Rajveer entered the room to find Devika sitting on the cushions of the window sill.
Her knees were pulled tightly to her chest, and her head was turned fully away so as to completely hide her face from him.
He let out a deep, heavy sigh. He quietly closed the double doors, shutting out the rest of the palace, and walked over to sit on the edge of the bed a short distance away from her. He knew he had to completely calm his own racing pulse down first before he even attempted to talk to her.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed her cutting a glance toward him for a mere fraction of a second. Then, without uttering a single word, she hopped down from the sill and walked over to the mahogany desk at the corner of the room. She filled a glass with cold water, marched back toward him, and placed the glass firmly on the bedside table right near him—not even looking at his face for a single millisecond.
Once her silent mission was done, she turned on her heel, went straight back to her spot on the window cushions, and resumed staring blankly outside.
Rajveer let out a soft, breathless chuckle. Even in the middle of such a blinding, lethal rage, this extraordinary woman still cared for his well-being.
He picked up the glass, drank half of the water, and then stood up. He walked over to her, bending down slightly to extend the half-filled glass toward her frame.
Devika looked at him for a brief millisecond, then aggressively grabbed the glass from his hand and drank the remaining water in one swift gulp.
She handed him the empty glass and spoke in a strict, unyielding voice while still stubbornly keeping her eyes fixed on the horizon outside: "Sorry! Aap pe gussa nahi the!"
Rajveer smoothly climbed onto the wide window ledge, sitting cross-legged directly opposite to her on the cushions . He leaned forward, purposefully tilting his head and bending his neck to catch her elusive gaze, a soft, incredibly captivated smile breaking across his sharp features. "Hum bhi. Sorry," he whispered in a low, deeply reassuring tone.
She finally turned her head to face him fully. Her dark eyebrows were still furrowed into a tight, sharp line, her big round eyes were still blazing with a simmering anger, and her hands were tightly gripping each other. Her nails were boring so deeply into her skin that her knuckles were pale, proving to him that she was desperately trying to calm her system down but was failing repeatedly.
"Aapko hume batana chahiye tha! Hum aapko har cheez batate hain!" she complained passionately, the betrayal cutting raw through her voice.
Rajveer nodded immediately, his eyes overflowing with an honest, apologetic sincerity. He raised both of his hands and playfully put them on his ears in a traditional, submissive gesture of mock surrender, repeating softly, "Sorry."
Devika's expression cracked for a split second. She lunged forward, her fingers softly but determinedly slapping his hands away from his ears, refusing to let her King look so deflated.
Then, letting out a sharp, defeated huff, she leaned her shoulder back against the sandstone wall, turning her face to look out through the glass once more.
"Saala! Insaan kehlaane ke laayak nahi hai," she murmured angrily, her voice dripping with an icy, venomous contempt while her gaze remained fixed on the world outside the window.
"Hume use usi din maar dena chahiye tha. Na jaane kya soch rahe the hum!!"
"Devika," Rajveer whispered softly, his voice wrapping around the chilly space of the bedroom as he leaned forward, his fingers gently reaching out to try and take her hand.
"Aapko pata hai, Raj? Humne kitni baar mana kiya tha Dada Sa ko!!" she burst out suddenly, standing up from the window cushions as her breathing turned ragged and dangerous. "Mat bulao us aadmi ko baar-baar yahan. Ho gaya na kaam, ab door rakho usko. Jo aadmi apni beti ko bazaar mein bitha sakta hai, do kauri ke liye bech tak sakta hai, vo kya kuch nahi kar sakta! Lekin nahi, unhone to ek hi rat lagaye rakhi thi—Baba hain tumhare, hakk hai unka, blah blah blah!!"
As her words tumbled out in a frantic, suffocating rush, Rajveer's eyes abruptly locked onto her tightly clenched hands. His breath caught sharply in his throat.
He saw bright, crimson blood beginning to drop steadily from her palms onto the carpet.
Without a single millisecond of hesitation, he lunged across the space, his warm hands forcefully but gently reaching out to envelop hers, uncurling her locked, trembling fists. Her fingernails had driven so brutally deep into her skin under the sheer pressure of her rage that they had managed to slice clean through the flesh, dark blood oozing out of the fresh cuts.
