Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's hard to be overcome with fear when your leg is drowning in a burning sensation. The bleeding hasn't stopped, and it was only a matter of time before the dirt of the cage caused an infection. I don't know much about healing wounds, but I know enough to know my chances of survival are slim to none. My wound needed to be cleaned, the skin sewn, and the leg bandaged, all of which I wasn't gonna get. Cold sweat drenched my shirt as I leaned on the bars of my small cage. The rest of the humans, sitting in their own cages in the line next to mine, looked better off. Scared, yes, but not wounded. At least not as badly as I was.

They didn't look at me. Even the boy right next to my own cage sat as far to the right as possible, away from me. The disgust humans feel is immensely connected to our survival instincts. With my wound on display and the oozy smell coming out of me, I doubt I look a picture of perfect health.

It didn't matter, as I would die just a couple of days before them.

I was thirsty. My throat felt so raspy that I doubt I could talk even if I wanted to. Dizziness started to overtake my vision just as the hunter stepped into the room. My eyes closed on their own as I let out a shuddered breath.

I heard him dropping bowls in the cages; they rattled loudly on the metal ground. I waited for the deafening sound of it hitting my cage, but it never came. However, I did hear his boots stop in front of my cage.

„Wake up.“ He ordered coldly.

I didn't move.

He opened the door to my cage, and just when I thought he would leave my food bowl, he grabbed my wounded right leg and pulled me out.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, my eyes opening and unwanted tears pouring down my face. He couldn't have held me up for more than a minute before dropping me to the floor, but it felt like an eternity. Every other human stayed silent as I sobbed, trying to crawl back away from him.

„I had had enough of your rebellion.“ He sneered.

I shoot him a glare under my bangs. „I'm just getting started!“

„You'll be gone by morning.“

Lucarn Kaelth was a hunter. One of the best. He moved with precision and purpose, every motion calculated, silent, and merciless. There was nothing impulsive about him. Every strike, every kill, was already planned. Cold-blooded by nature, he carried no trace of pity or hesitation. He stood taller than most, broad-shouldered but deceptively lean, built for speed rather than brute force. His skin held a muted caramel tone that contrasted with the darkness in his features. There was nothing soft about him. Nothing good. He was truly a textbook soulless vampire.

He grabbed my left leg and dragged me out of the room. My back slid across the concrete floor, irritating my skin. The world blurred in and out of focus as my tears continued to fall silently. My body barely registered the movement anymore, only the fire crowling up my leg where his hand clamped around my ankle. Each pull sent a tremor through my body, but I was too far past strength to fight. Every breath caught halfway, shallow and hot, and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Fever burned through me, thick and dizzying, making the air ripple at the edges of my vision. The floor was cold against my palms, but not enough to quiet the fever pulsing under my skin. My right leg throbbed with every movement, each drag a reminder that I was still alive.

I heard him open the door as he dragged me to the next room. He hauled me on a metal table, and I let out a hard grunt. I wanted to scream, to curse him, to say anything that might feel like resistance, but even the thought of it scraped my throat like glass.

I whimpered as I lay pressing my skin into the coldness of the table. It won't help much, but it felt good nonetheless.

In my 3 days of being held in captivity by him, I saw enough humans go in and out of this room to know that this is where the exams and blood work happen. He makes sure every human he captures goes through an examination before the buyer comes. The healthier the human, the bigger the price he can bargain.

Luckily for me, if my fever is telling me anything, it's that I won't make it till morning. My death will be my final act of rebellion against him. He won't get any money out of me, and he already spent some of my food devices to capture me. I was a bad investment for him till my very end.

Another set of footsteps approached as the light got brighter above m,e and I covered my face to protect my eyes.

„Hold still.“ A calm voice said. The doctor, or whatever passed for one here, moved with clinical detachment. I felt the air shift as he stood beside me, the faint rustle of gloves being pulled on.

A cool metal instrument touched my forehead for a moment, then the side of my neck. „She's burning up,“ he muttered.

The doctor peeled back the fabric clinging to my injured leg. My muscles tensed on instinct. Cotton brushed against my skin, something cold stung for a moment, then faded into numbness.

He pressed lightly along my shin, searching for where the pain flared. I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from making a sound. He wrapped the leg with practiced precision, layers tightening one after another.

„Dehydrated. Fever's climbing. She needs fluids.“ He said flatly as he turned me on my side to give me a shot. I fliched upon the impact.

„These are your claw marks on her leg.“

„Tried to escape.“ Lucarn said.

„If she tried to escape, you would have shoved her back into her cage. She would have injuries on her back, maybe her head. But her leg is hurt, meaning you had to grab and drag her back. She got past you. How?“ The doctor pressed.

There was a pause followed by Lucarn's lowered voice. „Threw her food bowl into my face.“

The laughter erupted from the doctor. „She has bigger balls than your rivals.“

I huffed as pride filled me. I already decided to devote every breath here to being an inconvenience for him.

„She is a blood-bag, and my rivals are retarded.“

„Either way, you won't be able to sell her until her leg heals.“ He said matter-of-factly.

„You've got to be kidding me.“ He growls.

„The wound is too deep, and there's a high risk of infection. If she's been like this for more than twelve hours, we could already be looking at early sepsis.“

Lucarn's jaw tightened. „You can treat that.“

„Not easily and not here. She's dehydrated, febrile, and showing signs of systemic inflammation. If I give her the standard stabilizers, I might slow it down, but without antibiotics and fluids, she won't survive transport, let alone feeding.“

If I could muster the strength to laugh at my victory, it would be right now.

„Even if she did, the infection would taint the blood. You know how sensitive the purebloods are to contaminated supply. A fevered subject is an automatic rejection.“

„How long till she heals?“

„At least a week, maybe two, with proper care. And even that is only to get her to stabilize.“

Lucarn let out a sigh. „I suppose she can't go back into her cage?“

„Keep her out of it for a while. I'll come back first thing in the morning to give her shots.“ The doctor said as he adjusted the metal tray beside me. Glass clinked softly, followed by the hiss of a valve being twisted open. I caught a faint smell of antiseptic and alcohol. „I'll set up an IV.“

He tied a band around my arm, tight enough to make my skin pulse beneath it. My head swam as he searched for a vein, his fingers cold. I turned my face away, focusing on the ceiling light that flickered every few seconds, a dim rhythm to anchor my drifting thoughts.

„There,“ he said. A sharp sting, brief but clean, broke through the haze of fever. Then the band loosened, and I felt the slow, cooling trickle start beneath my skin.

„She'll need this running for a few hours.“ He said, adjusting the flow regulator until the drops fell in a steady rhythm. „Keep her warm.“

I felt the soft weight of a blanket settle over me, tucking in the edges. The fabric was coarse but warm enough to dull the tremors shaking through my body. The fever made my thoughts stutter, reform. Each breath rattled like dry leaves in my chest. My lips stuck together when I tried to swallow. The world tilted, then righted itself again.

I lay perfectly still, eyes half-lidded, letting the room blur around the edges. My body trembled beneath the blanket, the cold seeping in despite it.

They thought I'd slip quietly into obedience like every other half-dead body they dragged through this place.

But I wasn't gonna give them what they wanted. Not blood. Not service. Not profit. I would die on my terms, even if all that meant was stopping one heartbeat sooner than they planned.

Chapter Text

I ripped the IV out before I could talk myself out of it.

The tube slid free with a wet sting, and for a second, I just watched the blood well up, thick and slow.

The drip stand wobbled beside the bed, the empty line swaying. My hand trembled, but I kept watching the blood crawl down my wrist, following the bone, warming the heel of my palm.

My body didn’t like it. The room tilted, my stomach flipped, and a sharp pulse shot through my leg, waking every part of the injury I’d been trying to ignore. Heat rolled up my spine, fever-slick and nauseating. My head swam as the point where the needle had been started to throb, each heartbeat pushing another thin line of red down my arm.

Lucarn never stayed the night.

Three days here had been enough to teach me that. He drifted in and out during the day, long enough to feed us or check that we were still breathing, but once the sky darkened, he vanished.

The room he was holding us in itself wasn’t a room so much as a holding space. Bare concrete. A row of cages bolted down in a perfect, ugly line. A sink on the far wall with rust bleeding out around the edges. A fridge buzzing in the corner like it hated existing here as much as we did.

That fridge held the food he gave us. And on the first day, I didn’t understand why it looked the way it did. Nuts. Seeds. Beetroots still streaked with dirt. Oranges with their skins pitted and dull. A scoop of brown rice that tasted like it had been cooked a week ago.

By the second day, the pattern became clear.

Iron. Citrus. Fiber. Clean sugars. No fats, nothing heavy, nothing that would fog the blood.

This wasn’t about feeding us.

It was about maintaining our blood.

Good blood is blood worth selling.

On the third day, when he slid the same bowl through the open door of my cage, I stared at it. I wanted to shove it back at him, wanted to starve out of spite, wanted to take at least one thing from him.

I grabbed the bowl.

He was still crouched in front of the door, balanced on the balls of his feet, one hand braced on the metal frame. He expected obedience, fear. Whatever he thought I had become in three days.

He did not expect the bowl to meet his face.

I swung it with every ounce of strength I had left. The metal cracked against his cheekbone with a deep, satisfying thud. He recoiled so sharply his hand slipped, fingers scraping the floor.

The look on his face, shock, pure and unprepared, was worth the hunger pain in my stomach.

I didn’t wait to watch it change.

The door was open. His balance was off. And there will never be a universe where I don’t use an advantage handed straight to me. I pushed past him, my shoulder colliding with his arm, my bare feet slipping on the concrete as I half-stumbled, half-broke free of the cage.

I didn’t think I could escape. I didn’t even care if I got two steps or ten before he grabbed me.

Satisfaction purred in my chest as I recalled the scene. The way his face changed, just a fraction.

Lucarn Kaelth was built out of straight lines and sharp edges, a man carved rather than made. Strong jaw dusted with dark stubble, cheekbones that looked like they’d cut paper and a straight nose. His dark, wavy hair fell in a careless sweep across his forehead.

Normally, his features stayed locked in the same unreadable arrangement, mouth in a flat line, eyes black and depthless, not a single muscle wasted on pretending he felt anything at all. He was imposing and cold.

But the change was visible when the bowl cracked against his cheek. His head snapped to the side, food smearing across his skin and dripping down the edge of that perfect jaw. His eyes widened, just a little, and his lips parted like he’d forgotten how to keep them pressed together.

That was the part I savoured. That tiny fracture in his composure. The hairline crack in the mask. I could still see it when I closed my eyes, the flex of his throat as he swallowed down whatever he almost said, the slight lag between the moment I bolted and the moment he remembered to move. It was barely a second, but it was mine.

He caught me, of course. His hand clamped around my ankle, the concrete rushing up as my leg buckled and pain tore through it like fire. I’d felt skin split, bone scream, breath leave my lungs in a ragged gasp as he dragged me back.

