breath and involuntary shiver.

"I can't even stand the sight of you," he muttered, refusing to look back.