Rajveer let out a painful hiss, his heart violently twisting at the sight of the damage. The absolute second the physical realization hit her brain, Devika noticed her bleeding hands were locked firmly in his clutches, and she instinctively tried to yank her arms back to break his hold.
But Rajveer pulled her straight back towards him, refusing to let her retreat as he replied in a rough, tight frequency, "Chot lagi hai aapko!"
"Hume lagti rehti hai!" she snapped back, her armor slamming right back down as she tried to dismiss the pain.
"Devika! Shaant ho jaiye!" he commanded, his deep voice thick with an intense, protective panic as he placed his large hands securely on her rigid shoulders to anchor her.
"Nahi ho paa rahe, kya karein?!" she cried out helplessly, her big round eyes glistening with a rare, desperate frustration.
Wrenching her frame away from his touch, she marched mechanically toward a carved wooden drawer near the bed. She violently yanked it open, pulled her primary tactical handgun from her holster, and with a terrifying, lightning-fast muscle memory, systematically dismantled the firearm into multiple jagged steel pieces, throwing them carelessly inside the drawer. She didn't stop there. Her fingers dived into her pockets, her waistband, and her blouse, pulling out a compact blade, a second small pistol, throwing them all inside.
Rajveer stood frozen, his eyes widening in absolute, unadulterated shock. His brain completely failed to compute how many dangerous weapons this small, slender woman had been casually carrying on her body. Five, six, seven weapons—she was a walking, breathing fortress.
Having stripped away her physical armor, Devika stared down at the dismantled steel with a deep, shuddering sigh, her chest heaving as she clenched her bleeding fists tightly once more. She was fighting a brutal, invisible war with her own adrenaline, trying so incredibly hard to lock her volatile emotions back into place.
Rajveer reached over her frame a second time. He didn't say a word, his towering presence completely cutting off the cold room as he grabbed her trembling hands, opened them, and placed his crisp linen handkerchief directly against her raw palms, pressing his thumbs down firmly over the cuts to staunch the bleeding.
This time, the barrier broke. Devika finally didn't pull away. She didn't let go, and she didn't try to fight his grip. She didn't look up into his face either; her head remained completely bowed down, her gaze fixed on the blood-soaked linen, her teeth biting her lower lip so fiercely it threatened to create a fresh cut there just to distract her from the crushing weight of her father's betrayal.
---
After he carefully tied her hand with his linen handkerchief, securing the knot with a practiced, gentle firmness, Devika didn't stay still for even a second.
Her feet mechanically turned, and she immediately tried to move towards the door again, her posture radiating a desperate need to find a target for her restless energy.
Rajveer didn't let her take more than two steps; his long, powerful arms shot out, smoothly grabbing her waist from behind to lock her frame against his chest and completely stop her progress.
"Ab kahan chali aap?" he said, his voice dropping low against her ear.
"Neeche. Sab wait kar rahe hain!" she said in a low, muffled voice, her body still humming with the residual vibrations of her rage.
"Kahin nahi jayengi aap aise jwalamukhi banke!" he commanded firmly, his grip tightening protectively around her waist.
"To kya karein? Aap hi bataiye!" she asked him, turning slightly in his hold to look at him with pure, naked helplessness in her big eyes.
"Kuch mat kariye. Humpar chhor dijiye ye sab. Hum dekh lenge aapke baba ko," he tried to help.
She arched a sharp, highly skeptical eyebrow at him, a flicker of her usual challenging spirit breaking through the dark fog of her mind. "Aur vo kaise kariyega aap?"
Rajveer looked straight into her eyes, his jaw hardening into a lethal, terrifying line of pure, unadulterated fury. "Zinda jala denge," he managed to say, the savage truth slipping out of his throat before his trained mind could mask it.
Devika blinked, and then she gave him a flat, mock-bored look, entirely unbothered by his murderous declaration. "Accha? Khaiye humari kasam!"
Rajveer closed his eyes in pure, comically helpless defeat for a brief second, a weary, breathless smile breaking across his face as his dark threat completely dissolved. This woman was impossible.