I smiled as I glanced at my bleeding arm. Just a little longer.

“You bitch!”

My head snapped up. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not in the dead of the night.

He was by my side in an instant, his hand closing around my arm, firm enough to stop the bleeding. The blood didn’t seem to affect him at all. I watched his face closely, almost hoping to catch some flicker of hunger or struggle, some sign that he wasn’t the perfectly controlled creature he pretended to be, but there was nothing. His expression didn’t change. If anything, he looked offended on behalf of the IV line I’d torn out, as though the inconvenience of my bleeding was the most irritating part of his night.

“What is wrong with-“

“What is wrong with you!” I shot back. “I’ve seen rats in alleys with more emotional range!”

He pressed a pad of gauze against the bleeding vein without warning. Pain spiked up my arm, and I hissed through my teeth, but he didn’t soften it. His thumb anchored the gauze in place, and with his other hand, he began wrapping the bandage in broad, looping passes that grew tighter and neater as he found rhythm.

“Says the girl who decided self-mutilation was a good midnight hobby.” He said tightening the final layer and securing the tape.

“Damaged merchandise doesn’t sell,” I replied.

“Maybe not to purebloods who like their pets clean, but the entertainment district doesn’t mind a scar or two.” He said.

The words hit harder than his grip ever had. I kept my face still, but something cold slid down my spine anyway. I forced myself to meet his eyes, to keep my breathing steady, to pretend my heart didn’t lurch painfully against my ribs.

“So that’s on the table for me?” I asked. My voice came out almost casual. The tremor stayed hidden somewhere deep in my ribs where he couldn’t see it. “You’d sell me there?”

“If I can’t find a buyer who wants you for blood,” he said, “then yes. That’s where you go.”

I held his gaze, though my stomach dipped sharply. “Charming.”

“It’s business,” he replied. “And if you keep tearing yourself up, you increase the chances, so stop hurting yourself.”

My fingers curled against the blanket to keep them steady. “Then maybe stop giving me reasons to get creative,” I said.

He crossed to the cabinet without looking back at me. Something clattered, and a second later he returned, uncapping a water bottle as he came.

“Drink,” he offered.

“I’m fine,” I answered, though my throat felt like sandpaper.

“Drink.”

I turned my face toward the wall, determined not to give him anything else tonight. “I don’t want it.”

He lowered the bottle a fraction and said, “You shouldn’t have ripped out your IV then.”

I snapped my eyes back to him. “That’s not the same thing. An IV isn’t the same as drinking water.”

“No,” he agreed calmly, “but you need both.”

I felt irritation slide through me in a hot line. “I don’t need anything from you.”

His hand tightened slightly on the bottle, just enough for the plastic to crinkle, before he steadied his grip again. “You lost blood,” he said. “More than you can afford to lose with the schedule you’re on.”

“Fuck your schedule.” I said through gritted teeth.

His hand came up, fingers clamping around my jaw with a firmness that bordered on brutal, though he didn’t squeeze to hurt. The bottle followed, cold plastic pressing against my closed lips. I jerked back, but his grip didn’t waver. My jaw ached under his fingers, pressure building steadily until resistance felt foolish. My mouth finally parted on a gasp that never reached the air, because the water rushed in the same instant.

It hit the back of my throat like a wave, too fast to swallow properly, too fast to control. I gagged against it, coughed, choked, some of it spilling down my chin and soaking the collar of the thin shirt. He tipped the bottle higher, his other hand braced against my shoulder when I tried to twist away.

Water filled my mouth faster than I could take it, burning cold along the raw edges of my throat. My eyes watered. The room narrowed to the harsh sound of my own sputtering breaths and the steady glug-glug of the bottle emptying. He was close enough that I could feel the heat from his chest, the faint coolness of his breath, the absolute absence of hesitation in him. He wasn’t punishing me. He was simply making sure the liquid went down, the same way he did everything else he deemed necessary.

When the bottle finally ran dry, he pulled it away and released my jaw all at once. I spat the remaining mouthful straight into his face. It hit him in a sharp spray, droplets clinging to the dark line of his jaw, the corner of his mouth, the ridge beneath his eye.

My whole chest seized the moment he let me go, a violent, scraping cough tearing out of me as if the water were trying to claw its way back up. Each breath came shallow and broken, little spasms of air that barely reached my lungs. My eyes burned, my throat felt raw, and for a moment, the room tipped sideways with the effort of simply dragging oxygen back into my body.

I folded forward, one hand braced on the table I was on, the other pressed against my sternum as another cough ripped out of me. It sounded wet and desperate, nothing like defiance or strength, just a body trying to remember its basic functions after being pushed past them.

Lucarn stood over me, water still sliding down his cheek and dripping from the edge of his jaw, utterly unmoving. He didn’t seem to care whether I drowned on dry land or not. He just watched, as if waiting to see whether I would stay upright.

The coughing fit dragged on, each spasm weaker than the last, until finally, mercifully, my lungs stopped convulsing. I sucked in a long, shuddering breath, then another, each one steadier than the one before. A final cough sputtered out, more of an aftershock than anything else, and my vision cleared enough for me to see him properly again.

And then it hit me, what I’d done, what he looked like now, the water clinging to him like I’d tried to baptize a demon. The absurdity of it. The insanity of it. The sheer, reckless stupidity of spitting in the face of a creature who could snap my neck with the same effort it took to blink.

Something in me broke, and a sound slipped out, thin at first, then fuller as it took shape. A laugh.

It burst from me in a single sharp bark I couldn’t swallow down. Then another. And another. Soon I was laughing in uneven, breathless bouts, shoulders shaking, ribs aching.

He pulled a cloth from the counter and dragged it slowly across his skin. His jaw flexed the entire time, a steady pulse of anger waiting for an opening. When the last streak of water was gone, he tossed the cloth aside and faced me again.

He stepped closer, close enough that I could see a thin vein pulsing beneath the skin of his temple. “Prepare yourself for the entertainment district. I’ll make sure you end up in the filthiest corner they have. Somewhere, the patrons don’t bother learning your name before they use you. Somewhere, they don’t stop even when you scream.”

The words should have hit like a blade. They should have gutted me, hollowed me out. But instead, a realization settled.

He can’t touch me.

Not the way he wants to, not to punish me, not to shove me into the ground for daring to spit in his face. He needs me whole, unmarked. He needs me in the best damn condition possible until morning, when the doctor comes to check the IV and the blood levels and the vitals he’s supposed to deliver intact.

He can threaten rot and degradation all he likes, but he can’t put a finger on me tonight.

The realization steadied me more than water ever could.

He stepped even closer, waiting for me to break, waiting for fear to show itself in some tiny twitch of my mouth or eyes.

I sat there, bandaged and bruised and half-drowned, staring up at him with the ghost of a smile still tugging at the corner of my mouth, and for the first time since he dragged me into this place, I saw him genuinely unsure of what I might do next.

And that uncertainty felt like victory.

It flickered through him in a subtle, telling way, nothing dramatic, just the faintest tightening of his jaw, the way his shoulders held themselves an inch too square, as if resisting the urge to grab me by the throat and shove me flat. He wasn’t a man used to being pushed. He wasn’t used to being studied like prey. And I leaned into that truth with the same reckless instinct that had kept me alive this long.

I lifted my hand and pressed one finger firmly into the center of his chest.

The muscle beneath my fingertip went taut instantly. His nostrils flared, and I felt the shift ripple through him, a wave of restrained violence held back by rules he’d carved into himself long before I arrived here.

“You can’t touch me,” I whispered. “Not tonight.”

His eyes drilled into mine, pitch-dark and furious, but he didn’t move an inch.

My hand remained on his chest, one finger marking the exact place he’d never allow me to stand in any other circumstance. I felt the silent storm brewing under his ribs, the insult of the contact. He endured it because he had to.

“All that rage,” I said softly, pressing just a little harder, just enough for him to feel the insistence of it. “And you can’t do a thing with it.”

A small muscle twitched in his neck.

“You know what the funniest part is?” I continued, lowering my hand but not breaking the line of our stare. “You can threaten me. You can describe every filthy corner of that district, you think I’ll end up in. You can talk about buyers and cages and rules.”

I let the silence sit between us for a breath, heavy and certain.

“But you can’t lay a single finger on me,” I said. “Not without risking your precious delivery.”

His jaw tightened until I heard the faint crack of pressure in his teeth. The sound sent a strange, electric thrill through me, the recognition of power where I had never had any.

I lifted my chin. “Feels strange, doesn’t it?” I said. “Being the one who has to behave.”

I held his gaze even when some instinct urged me to look away. The pressure of his proximity pressed down on my ribs, made my breath feel shallower than it should have, but I refused to shift or shrink back.

When he finally spoke, his voice carried none of the friction or ragged edges that had slipped through earlier.

“I have lived long enough, acquired enough, and built enough that there is no law, no witness, no consequence capable of touching me. I can treat the people I capture however I choose. If someone becomes a problem, I make them disappear. If someone breaks, I replace them. If someone screams, no one hears it but me, and I have never cared enough to listen.”

He moved a fraction closer, not for intimidation but because the space simply obeyed him. “You think I keep you alive out of restraint? Out of mercy? I keep you alive because you are useful. Because you are a number on a sheet. Because ending you would inconvenience me, and I do not indulge in inconvenience.”

His eyes dragged over my face.

“I don’t enjoy killing,” he continued. “Enjoyment implies emotion. It implies investment. I simply do not care enough to do it unless there is a purpose behind it. But you,” His voice dipped, softening into something far more lethal. “You make me consider it.”

The words settled over my body with a coldness that seeped straight into the marrow. There was no dramatics in his threat, no flourish of cruelty. And yet, beneath that quiet delivery, there was a deeper message, one that curled into the corners of my mind like smoke: that everything I had done tonight, every act of defiance, every risk, every reckless push against the boundaries of his patience, had not gone unnoticed.

Fear slid under my skin in a slow ripple, but I kept my face still. If he wanted terror, he would have to pry it out of me with more than words. His gaze held mine, unwavering, searching for the crack he was certain would show. But I held steady, refusing to give him the satisfaction.

His hand shot forward with the same terrifying precision as everything else he did. He grabbed my shoulder and pushed, not a brutal blow, but a firm, unyielding shove meant to end any illusion that I’d dictated the terms of this moment. My back hit the cold metal of the table behind me, the thin blanket doing little to soften the shock of it. The table’s legs rattled against the floor, a hollow metallic complaint that echoed through the small room.

Before I could twist or brace myself, he was already moving with the practiced efficiency of someone who’d restrained a hundred bodies before mine. His fingers closed around my forearm, the grip iron-steady, and he dragged my arm upward toward the ring bolted at the head of the table. Leather straps waited there, coiled like snakes. He threaded the cuff around my wrist, pulled it tight until the pressure bit, and buckled it with a sharp metallic click.

I tried to wrench my arm free, more out of instinct than hope, but he’d already moved to the other, catching my struggle mid-motion. His hand swallowed my wrist, pinning it down against the metal as he secured the second strap. The buckles clicked into place, final and unforgiving. My arms stretched above my head, the restraint forcing my shoulders into an uncomfortable angle, the cold surface of the table leeching heat through the blanket.

He stepped back just enough to look at me properly, breathing steady, composure rebuilt brick by brick until there wasn’t a crack left for me to slip through.

“You seem to think,” he said, adjusting the edge of one strap with infuriating calm, “that money is something I lack. I’ve lived long enough to drown in it.” His gaze sharpened. “So understand me clearly: there isn’t a single reason in this world for a little human girl to imagine she can have her way with me.”

His fingers brushed the metal by my head as he straightened, intentionally close but never crossing the invisible medical boundaries he couldn’t break.

“Not here,” he said. “Not ever.”

A laugh slipped out before I could tamp it down. It was the only weapon I had left, and I wielded it with the precision of a scalpel.

“So this is what it takes,” I said, the straps biting into my wrists when I tested them and found no give at all. “The big, terrifying vampire who sells humans like livestock,  having to strap one girl to a table because she hurt your feelings.”

His shoulders went still. I pressed on anyway, because silence would have felt like surrender.

“Imagine that,” I continued, my voice sharpening into mockery. “Centuries of power, all that money, all that reputation… and look at you. Keeping both hands to yourself because one scared little human might bruise before your doctor shows up.”

When he finally spoke, the words were calm enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. “Are you finished?” he asked. I would have stopped there if I’d been smarter, but pride shoved my voice forward. “Not even close,” I said. “I haven’t even started.”

He didn’t wait for the rest.

He crossed the room in two measured steps and lifted his hand to the panel beside the door. There was a soft click, and the room dropped into absolute blackness. I couldn’t see the table beneath me, couldn’t see my own bound hands above my head, couldn’t see him at all. But I heard the quiet shift of the door mechanism, a sliding metallic whisper that cut through the dark like a blade dipped in ice.

I opened my mouth to throw one more line, a last jab to remind him I could still speak, but the sound died in my throat when his footsteps receded until they were swallowed completely.

The door closed behind him.

And I was left alone with the dark.

Chapter Text

Light sliced across my eyelids before I managed to open them, a thin blade of brightness that burned its way into the heavy fog of sleep. A laugh followed, bright, thrilled, utterly wrong for a room that still smelled faintly of metal.

“Well,” the doctor said, amusement bubbling through every syllable, “isn’t this a sight? I leave for one night, and he turned you into modern art.”

I forced my eyes open. The doctor stood beside me in his coat, a clipboard under his arm and a grin spread across his face as if this was the highlight of his morning.

He gestured at the straps holding me down. “A touch theatrical, don’t you think?”

The monster responsible for them lurked in the corner, arms folded.

The doctor chuckled to himself, shaking his head. “You can’t give him a single quiet evening,” he told me as he moved closer. “He breaks so easily. Very fragile ego.”

A flat, warning look came from the corner.

“Oh, come on. Don’t pout. It’s unseemly at your age.”

He checked my face first, brushing hair out of my eyes. “Fever’s gone down a bit,” he murmured. “You look less like death today. Always promising.”

Then he reached for my bandaged arm.

“Oh dear,” he said, his tone falling dead flat, like he’d just discovered a corpse in the pantry. “Who butchered this?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. A slow turn of his head cut toward the brooding figure behind him.

“No need to confess,” he said, lifting a brow. “Your craftsmanship speaks for itself.”

“It worked,” the other replied, voice low and unapologetic.

“It worked to offend me, that’s what it did.” The doctor sighed heavily as he began unwrapping it. “Centuries old, and this is what you give me. A disgrace.”

The cool air hit my skin and I winced, but his hands were careful. He examined the wound, nodded to himself, and began cleaning and rewrapping it with practiced efficiency.

“Ready for today’s injection?”

My stomach tightened. He noticed.

“Oh, hush. It’s a bit of medicine, not a guillotine,” he said, amused. “Deep breath.”

The sting of the needle crawled up my arm, but it faded quickly, replaced by a warm heaviness.

“Good girl,” he murmured absently as he untied my arms.

Lucarn’s glare sharpened. “Don’t call her that.”

The doctor barked out a laugh, delighted. “Now you care what she’s called? Fascinating development.”

Lucarn stepped forward, and the air in the room gathered itself tight. His eyes never left mine. They held no heat, no fury, nothing as simple as anger, only a cold, razor-edged intent that made my skin prickle. When he finally spoke, it was quiet enough that the words felt aimed straight at the center of my ribs.

“I simply prefer not to hear the word ‘good’ attached to something so profoundly disappointing.”

The doctor raised both eyebrows. “Lucarn-”

“Enzo.” His voice cut clean through the room. A warning.

The shift between them was immediate. Enzo’s smile didn’t vanish, but it changed shape.

“She isn’t obedient,” he went on, each word colder than the last. “She isn’t cooperative. She isn’t useful beyond the bare minimum I need her for. She makes every task more tedious than it has to be. There is nothing about her, nothing, that warrants gentleness or praise.”

My chest tightened around the words unexpectedly.

Enzo clasped his hands dramatically behind his back. “You do realize talking to humans like that bruises their fragile little feelings, yes?”

“Good,” Lucarn replied without looking away from me. “Maybe she’ll remember it when she decides to be insufferable again.”

“Insufferable? You tied me down-” I started.

Lucarn’s voice sharpened. “Enough.”

Enzo lifted a hand, swatting at the tension like it was a fly. “My, my. Someone woke up irritable.”

Lucarn’s glare shifted to him, though only briefly. “You are encouraging behaviour that needs to end.”

“I’m encouraging nothing,” Enzo said lightly. “I’m merely observing that you’re reacting, again.”

Lucarn didn’t take the bait. His jaw flexed. He only folded his arms tighter, every inch of him pulled taut in that cold, practiced way he had, except for the part he couldn’t hide, the slight twitch near his eye that betrayed irritation far deeper than he wanted anyone to see.

Enzo’s eyes flicked between us, and though the grin didn’t change, something sharper slid behind it. A calculation. A conclusion reached and tucked away.

“Well,” He said, clapping his hands lightly as if clearing a table, “none of this matters at the moment. What matters is that your buyer arrives in a few hours.”

Lucarn’s head snapped toward him. “Today?”

“Of course, today,” The doctor replied with exaggerated patience. “I did send you the message. You never read anything I send you.” He leaned down to check the pulse in my neck. Then he added, almost casually, “But she’s not ready.”

Lucarn’s stare sharpened. “What do you mean she’s not ready?”

Enzo didn’t look up from examining me. “I mean exactly that. In her condition, no one will want her.”

Lucarn stepped closer. “She’s healing. You said so yourself.”

“Yes, healing. Which is not the same as presentable. Her fever isn’t fully stabilized. Her injury is fresh. Her vitals aren’t ideal. And the psychological stress from last night,” he waved his clipboard at the straps above my head, “is showing in her metrics. The buyer will notice. And they will decline.”

Lucarn’s face darkened. “She can remain here until-”

“No,” Enzo cut in, tone bright but firm. “She can’t.”

“Do not interrupt me,” came the low warning.

“Oh, relax,” He said with a grin, patting my shoulder as if we were both children to him. “She can’t stay here because this room isn’t sterile enough. The equipment is outdated. The noise, the lighting, the temperature, she’ll decline again if she stays another night. And you cannot afford that.”

He glanced at me. “Now, I would bring her to my place for a few day,s but unfortunately, I have no room.”

Lucarn’s eyes narrowed, suspicious now. “You told me two days ago your house was empty. No patients.”

“It was,” He said smoothly. “Now it isn’t.”

“You expect me to believe you filled your house with patients overnight?”

“Welcome to the unpredictable world of medicine,” He lifted his hands in a casual shrug, as if explaining a universal truth. “Humans get injured, they get sick. And I-” he tapped his own chest “-am very, very popular. I simply have no room for her.”

I frowned. Something felt off.

Lucarn didn’t look convinced either. His voice sharpened. “Enzo.”

The medic didn’t miss a beat. “I know, I know. It’s terribly inconvenient that my home is overcrowded at the exact moment you need a medically appropriate environment. Life is cruel.”

“Find space.” Came the snapped order.

“I would if I could,” Enzo replied cheerfully. “But I cannot. And she cannot stay here. That leaves one option.”

His gaze slid to me. Then to Lucarn.

“Your house,” He said lightly. “She’ll do well there.”

“Absolutely not,” Lucarn said at the same time I blurted, “I’d rather die of infection.”

Enzo clapped once, delighted. “Oh, look at that. Harmonious agreement.”

The other man’s expression twisted, as if realizing he was being maneuvered into a corner far too late.

The doctor leaned in, inspecting my wound with exaggerated focus. “She’ll recover fastest in your environment. She’ll be stable. Presentable. Sellable. You want the buyer satisfied, don’t you?”

No answer. Just a clenched jaw and silent fury.

Enzo smiled wider, victorious without ever stating the victory.

“She leaves with you within the hour.”

My heart thudded painfully hard against my ribs. The doctor bent over my leg with a hum that sounded almost theatrical, pretending to check the bandage, though his fingers barely grazed the material. It was obvious, now that I watched more closely, that he wasn’t truly adjusting or fixing anything; his movements were too light, too unnecessary, nothing more than flourishes to occupy his hands while he maneuvered the conversation exactly where he wanted it.

“This is absurd,” The vampire said, voice low and dangerous.

“Two weeks,” Enzo said. “At most. Shouldn’t be so difficult for someone of your… discipline.”

Lucarn looked like he wanted to tear the clipboard out of Enzo’s hands and snap it in half.

I watched the doctor closely, really looked at him this time. Unlike the other, he wasn’t carved from cold stone and cruelty. His hair was golden, not the muted blond humans had, but the kind that caught every light in the room and reflected it back warm. His eyes were honey-colored, bright and soft in a way that made him look almost human. He wore the shape of “comfort” so well that I could see how anyone might trust him instantly.

But I had seen enough of this world to know that softness was a trick.

His smile was bright without being sharp, his expressions open without giving anything away. He laughed easily, spoke lightly, teased with practiced ease, and it all came together into an image someone desperate might reach for, the image of a healer, a friend, a safe harbour.

And yet, beneath that warmth, there was a glint of intelligence honed like a scalpel. Charm used with precision. A manipulation so smooth you didn’t feel it until it was already wrapped around your throat. He didn’t threaten. He didn’t loom. He didn’t need to. He nudged. He redirected. He spoke a sentence and rearranged the room.