He opened his eyes, his expression turning deeply serious as he looked down at her. "Dekhiye, Devika. Hume poora yakeen nahi hai. Jis aadmi ne Dada Sa ko vo chemical diya tha, vo kaam karta THA Jaysingh ke saath," he explained calmly, laying out the factual coordinates of their investigation.
He felt her shift, her chest heaving as if she wanted to say something—perhaps launch a fierce, logical counter-argument about her father's past operations—but she abruptly stopped herself. The words died in her throat, and she cut her gaze down toward the floor boards, her teeth clamping down brutally on her lower lip once again.
Rajveer couldn't bear to see her inflict any more pain on herself. He raised his hands, softly framing her flushed, warm face in his palms. With a slow, deliberate movement, his thumb slid down, gently pulling her trembling bottom lip out from the crushing, self-destructive clutches of her teeth.
"Shaant ho jaiye," he murmured softly, his eyes overflowing with an intense, quiet adoration that searched hers for any lingering shadows.
"Nahi ho pa rahe shaant. Kya karein? Aap hi karo!" she asked, her voice cracking with a desperate, child-like vulnerability as she threw the entire emotional burden onto his shoulders.
A sudden, electrifying idea sparked in his brain, but a massive wave of his standard hesitation immediately hit his chest.
Would she think he was taking advantage of her state?
Would she push him away?
But looking at her flushed, beautiful face and her biting lips, Rajveer ruthlessly swallowed his decade-long hesitation. He leaned down, bypassing every single concrete boundary he had ever built, and lightly pressed his lips against hers in a brief, soft, and anchoring peck.
The moment he pulled back, Devika stood frozen. Her big, round eyes were wide and completely shocked, staring straight in front of her as if her entire system had suffered a massive, localized software crash.
Rajveer looked at her frozen, silent frame, a dark, deeply captivated smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. He leaned a fraction closer, his deep voice rich with amusement as he whispered, "Lagta hai ye madad karega."
Devika slowly blinked, her eyes shifting from pure shock at his audacity to a soft, deeply amused sparkle at his highly unconventional way of calming her adrenaline down. "Cheater aadmi!" she murmured, a tiny, genuine smirk finally peeking out on her face.
The sound of her voice completely broke the last of Rajveer's clinical control. He let out a low, rich chuckle that vibrated deep in his chest, and without granting her a single millisecond to retreat, he ducked his head down to her face once more—this time, to properly kiss his Queen.
---
The exact second his lips met hers with a slow, possessive, and unyielding gravity, a profound, breathtaking warmth flooded his entire system.
She didn't pull back. Instead, he felt the rigid, military posture she had maintained all afternoon melt entirely into his frame, her hands coming up to lightly clutch the fabric of his shirt.
Her lips tasted like the sweetest, most delicious dish he had ever eaten.
His tongue demanded attention, and she gave it to him without a single fraction of hesitation, making herself so wildly addictive for him that his clinical, analytical brain went entirely, beautifully blank.
He deepened the kiss with a slow, protective intensity, his long fingers sliding deep into her thick silky hair, letting the dark silk fall wildly over his hands.
She was so soft, so warm, so incredibly perfect. Her hair felt like pure silk between his fingers, and her waist was entirely addictive beneath her blouse.
Her lips were impossibly soft, and damn, that tongue!
Every single defensive block he had meticulously maintained for so many years dissolved under the heat of her touch.
She was the most perfect woman he had ever seen, ever felt. She was a flawless, intoxicating combination of shyness and boldness, fear and bravery, so soft to hold but fiercely strong in her devotion. For a man who had spent a decade locking his emotions behind concrete walls, her surrender was a complete revelation.
He effortlessly lifted her up and set her down on the edge of a nearby wooden dressing table, never once breaking the connection, continuing to kiss her as if his very lungs depended on her breath.
He couldn't stop. He couldn't pull himself back from the sheer magnetic force of her being, and she didn't seem to be in any mood to end this either.
Her fingers moved with a frantic, running rhythm, casually loosening and taking off his silk tie, tossing it onto the floorboards. She popped his collar button open and firmly pulled his lapels toward her, closing the last remaining space between them.
Damn, this woman knew exactly how to drive him totally crazy for her. She knew exactly how to target those big, frozen walls in his system, and how to shatter them into dust with nothing more than a single, breathless moan and her hands wrapped tightly around his neck.
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