I realized, watching him pretend to adjust my bandage with fingers that barely pressed against my skin, that he wasn’t helping me. He was guiding the outcome toward whatever ending he preferred, smiling the whole time. And the worst part was that he did it so gently, so gracefully, so convincingly, that even I wasn’t sure when he had begun.

If the Lucarn was danger carved in stone, Enzo was comfort wrapped in silk.

And silk could strangle just as easily.

Lucarn stormed out of the room, the door clicking shut behind him. I narrowed my eyes at Enzo. "You didn’t check a single thing."

His smile sharpened. "Oh? Someone’s observant this morning. Terrible habit for survival, though. Might want to tone it down around him." He flicked a hand in the direction of the other room.

I didn’t.

In fact, the words tumbled out before I could censor myself. "I’m not going to his house."

Enzo blinked. The surprise was genuine and amused. "Not like you have a choice.”

"I’m serious," I said, pulling the blanket tighter around myself. "I’ll run. I’ll fight. I’ll throw myself down a staircase if I have to. I’m not going with him."

He leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms, still smiling like I’d just performed a neat card trick. "Creative. Alarming. Very committed. But sadly irrelevant."

"You can’t make me go."

"Oh, I absolutely can," he said, laughing softly. "I simply prefer you walk voluntarily. It makes the morning smoother. And far less bloody."

I swallowed hard, pulse kicking up despite myself.

Enzo tilted his head. "What exactly are you afraid of? He’s cold, yes. Intense, certainly. Predictable, absolutely. You know where you stand with him. It’s one of his more lovable qualities."

"Lovable?" I sputtered.

"Comparatively," he said, giving a modest shrug.

I glared. "You’re both monsters."

"Yes," he agreed brightly. "But he’s the easier one."

Something about the way he said it, in that cheerful, airy voice, made the hair rise on the back of my neck.

I straightened, forcing steel into my spine even as my hands shook. "He tied me down to my bed because he’s a psychopath."

"And because you provoke him." Enzo’s smile softened into something almost fond. "Most humans bore him. You irritate him. That’s practically affection, in his language."

I stared at him, horrified. "That’s not comforting."

"It wasn’t supposed to be." He pushed off the counter and approached. "But you should know this: if he truly wanted to hurt you, he would have done it. He didn’t. Which means, for now, you’re safe with him."

"Safe," I echoed bitterly.

"Relatively speaking," he corrected.

“I’ll bite him.”

“Oh, do. Please. I’d love to see his reaction.”

“I will weaponize every bodily fluid I have."

"Please don’t."

"I’ll tear out every wire and break every light in his house."

"He lives in the dark. That’s not a threat.”

“I’ll-”

He lifted a hand. “You’ll fight. You’ll rage. You’ll threaten twelve different flavours of death. And he will still take you.”

My breath trembled.

“But here,” he continued, tapping his own temple, “is what matters: you’re wasting your fire on the wrong obstacle. Strategy, my dear. Not theatrics.”

“I have strategy,” I snapped.

“You have chaos,” he corrected kindly. “Glorious chaos. Save it for the right moment.”

He stepped back, hands sliding into his pockets, looking every inch the harmless golden boy he pretended to be. “Clever girls live longest,” he said softly. “But only if they know which walls to burn.”

"I hope someone stakes you."

"You think I don’t get that wish weekly?"

"I’ll add my voice to the choir."

Enzo let out a low whistle. "You’d be surprised how many humans talk like this. But you’re the first one I believe."

"Good," I said. "Believe this part too: if he tries to touch me, restrain me, or haul me anywhere, I will go for the softest part I can reach. I know I can’t kill him, but pain is universal. Pain slows everyone down."

"Ah, yes," he said lightly. "Target selection. Eyes, joints, tendons, nerve clusters-"

"Neck," I cut in, unblinking. "Under the jaw. Thumb pressure can disorient anyone, vampire or not. I’ll make myself so inconvenient he’ll consider returning me just to stop the headache."

He dusted off his coat as if her threats were nothing more than lint. "Well," he said pleasantly, "your little rebellion has been delightful, but let me give you one final, non-negotiable fact." He leaned just close enough that I could see the glint of teeth behind the honeyed smile. "As soon as the others are sold, and they will be, very soon, you’re leaving this room. One way or another."

My jaw clenched.

He continued, unbothered. "And whether you go kicking, limping, screaming, or in whatever feral state you prefer…" He shrugged lightly. "It won’t change the outcome. Your clock is almost up."

--------------------------------------------

My eyes opened in thin, reluctant slits. For a momen,t the world blurred, doubling and tilting, the ceiling sliding across my vision like scenery in a dream. I blinked until it steadied.

This wasn’t the holding room.

I was lying on a couch, an actual couch, upholstered in something soft and obscenely expensive, far too comfortable for someone like me. A thick blanket had been thrown over my legs. My right leg throbbed beneath it, a slow, angry pulse radiating from the stitched wound. When I tried to twitch my toes, pain shot up like a signal flare. No standing. Not yet.

The room around me came into focus in careful pieces, as if my brain insisted on assembling it slowly so I wouldn’t panic.

A living room.

It looked like something torn from one of those nineteenth-century novels that smelled of yellowed paper and moral suffering. Tall ceilings. Dark crown molding etched with designs that might have been ivy or serpents or both. Heavy curtains, the color of dried blood, draped over tall windows. Electric lamps cast warm pools of light across the room, but shadows clung to the corners.

Modernity and old-world decadence lived here together, half married, half at war.

The furniture was a mix of antique and painfully modern. A low black coffee table sat in front of the couch, carved with patterns that made no sense unless you stared long enough to see them shift. Two armchairs upholstered in charcoal velvet faced the fireplace. The fireplace itself was massive, from floor to the ceiling stone. Cold ashes slept inside; whatever warmth it had once given had long since vanished.

Books filled the room like oxygen. They were stacked on shelves, piled on tables, occupying any horizontal surface that dared remain empty. Leather spines, cracked spines, gilded lettering, titles in languages I didn’t recognize.

It smelled… strange. Strange but good.

Dark wood. Old paper. Something citrus-adjacent but colder, sharper, bergamot maybe, or something that only existed in places like this. My stomach twisted. My heart thumped weakly, the drug still gripping its rhythm.

I was in his house.

Sedation hummed through my veins in dull waves. When I lifted my hand, it trembled so badly I had to set it back down immediately. My leg pulsed again, painful but manageable. I tried to draw a deeper breath and nearly choked on the dizziness.

He carried me here.

Of cours,e he had. I remembered, half-remembered, the struggle when he came to take me. I remembered snarling like an animal. I remembered going for the vein at his wrist, teeth scraping skin. His grip tightening. Enzo’s voice somewhere behind me saying, "Oh, for God’s sake, hold her still," and then the sting of a needle. The world tumbling.

Shame prickled briefly through the fog, but so did defiance. If I’d had any strength, I might’ve lunged again. Now I could barely keep my eyelids open.

I shifted slightly on the couch and winced as the movement tugged at my injured leg. Pain flared, sharp, vindictive, before settling into a heavy throb. My head spun from the effort. Every muscle felt disconnected, like I had to think each movement into existence.

The room wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t cold either. It had that stillness of places untouched by sunlight, the air dense, almost velvety.

I scanned the space again, slower this time.

A chandelier loomed above, iron worked into twisting shapes, like branches from a dead tree fused together. Its bulbs glowed dimly, warm amber light dripping down the metal like honey. The shadows it cast crawled along the ceiling in patterns that made me feel watched.

There were paintings, too. Portraits of people who looked severe, hollow-cheeked, elegantly dressed in styles centuries apart. Some looked human. Some too symmetrical to be. Their eyes followed me even though I knew they couldn’t.

A tall bookshelf leaned against the far wall, filled not just with books but with oddities: a silver dagger, far too high for me to reach; a glass vial of something murky and red; a wooden carving of a creature with too many limbs. A preserved black rose encased in glass. A chess set with pieces shaped like creatures I hoped were mythological. A home built by someone who valued silence over company.

Someone I absolutely despised.

The dizziness rolled through again, stronger this time. I sank back into the cushions, gripping the blanket until my fingers stopped trembling. My heartbeat thudded against my ribs like it was trying to escape.

There was no cage here. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t trapped.

My eyelids fluttered. The soft hum of electricity from the lamps buzzed at the edges of my hearing. A clock somewhere ticked faintly.

I tried to sit up straighter. My injured leg screamed in protest. A cold sweat broke out along my spine. I managed only a few inches before collapsing back into the couch.

Everything in this room said danger. Subtle danger. Cultured danger. The kind that lured you into silence rather than fear. No chains. No locks.

But the walls felt like they were waiting.

He would be back.

And I was weaker than I’d ever been.

Still, I forced my eyes open again and stared at the room, memorizing every corner, every object, every weakness.

Everything that could help me was out of reach.

I scanned the room again, forcing my vision to steady: the bookshelves were too tall; the fire tools by the hearth on the opposite side of the room; the heavy curtain rods far above my head; the chandelier an impossible climb; even the coffee table, close enough to touch, held nothing but smooth, useless surfaces. No sharp edges. No loose objects.

He had brought me into a room designed for beauty and silence.

Panic pressed against my chest, sharp and rising. My breath came shallow, quick. I needed to move. I needed to hide. I needed to do something before he walked back in.

My eyes darted to the carpeted floor. If I could get down, if I could crawl, maybe I could tuck myself behind the couch where the shadows were thickest. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was better than lying here like an offering.

I gathered what little strength still clung to my muscles. My hands shook as I gripped the blanket and pushed myself toward the edge. The world wobbled dangerously. Nausea coiled in my stomach. My leg screamed at the shift in weight.

I ignored it.

I slid off the cushion, slowly, carefully, but even careful wasn’t enough. The moment my body tipped too far, gravity seized me. I slipped, unable to control the descent. My right leg brushed the edge of the couch as I fell.

White-hot pain exploded.

A strangled sound tore from my throat, a half-gasp, half-sob, as I collided with the floor. The rug cushioned the impact, yet it still rippled agony from my thigh up to my hip, sharp and punishing.

I curled around the pain like an instinct. My fingers dug into the carpet. My lungs seized before I managed a shaking inhale.

The sedative twisted everything inside me, my head spun, the room tilting like a ship on broken waves. Sweat slicked my palms. My heartbeat thudded unevenly beneath my ribs.

I was down and I wasn’t getting back up.

Not on two legs. Not even on one.

I swallowed, lips trembling, and dragged myself, inch by excruciating inch, toward the narrow shadowed space behind the couch. My elbows bore most of my weight. My wounded leg trailed uselessly behind me, every brush against the carpet sending new shocks of pain up my spine.

My breath quickened., fear made it ragged.

I reached the back of the couch and pulled myself into the hollow between the frame and the wall. The shadows swallowed me. Dust brushed my fingertips. The couch loomed above me like a cliff face.

I tucked my legs, well, leg, closer, trying to make myself small.

But my body wasn’t cooperating. My arms trembled uncontrollably from exertion. My lungs fluttered. The sedative dragged heavy fingers through my veins, pulling everything downward, muscle, thought, hope.

I tried to sit upright, to press my back to the wall.

I couldn’t.

My spine wouldn’t support me. My head sagged forward the moment I tried to lift it. Sweat dripped down my temple. My hands slipped uselessly against the wall. I slumped sideways, cheek pressing into the carpet, vision blurring at the edges.

Tears came without permission.

Hot. Silent at first. Then not-so-silent as the fear broke through the thin barrier I’d been trying to hold together. A sound escaped me, a small, choked sob I couldn’t swallow back. Then another. And another.

I pressed my fist to my mouth, trying to smother the noise.

I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to give him the dignity of knowing I’d fallen apart in his house. But fear was stronger than pride. And the room felt too big. The shadows too still. The silence too loud.

He would come.

He always came.

And now… now I had nowhere to run. Now I could barely crawl. I could barely breathe.

I squeezed my eyes shut, tears leaking out anyway, hot tracks down my cheeks. My leg throbbed in time with my racing pulse. My fingers trembled so violently I dug them into the carpet just to keep them still.

I tried to think past the fear. Past the pain. Past the sedative.

I needed a plan. Anything. Even something stupid. Even something desperate.

But my thoughts slipped away as soon as I reached for them, scattered like frightened birds. Every idea felt impossible. Every movement felt too heavy.

I didn’t know how much time I had. Minutes? Less?

I wiped my face with the back of my shaking hand and sucked in a shuddering breath.

I couldn’t stop him.

I couldn’t outrun him.

I couldn’t fight him.

But I wasn’t going to lie on the couch and wait like prey.

Even if all I could do was hide behind this damn couch, curled on the floor like a wounded animal, it was still a choice. Still my choice.

He would find me.

I choked on another sob and forced myself to breathe quieter, slower, clutching the carpet like it could anchor me. The dizziness washed over me again, stronger this time. The shadows swam.

I didn’t hear him approach. No footsteps. No shift in the air. No sound at all.

The couch simply moved, ripped away from the wall with a single, effortless pull as if it weighed nothing. The world lurched open in a rush of light and cold air.

I froze.

He stood there, hand still resting on the couch, his expression carved from the same stone as graves. No warmth. No softness. No hint that he had ever been anything but what he way, a predator looking down at something beneath notice.

My tears stopped instantly, shame burning them out of existence.

He stepped closer, not with any intention of offering comfort.

"Don’t," I rasped, voice cracking like thin glass. I tried to crawl away, some desperate, instinctive motion, but my limbs rebelled, heavy and useless. My leg throbbed with each panicked movement. Dizziness surged. The room tilted.

His shadow fell over me.

“No,” I whispered, breath shaking. “Don’t touch me.”

He didn’t acknowledge the words. Not even with a glance.

His hand closed around my upper arm. I jerked against him on reflex, a sound tearing from my throat.

He lifted me as if the resistance were nothing, because to him, it was. My body rose off the floor without effort, without strain. My legs dangled, pain flashing up my right leg so sharply I gasped.

His grip only tightened enough to keep me from slipping. No more.

“Stop! Let me go-” The words came in broken fragments, not commands but the desperate noises of someone who knew they had no leverage.

He carried me back toward the couch. My fists struck weakly against his chest, once, twice, each blow landing like a feather against steel.

He didn’t flinch.

I stopped trying.

He lowered me onto the couch with the same detached precision, adjusting my injured leg only to keep it from worsening, pure practicality. Just preservation of something valuable enough not to break yet.

I sucked in a shaky breath, blinking through the dizziness, sweat dampening my temple.

He stepped back, looking down at me as though verifying a task was completed correctly.

If this was a moment of peace between us, it was only because I was too weak to fight and he was too indifferent to bother hurting me.

Chapter Text

Morning light leaked through the heavy curtains, turning the room a muted gray-gold. Somewhere above the mantel, the bell clock chimed a quiet note, seven o’clock.

I pushed myself upright with slow, careful movements. My body protested, trembling under its own weight, but at least it obeyed. The blanket slid down my torso, pooling at my hips. I lifted it away completely and dropped it beside me, its warmth instantly missed on my bare legs. The oversized t-shirt covered me enough.

My feet touched the carpet. Soft. I leaned back into the couch cushions, inhaling shakily. Nothing in this room could help me.

There were two doors. One to the left, one to the right.

I didn’t get a chance to choose which one to try to crawl out.

The left door opened, and he walked in.

He looked the same as he had last night, maybe darker in the morning light, sharper around the eyes. Black pants, pressed. A formal black shirt with the top two buttons undone, exposing just enough skin to be distracting. His hair was as it always was, dark, waves controlled but not tamed. His expression cold.

In his hands, he carried a wooden bowl.

The contents looked… questionable. A thick, mushy stew, brownish-purple with streaks of something that might once have been bright. It didn’t smell bad. Actually, it smelled faintly sweet and tart, but it looked like it had already been digested by something with excellent teeth.

He set it on the low table in front of me. “Eat.”

I blinked at the bowl, then at him, then back at the bowl. “What is that?”

“Enzo said you’re to have fruit purée.” His tone didn’t shift. Just stating a medical fact. “Vitamins. Hydration. Easy to digest. You’re not cleared for solids.”

I stared harder. “It looks like it died on the way here.”

His jaw flexed once, barely perceptible. He looked down at the bowl, a faint curl of distaste tugged at his lip, just enough to betray that even he wasn’t immune to how offensive it appeared.

I wrinkled my nose.

He mirrored it, almost, a shadow of the same reaction, the closest thing to solidarity I suspected either of us would ever offer.

I glanced at him again.

He looked… offended. That was the closest word I had. Offended that something so visually tragic had been placed in his house. Offended that he had to carry it. Offended that he had to serve it.

My brows rose before I could stop them. I tried to make sense of him. Because this was new. He’d dragged me across floors, pinned me, restrained me, ignored me. He’d handled my terror like it was a mundane part of his work. But this bowl?

This bowl earned a reaction. He inhaled once, and if I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought he was trying to endure the smell. Except the smell wasn’t bad. The smell was sweet.

It was the look of it.

The ugly, slumped mass of blended fruit, a bruise-colored heap with no identifiable shape or dignity. For a ridiculous, impossible moment, we stood on the same side of something.

His gaze flicked to me when he sensed I was staring. I snapped my eyes back to the bowl, heat stinging my cheeks. It didn’t matter. I could feel his stare.

“You can’t be serious,” I muttered, more to the bowl than to him.

“You’re eating it.” The delivery was flat.

I said. “Why does it look like that?”

He didn’t sigh, but I felt the shadow of one. “Enzo made it.”

That explained everything. Medical competence mixed with culinary war crimes.

“It smells fine,” I admitted grudgingly.

“It looks like poison.” His eyes lowered, expression flattening further as he examined the bowl like it might grow limbs and crawl away.

“Don’t make me eat it,” I whispered.

For a heartbeat, just one, something like agreement flickered behind his eyes.

Then he stepped back, just enough to put a sliver of distance between himself and the stew. The faintest expression of distaste lingered on his face. Whatever moment we almost had evaporated, replaced with the cold, familiar contempt he wore like armour.

“Enough,” he said. “Eat it.”

I barked a dry laugh. “You didn’t even want to touch it a second ago.”

“This isn’t about what I want.” He growled. “You will eat it.”

“Not if it looks like something scraped off a morgue floor.”

His jaw clenched. “You need nutrients.”

“Set it on fire,” I suggested. “Give it the mercy it deserves.”

He stepped forward and grabbed the bowl, lifting it to my face.

“Don’t you-”

He didn’t stop.

Panic flared, sharp and instinctive. I pushed myself back into the couch, hands up.

“I’m allergic!” I blurted.

He froze. The silence that followed was lethal. His gaze lifted slowly, eyes narrowing. “To fruit?”

“Yes.” I nodded hard. “I could die.”

“You are lying.”

“I am dying,” I corrected, “if you put that anywhere near me.”

His expression didn’t shift, but irritation simmered underneath. “You don’t die from fruit.”

“I do.”

He set the bowl down with a soft, ominous thud. “You expect me to believe that?”

“You expect me to eat something that looks like cursed oatmeal?”

He stepped closer, voice dropping to a quiet threat. “Tell the truth.”

“I am telling the truth. My throat will close, and I will suffocate.”

He stared at me like he was calculating whether the risk of calling my bluff outweighed the annoyance of being wrong.

I pressed on. “If I stop breathing, Enzo will blame you. Do you want to argue with him all day?”

A twitch in his jaw.

“So,” I said, folding my arms triumphantly, “let’s avoid unnecessary drama and just… skip breakfast.”

His nostrils flared. “If you are lying-”

“I’m not.”

Silence stretched between us, brittle and electric.

Finally, reluctantly, he stepped back.

“Fine.” His voice was all ice and threat. “You won’t eat.”

My stomach growled. Of all the humiliations I’d expected today, that one still caught me off guard. I pressed my hand against my abdomen like that could hide it. Lucarn didn’t look at me.

He just turned and walked toward the door on the right side of the room.

I watched him open it and stop.

There was a woman standing there. She was almost unreal in how put-together she looked. She looked like she’d stepped out of a portrait meant to make mortals feel inferior: hair the colour of split rubies, long and natural. Her eyes were an impossible shade of blue, the kind that made you wonder if ice could glow. Perfect posture. Clean clothes.

She smiled at him.

I stared not being able to stop myself. I didn’t know vampires came in… that version.

“Who let you in?” he asked, voice flat, unimpressed.

“The door wasn’t locked,” she said, stepping past the threshold without hesitation.

Lucarn moved instantly and positioned himself directly in front of her line of sight. A wall blocking her view of the room. Blocking her view of me.

“Bree,” he said, colder now, an edge sliding under the syllable. “This is not the time.”

“I missed you,” she said, ignoring that coldness, her chin lifting. “You didn’t answer my messages.”

He kept trying to block her, shifting each time she leaned to look around him. But she was quicker than he expected. She slid around him in one smooth movement and walked right into the room. Her eyes landed on me instantly.

For a moment, she stopped smiling. She took me in head to toe, my clothes, my hair, the bandage on my leg. I could practically see the judgment forming.

“Oh,” she said. “You didn’t tell me you had company.”

Lucarn’s jaw tightened so hard I could hear his teeth click. “Let’s go talk in my office.”

She stopped just in front of me, leaning in like she was examining rare merchandise.

I didn’t move.

I only stared back, still struck, despite myself, by how impossibly beautiful she was, and how much she knew it.

“Well,” she said, eyes dragging over me like a verdict. “Isn’t this interesting. A human, in your house?”

Lucarn didn’t pause. “Unfortunately.”

“I don’t like surprises,” she said, voice low. “Especially ones that come in skirts.”

Her problem with me is not me being human, it’s me being a girl.

I leaned back a bit more, trying to create more space between us. Jealousy over me made no sense. I was injured, exhausted, barely standing. There wasn’t a single part of me that someone like her should care about, let alone feel threatened by.

Bree let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “You don’t tolerate humans. You don’t even walk past them without a reason. And now you’re keeping one under your roof?”

He didn’t blink. “She won’t be here long.”

Bree stepped closer to him, her voice lowering. “Are you hiding something from me?”

“No,” he said sharply. “You’re imagining things.”

This made no sense. Lucarn hated humans. Everyone in the facility whispered it. You could feel it in the way he looked at us, distant, uninterested, as if we were background noise. He never interacted more than necessary. Never lingered. Never spoke unless he had to.

There was no universe where someone like me would mean anything to someone like him.

So what was Bree seeing that I wasn’t?

She gave me a slow, crude once-over. “She’s not even pretty.”

Lucarn didn’t react. “She’s not here for decoration.”

“I don’t want her here,” she said, staring into my face like she wanted to peel it off. “Get rid of her.”

His tone remained almost bored. “I’ll deal with her when I feel like it.”

He continued to describe me. Loud. Filthy. Pathetic. Useless. A burden. Things people had called me before, sure, but not with that cold precision.

And he said them like he meant every word.

I knew he was lying for a reason. I wasn’t stupid. He was trying to make me look worthless to Bree. Trying to kill her interest before it grew teeth. But hearing him say those things so easily still left a sting under my ribs.

I didn’t understand the dynamics between vampires, or between Bree and Lucarn, or what she thought my presence meant.

I kept trying to analyze it, to break it down logically, but nothing about her reaction was logical. It was emotional.

Maybe she wasn’t jealous of me. Maybe she was jealous of the attention, even if the attention was negative. Maybe she couldn’t stand the idea of Lucarn bringing anything, even trash, into his home without her approval. Maybe she needed every part of his life to orbit around her, and seeing something unexpected there broke her sense of control.

“Vampires talk,” Bree continued. “And they’ll say you’ve lost judgment. That you’ve gone soft. That the halfblood is slipping.” She gave him a slow, pitying smile. “Is that what you want? To give them more reasons to laugh at you?”

“I’m not concerned with appearances,” he said.

The word halfblood lodged itself in my mind the moment Bree said it, and everything I thought I knew about Lucarn shifted with it. Halfbloods weren’t born, they were made. Purebloods came from old lines, old families, power inherited. But halfbloods had a different origin; someone had to turn them. They started as humans. They lived human lives. They made human choices, had human weaknesses. And Lucarn belonged to that second category.

“That’s the problem with your kind,” Bree went on. “You try so hard to fit in with us that you make these ridiculous choices.” Her smile sharpened. “And then the purebloods have to clean up your mistakes.”

Lucarn stared at her with a flat, bored expression. “I don’t wake up planning my day around what purebloods approve of.”

It was strange, even disorienting, to look at him and imagine he had ever once been anything like me. Nothing about him felt human now, his stillness, his voice. I couldn’t picture a version of him who worked a normal job or walked down a street or shared a meal with his family. But the truth was right there in front of me. He had come from the same world I did and left it behind so thoroughly that no part of him seemed to remember it.

And that raised a new question, one that settled in my chest like a cold weight: how does someone go from being human to hunting them? What breaks, or hardens, a person enough to cross that line? Was it a choice? A punishment? An accident? And if someone turned him, who had that kind of power over a man who could crush bones with one hand?

My eyes drifted toward Bree, and the answer formed on its own.

Purebloods didn’t just inherit their strength, they inherited authority. Command. Influence. Even when they weren’t using powers outright, it bled into the way they spoke, the confidence in their posture, the expectation that others would bend. And as I watched her talk to him, everything clicked into place.

Lucarn was taller, stronger, physically imposing in a way that made most people shrink back. But next to Bree, none of that mattered. She talked to him like someone correcting a poorly trained animal, impatient, superior, certain of her place above his. And he didn’t really push back. He listened, in that cold, detached way of his.

It was the first time I’d seen him adjust himself to someone. I had thought he was the top of the chain, the one everyone else deferred to. But Bree proved there was a level above him, one he couldn’t simply muscle through. It wasn’t about strength. It was about lineage. Status. Blood.

And I stood there in the middle of that hierarchy without knowing a single rule. Bree was born powerful. Lucarn was made powerful. I was neither. If halfbloods were considered lesser, then humans didn’t even register on the scale. Her disgust wasn’t because I was a threat, it was because I existed in a space she didn’t believe I should be allowed to stand in.

The shift in perspective made my stomach twist. I had thought Lucarn was the most dangerous thing in the room since the moment I arrived. But seeing him next to Bree, seeing the ease with which she dismissed him, the steady way she underestimated him, and the complete confidence she had in her superiority, made something far more frightening settle in my chest.

“You don’t understand how this looks,” she said, slower now, as though speaking to someone dense. “You are not on the same level as the rest of us.”

“That never stopped you from following me around,” he said.

She glared at him as she took a single step closer to me, her boots barely making a sound on the floor. Her head tilted slightly to the side, like she was tuning into a frequency only she could hear. Then her nostrils flared.

“Oh,” she whispered. “I get it.”

At first I didn’t understand. Then her gaze dropped to my neck, following the slow throb beneath my skin. Her expression sharpened, almost startled, then pleased.

“Your blood,” she said, leaning closer. “It’s loud.”

My hands curled into fists against my sides. I couldn’t stop the way my pulse quickened. Bree’s smile widened like she’d just been handed a gift.

“Bree.” His voice cut through the air like a blade dipped in ice, but she didn’t so much as twitch.

Instead she lifted her hand, palm open, barely above waist height.

“Back off.” The command left her mouth calmly, but Lucarn froze mid-step.

She hovered her hand just inches from my throat, fingers slightly spread, like she was feeling the heat coming off me.

Bree leaned in, her eyes locked on the pulse at my throat. “It’s fast,” she whispered. “Does it always run like that, or is it just because I’m close to you?” Her eyes flicked up to mine. They were bright, focused.

Lucarn tried again, his tone lower. “Bree. Enough.”

She ignored him as though he were a draft in the room. Her attention tightened back on me, her gaze roaming the line of my jaw, down my pulse point, across my collarbone. “Your blood is clean,” she said. “Fresh. It’s been days since I smelled something this-”

Her nostrils flared.

“-alive.”

My throat tightened. I held still because I had no other choice.

Bree leaned even closer. So close I could feel the cold of her breath on my skin. “One bite,” she whispered. “Just one. I could take it so quickly she wouldn’t even-”

“Bree!” Lucarn’s tone dropped to something dangerous.

She finally turned her head, but only slightly, keeping her eyes on my neck as if she were protecting her claim. “Don’t interrupt me.” Her jaw shifted subtly. The faintest hint of fangs pressed against her lower lip but didn’t extend. She angled her face nearer to my neck, not touching me but close enough that I felt the chill radiating from her skin. Her lips parted slightly.

“She’s ill,” he said. “Her blood won’t satisfy you.”

Bree’s smile stretched. “Ill blood can be rich. Thick. It clings to the tongue.” Her fingers hovered even closer to my skin, almost touching now. “You’ve forgotten that.”

I swallowed once, and she watched the movement of my throat like she was tracking prey in tall grass.

Bree’s voice lowered to a murmur. “Let me feed from her, Lucarn. Just a little. I want to hear the change in her heartbeat when I bite down.”

“No.” His voice didn’t rise. It dropped.

She straightened slowly, eyes still fixed on my throat. “You never share,” she said. “Not even scraps.”

Her eyes finally rose to meet mine again. This time there was nothing charming or playful left in them. Only hunger. She bent a little, observing the vein at the crook of my elbow, the skin of my wrist, the edge of my bandage.

“She’s not yours,” Lucarn said.

Bree’s expression sharpened in irritation, but the smile returned almost immediately.

“Escort me on my birthday,” she said, meeting Lucarn’s eyes now. “Stay by my side all night.”

Lucarn held her gaze. “Fine.”

“And maybe,” she added, “I won’t come back for her before then.”

His eyes narrowed. A warning. Bree didn’t acknowledge it.

She stared at me again as she walked backward toward the door. She moved slowly, like stepping away physically pained her. Her eyes didn’t leave my neck, even when her hand reached behind her and found the handle blindly.

“I’ll be thinking about you,” she said. Then she slipped out through the door, closing it with a soft click that felt louder than a scream.

Silence filled the room.

A shaky exhale slipped out of me before I could stop it.

Lucarn didn’t move. He just stood there, watching the door for a beat as if making sure Bree wasn’t about to rip it open again. Then he glanced at me. Just an assessing flick of his eyes to confirm I was still there.

I let out a nervous half-laugh, rubbing my hands. “Your lover is… quite vicious.”

His expression didn’t shift, but his voice dropped flat and immediate. “She’s my sister.”

I blinked at him. Hard. “What?”

He just said it like it was the simplest fact in the world, despite every possible piece of evidence pointing in the opposite direction.

I stared at him, waiting, practically demanding, an explanation with my silence.

He exhaled through his nose, a small sign of reluctance. “Her father turned me. Years ago. He trained me, raised us together. So naturally, she…” His hand lifted in a vague gesture, as if the rest of the sentence was unnecessary. “I consider her my sister.”

I tried to picture that, Lucarn training under someone else’s command, Bree treating him like family, the two of them growing up in the same house or territory or whatever vampires called it, and the image was so strange it barely fit.

“How long ago were you turned?” I asked before I could stop myself. “Do you remember your life as a human? And did she ever actually act like a sister-”

He cut me off with a sharp look. Then, slowly, he turned fully toward me. “One question,” he said. “Per meal.”

I frowned. “What?”

“If you want answers, you’ll eat. And if you finish everything on the plate, I’ll answer one question.”

I glanced toward the bowl still sitting on the table.

“No,” I said immediately. “I’m not eating that fruit vomit.”

“Then no answers.”

“Give me something else,” I argued. “Anything else.”

“You’re not cleared for solids.”

I stared at him. “What does that even mean?”

“You eat liquid or soft food until I say otherwise.”

I gestured at the bowl. “That’s not soft food. That’s punishment.”

He didn’t bother responding.

I tried again. “Do you have eggs?”

His eyes narrowed slightly, suspicious. “Why?”

“Because an omelet is soft,” I said, lifting my hands in a harmless gesture. “And I swear I won’t try to choke on it or stab you with the fork or whatever you think I’m doing.”

He didn’t trust me. I could see it in the way his shoulders stiffened, the way he held perfectly still, like he was calculating probabilities.

 “Fine,” he said finally. “Omelet.”

He took the bowl of stew with him, picked it up without looking at me, as if the sight of it annoyed him more than anything I’d said, and walked toward the door on the left. His steps were controlled, steady, too quiet for someone his size. I watched him disappear through the doorway.

My mind was still spinning. He didn’t look like someone who’d ever belonged to any family. He didn’t act like someone who’d ever taken orders. He didn’t give the impression that he’d once been human.

He said I’d get one question.

Just one.

My mind jumped between a hundred of them, all jostling for first place. I couldn’t waste it. Not on something stupid. I only had one shot and no idea when he’d offer another.

Why does he hate humans? If he had been one once, that hatred didn’t make sense. Unless something happened, something brutal enough to cut that part of him out completely. Or maybe Bree’s father, the pureblood who turned him, forced it into him.

How does a human become a hunter of humans? What kind of training did that require? What kind of breaking? What kind of transformation? I’d seen him drag bodies. I’d seen the cages. I’d heard the screams in the facility. None of it lined up with a man who once had human blood in his veins.

Does he remember anything about his life before? Or did Bree’s father erase all of that, turn him into something he could use, shape him into the weapon I’d seen in the facility?

Did Bree ever act like a sister to him at all? Or did she treat him the same way she treated him today, with that condescending superiority, the same tone you use on someone who should be grateful to breathe near you?

Does Enzo know Lucarn was once human? If so, how much does he know?
And why does he treat Lucarn the way he does, not like a superior, not like a threat, but like… an equal?

I sat there for several minutes, weighing them, turning each one over in my head, trying to decide which mattered most. I didn’t trust him to answer kindly. I didn’t trust him to answer honestly either. But he had offered, and I wasn’t stupid enough to let that chance slip away.

By the time I heard his footsteps returning, my thoughts were still tangled, but something in me braced instinctively as he re-entered the room.

He carried a plate this time.

He set it down on the table in front of me with the same efficient calm he used for everything else. I looked at it properly and felt something inside me loosen so suddenly I almost sagged forward.

An omelette, two slices of toast. Real food.

Not mush. Not slurry. Not the sour-smelling sludge from the cage. Not something designed only to keep a body alive. This was food with shape, with texture, with warmth. It was ridiculous how emotional I felt just looking at bread, but my throat tightened anyway, and I had to blink faster than usual to hide it.

Lucarn walked past me without comment, lowering himself onto the couch on the right. He didn’t relax but he leaned forward slightly, forearms on his knees, and watched me with that same unreadable expression he wore for everything. I felt his gaze but didn’t let it touch me long. Hunger swept through me in a way that made the rest of the room fade into the background.

I picked up the toast first. The moment my fingers sank into the warm crust, something almost electric went through me. I bit into it, and the crunch, gods, the crunch, nearly undid me. Butter, salt, actual texture. My jaw moved faster than my brain; I didn’t care what I looked like. I’d forgotten how good food could taste when it wasn’t made to degrade you.

I switched to the omelet, cutting into it quickly. The eggs were soft, warm, seasoned just enough to feel intentional, not institutional. I barely registered Lucarn across the room; he was little more than a shape in the corner of my vision. My world had narrowed completely to the plate in front of me and the desperate, embarrassing relief flooding my chest with every bite.

And then I made a mistake.

A piece of toast, larger than I realized, slid too far back before I was ready for it. I swallowed reflexively, and it lodged itself in the wrong place, jamming deep in my throat. The shift from comfort to panic was instant. One second I was eating, the next I couldn’t breathe.

At first the shock froze me. I tried to inhale and felt nothing move. My lungs refused to expand. My throat refused to open. The silence in my body was louder than a scream.

My hands flew to my neck automatically. My vision blurred. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, heavy, hammering, useless. I looked up, instinctively, and saw Lucarn standing, but not approaching. He didn’t reach out. He simply observed, focused and intent, as if he were watching an experiment unfold.

I tried to cough, but the first attempt produced nothing. Not even a sound. Tears surged instantly, hot and uncontrolled, blurring the room. My chest spasmed again, harder this time, and I doubled forward over the table, lungs screaming for air they couldn’t reach.

On the second attempt, something shifted. A wet, painful cough tore free of my throat, jarring the lodged piece of bread. Another cough followed, violent and tearing, and with it came the obstruction, shooting out onto the plate with a sound that would have humiliated me under any other circumstance.

Air rushed back in so quickly it hurt. I gasped, chest burning, throat raw, eyes streaming uncontrollably. Tears coated my face, dripping down my chin, my hands shaking so hard I had to grip the table to steady them. Each inhale felt scraped and jagged, like learning how to breathe all over again.

He simply stood there, watching, silent and unreadable, as if assessing whether I’d live or die and filing the result away for future reference.

I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand, smearing tears across my cheek. My chest trembled with leftover shock. My breath stuttered unevenly.

 “You swore you wouldn’t try to choke yourself,” he said, voice low.

“I didn’t-” My voice cracked immediately, scraping against the rawness in my throat. I swallowed hard. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

His jaw tightened. “It looked intentional.”

“It wasn’t.” I forced the words out slowly, still struggling for even air. “It was a piece of toast, not a suicide attempt.”

He stared at me, unblinking, the irritation in his face too controlled to be real anger.

“Stay here,” he said finally.

He turned and walked off again, disappearing through the left doorway before I could argue. His footsteps were quick. A minute later, he returned with a glass of water. He set it in front of me harder than necessary.

I reached for it with unsteady fingers and took a long gulp. The water soothed immediately, washing away the burn in my throat and replacing it with something closer to relief. I exhaled shakily.

He stood over me, arms crossed, watching. “You eat like you haven’t seen food in years,” he said.

“I haven’t,” I shot back, voice still hoarse but steadier now. I set the glass down and met his eyes. “I wasn’t trying to die. I was trying to eat before you changed your mind.”

His gaze darkened, something flickering beneath the surface. “I’m sick of your defiance.”

“That wasn’t me being defiant,” I muttered. “That was me almost dying.”

“Over toast,” he said flatly.

His tone annoyed me enough that I glared at him. “Well forgive me for not having practice. My diet lately has been fear and fruit sludge.”

He didn’t smile, but something in his expression shifted like he was resisting one. “Eat slower.”

“Cook better.”

He blinked once, surprised at the audacity. “That omelet was fine.”

“It was perfect,” I admitted, which only irritated me further. “But you don’t get to insult my eating speed if you haven’t fed me real food in… however long I’ve been here.”

He watched me for another long second, eyes scanning my face. Finally, he stepped back, giving me space again. “You’re finished eating,” he said. “Ask your question.”

I swallowed, carefully this time, and wiped the remaining tears off my cheeks. The weight of that single question pressed down on me.

“How did you die?” I asked him quietly. “Before you were turned.”

Lucarn didn’t even pause. “I didn’t.”

The answer hit me sideways. “What do you mean, you didn’t? Halfbloods are made. A human has to die-”

“I wasn’t dead,” he said. “Not even close. I was strong. Healthy. Working. And Bree’s father didn’t care. He didn’t wait for nightfall or weakness or fear. He walked up behind me while I was cutting wood and sank his teeth into my throat before I even knew he was there.”

His tone was flat, but the intention behind it was not.

“He held me down while I screamed into the dirt,” he continued. “Pinned me with one hand. He didn’t speak. Didn’t give a reason. Didn’t tell me I’d survive or die. Just bit, and let the venom drain into me.

My breath stilled.

Lucarn watched the reaction and kept going.

“The turning doesn’t knock you out,” he said. “You stay awake. You feel it all. Your bones feel like they’re being split open with hot metal. Your skin crawls like insects are tearing their way out from underneath it. You choke on your own blood and bile because your body doesn’t know whether to die or keep going.”

He tilted his head slightly.

“It lasts for hours. No pauses. No relief.”

I swallowed hard, but he wasn’t finished.

“He dragged me to a clearing, dropped me like garbage, and left. I screamed until my voice tore. Then until I couldn’t scream anymore. By the time it stopped, my throat was bleeding from the effort of trying.”

My hands tightened on the glass.

Lucarn’s eyes flicked to that movement, and he pushed deeper.

“When I stood up, I didn’t know what I was. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t even know my own name. All I knew was hunger. Not the kind you’re feeling now. Not something uncomfortable or painful.” He leaned back, watching me with a predator’s patience.

“It feels like drowning,” he said. “Like you’re suffocating unless you take a life. Like your entire body is begging you to tear into the nearest thing that moves.”

My chest clenched.

“And I did,” he said. “I went home. I walked straight into my village, the people I grew up with, and I tore them open one by one.”

“I didn’t know until hours later,” he said calmly. “Until the hunger started fading and the fog in my mind cleared. Until I looked at my hands and realized why they were red. Until I saw what was left of them.”

My throat went dry.

“Bree’s father found me sitting in the middle of it,” he continued. “Broken. Confused. Starving for more.”

Before I could stop myself, the next question slipped out.

“If he did all that to you,” I said quietly, “why don’t you get revenge?”

“There are more important things in life than revenge,” he said. He stepped forward, picked up the empty plate without a word, and balanced it easily in one hand as he turned towards the door.

“Like what?” I swallowed, forcing the rest out. “What could possibly be more important than getting revenge on someone who destroyed your life?”

My voice shook a little, but I kept going.

“You lost everything. Your village. Your family. Your whole world. And you didn’t even choose this.” I hesitated, watching his back, the line of his shoulders. “You deserve revenge.”

He still didn’t turn around.

But I wasn’t finished.

“And if there really is something more important than revenge…” I exhaled slowly, “Then I want to know what it is.”

“Enzo will be here soon to look at your leg.” He walked out.

Chapter Text

Enzo had dragged a low table in front of the couch like he was about to serve tea instead of disinfect me. “Foot up,” he said.

I shifted, careful not to jostle my leg more than I had to, and propped my heel on the table. The couch dipped under my weight, too soft after days of metal bars and concrete.

He sat down on the edge of the table facing me, one knee braced, tin of ointment resting on his thigh. He unwrapped the old bandage with quick, practiced fingers.

The air hit the wound, and I sucked in a breath. Three long scratches raked down the side of my calf. The skin around the scratches was pink and tight, edges already knitting together. I’d seen people with less damage take weeks to walk again.

“He really does have beautiful hands. Shame you met them in a bad mood.”

“I wasn’t exactly in a good one.”

“Yes, but you don’t have claws. He does.” He spread the salve over the scratches, and ignored my flinching. “You’ll recover faster than I hoped, but,” he added, voice dipping into something sly, “it would be deeply unfortunate for you to start walking normally.”

I shot him a sharp look. “Why?”

“Because then you’ll be moved.”

My stomach tightened. “Where?”

He shrugged, as if the answer was obvious. “Wherever he wants you next.” A lazy smile spread across his face. “And I, personally, am enjoying having you right here.” He began wrapping the clean gauze around my leg, his movements neat. “You clot well, tissue is closing nicely, swelling is down, no sign of infection.”

“I’m just trying not to bleed out on his rug.”

He flashed me a quick grin, then focused on tying off the bandage. “Point is, give this another day or two and you’ll be able to walk without wanting to pass out.”

“That soon? You said it would take days for me to recover.”

“I say a lot of things.” He sat back, studying his work. “Which brings us to today’s unsolicited advice.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

He tapped the bandage lightly with two fingers. “Don’t walk without limping.”

 I stared at him. “You want me to fake it?”

His head tilted. “You won’t be faking it. You were injured, that’s a fact. I’m suggesting you extend the usefulness of that fact.”

“That sounds like faking it.”

“This is the only stage where you look like a problem no one wants to deal with. After this, you’re inventory.”

I thought of Lucarn’s hand clamping around my leg. The drag across the floor. The way his eyes had darkened when I’d gotten past him, even for a second.

“I don’t want him to think I’m weak,” I said.

Enzo’s smile thinned. “He already knows you’re not weak. You hit him in the face with a food bowl. That’s not the kind of thing a man forgets.”

“I acted out of impulse.”

“It doesn’t matter. You showed him something real.” He lifted a shoulder. “Now, maybe show him something else. Something… manageable.”

“Like what?”

“Like a girl who hasn’t bounced back yet. Like a reason not to move you too quickly.” He got to his feet, joints cracking, and snapped the tin of ointment shut.

I looked at him, at the small tension around his mouth, at the way his eyes slid briefly toward the doorway before returning to me. Something was coiling beneath his usual bright exterior. Something he wasn’t saying.

“Enzo,” I said finally, “why are you really helping me?”

He stilled mid-motion, his hand hovering above the strap of his bag. Then he forced a faint, dismissive smile.

“I’m not helping you,” he said, lowering his hand. “I’m helping myself.”

“Don’t do that,” I said, shifting on the couch so I could face him more fully. “Don’t treat me like I’m stupid. There are a dozen humans in this place. A hundred ways for you to amuse yourself. Plenty of opportunities to manipulate Lucarn or get under his skin. But you’re here. You’re telling me how to walk, how to act, how to buy time. You are helping me.”

He slowly turned toward me, arms crossing over his chest.

“And you’re doing it,” I added, “because of him.”

A heaviness settled between us. The dim light in the room pressed shadows into the hollows beneath his cheekbones, making his expression seem older, worn by centuries rather than years.

Without another word, he stepped out of the room, his footsteps brisk and echoing down the hallway to the left. A moment later, I heard the scrape of something heavy being shifted. When he returned, he was carrying a large canvas bag slung over one shoulder.  He set it down near what passed for my “bed”, with a dull thud.

“What’s that?” I asked, watching the way he positioned it precisely at the edge of the rug as if he wanted it close enough for me to grab.

“Clothes,” he said, dusting his hands off with a faintly theatrical flourish. “You can’t keep wearing what you came in with. It’s unhygienic. And frankly, it’s depressing.”

I glanced at the bag, then at him. “Where did you get them?”

“Storage,” he replied. “We keep a supply for situations like this.” His lips curved, not quite a smile. “You’d be surprised how often humans require… refurbishment.”

I nudged the bag with my foot. “They’re clean?”

He lifted one eyebrow at the question. “They’re thoroughly washed. Boiled, disinfected, dried. Every possible disease removed. You are in absolutely no danger of contracting anything.” Then, after a beat, his mouth twitched. “At least not from the clothing.”

The implication wasn’t comforting, but somehow the tone was. “Good,” I said. “Thank you.”

The simple words seemed to catch him off guard. His expression flickered, uncertain for a fraction of a second, before smoothing back into his usual veneer.

“Well,” he said, looking away as though the moment embarrassed him, “don’t get sentimental. I do this to keep you functioning, not out of kindness.”

“I didn’t assume kindness,” I said. “But I’m still thanking you.”

He let out a soft exhale, though he tried to hide it by adjusting the strap of his bag. Then he turned toward the hallway again.

“Change when you can,” he said over his shoulder. “And limp when you walk. You’ve survived the night,” he said. “Don’t make surviving the next one harder than it needs to be.”

And then he walked away, leaving the bag by my bed.

I open the bag, and the fabric rasped against my fingers as I pulled it closer, the weight of it pressing into my thigh. I pull out shirts first. A gray one, its collar worn thin. A green one with a missing button and a frayed shoulder seam. Then pants, coarse fabric, knees thinning, one pair with a tear as if someone had fallen hard while wearing them. All of it functional, serviceable.

Then my fingers catch on something softer.

Dresses.

I lift them out one by one, laying them across the couch beside me. The fabric drapes strangely, like it has forgotten how to sit on a human body. One dress has a rip running from hip to hem, another has straps barely clinging to the bodice. The colours are all muted with age, colours that once meant something but now look tired, resigned. And then, the yellow one.

The moment I pull it from the bag, something inside my chest stutters.

It’s a soft yellow, warm despite the wear, the kind of colour that sunlight used to be when I was small and safe and unaware that the world could turn inside-out in a single breath. It reminds me of a dress I wore so long ago that I can hardly remember the texture of it, only the idea, the way my mother had tied the ribbon at the back, the way I spun in it until I got dizzy, the way my father had laughed and told me to be careful because I always bumped into furniture when I got too excited.

I don’t want to wear it. I don’t want to even look at it. My bare legs don’t bother me, but a dress feels like vulnerability, a softness that doesn’t belong in a place where any exposed skin feels like an invitation. Pants make sense. Shirts make sense. Something I can brace myself in, something that doesn’t feel like handing over any more of myself than has already been taken.

I set the yellow dress aside, but my hand stays resting on it.

I was six the last time I wore a dress that colour.

And my parents were alive.

The cabin smelled like roasted carrots and fresh bread, and I was swinging my legs under the table, kicking the wood even though I’d been told not to because that’s what six-year-olds do when they feel safe enough to disobey. My mother was laughing at something my father had said, that soft laugh that filled every corner of the room and made me think, stupidly, that happiness was the natural state of the world. My father leaned across to steal bread off my plate, and I slapped his hand with all the righteous fury of a child convinced she had power.

“Papa!” I’d snapped, and both of them had smiled.

My father pulled my mother close and kissed her hair, and she giggled, tucking her head under his chin.

But then there was a single knock on the door.

My father froze first, and mother’s smile faltered. I noticed the change but didn’t understand it. Six-year-olds can feel danger before they can name it, and the air suddenly felt thin, like it had been sucked out the windows.

“Who is it?” I asked.

Then everything moved fast, too fast for memory to separate into neat pieces. My mother grabbed me, her hand gentle but urgent, and nudged me off the chair. “Into the closet,” she whispered. “Now.”

I tried to ask why. She didn’t let me.

The closet smelled like coats and pine and winter boots, familiar things that suddenly felt like objects from another universe. She kissed my forehead once, hard, almost desperate. She closed the door.

Four seconds. That’s what my life boiled down to. Four seconds between the world I knew and the one that would swallow everything after.

One
A thud, deep and violent.

Two
My mother screamed, raw and terrified, a sound that still scrapes against my bones if I think about it too long.

Three
Furniture overturned. Hissing. Glass shattered. My father shouting something, torn and furious, and then a wet sound. Something leaked under the door of the closet, dark and wet, and pooled beside my foot.

Four
Silence.

A silence so sudden and absolute that it felt like the world itself had been ripped in half, a silence that pressed against my ears until I couldn’t hear my own heartbeat.
I didn’t breathe.

I remember digging my nails into my knees, holding myself together by force because if I made a single sound, I knew that whatever was out there would hear me.

A shadow passed in front of the closet, then, with wet footsteps, walked out of the house.

I stayed still.

Everything I knew about family, about love, about what mornings should look like, gone. And I’ve been living with that silence, that frozen little girl inside my chest, ever since.

I fold the dress and bury it back into the bag beneath the shirts and pants, pressing it down until the yellow disappears completely, as if it had never been here, as if I had never been that small girl clutching at sunshine-colored fabric and believing the world was kind. I can’t be that naive child here. I can’t be someone who wears yellow.

My hand drifts to the pants, the pair with the tear at the knee, the ones that look like they’d survive crawling through dirt if they had to, and I pull them free, laying them beside me on the bed. They look too far removed from the grime clinging to my skin. I haven’t bathed in days; I can feel the layer of sweat and dust dried over me like a second skin, a reminder of the floor I slept on, the blood that dried in the seams of my shirt, the stale air I breathed for hours. Holding something clean feels almost wrong, like I’m contaminating it just by touching it. Shame coils in my stomach, sharp and sudden, as I brush my fingers over the fabric. I feel undeserving, like the clothes might reject me the moment I put them on.

But I reach for them anyway, because I need something that belongs to the version of me who survived the closet and everything after, the version who kept breathing even when the world told her she shouldn’t. And even if my body is dirty and unwashed and tired, even if the clean fabric feels like a lie against my skin, I need this small reminder that I am still someone worth covering, someone worth dressing, someone who didn’t stay in the dark forever.

The moment my fingers curl around the edge of the clean fabric, footsteps break the stillness, and Lucarn appears in the doorway on the left, his presence cutting through the room like a sudden drop in temperature. His eyes sweep over the couch, over the clothes, over me, and there is no curiosity in his stare, only suspicion.

“Do not even think,” he says, voice low and matter-of-fact, as if stating the colour of the walls, “about pulling a string from those clothes to hang yourself with.”

The accusation is so casual, so confident, as though he’s already imagined it, pictured it, decided it’s exactly the kind of thing I would do.

“My leg still hurts too much to try it,” I answer, my voice flat.

He glares at me and turns without another word, heading toward the door on the left, already retreating back into whatever quiet shadows he crawls into when he’s not tormenting someone.

“I need a bath,” I call out.

He stops, just slightly, not fully turning, the line of his shoulders stiff with annoyance. “You don’t need it yet.”

The refusal hits something inside me, and I open my mouth to argue, but  Enzo’s voice slips into my mind, unwelcome and irritatingly rational.

Now, maybe show him something else. Something… manageable.

As much as it disgusts me, as much as it makes my throat tighten, and my pride burn, I swallow all the words rising like knives and force out the one thing I hate more than him:

“Please.”

He freezes mid-step.

Slowly, he turns his head just enough to look at me. I’m already glaring at him, my jaw locked, my back straight, every inch of my expression the opposite of what the word please should look like.

“That’s not the face of someone begging,” he says dryly.

I clench my teeth so hard my jaw aches, refusing to soften, refusing to give him anything more than the cracked, unwilling version of obedience he already got. He sighs and finally complies.

I grab the pants and one of the shirts, gathering them in a tight grip as he approaches, his shadow stretching long across the floor. He doesn’t ask; he simply bends, hooks his hands under my hips, and lifts me as though I weigh nothing at all. My legs dangle uselessly, pain flickering at every movement, and he keeps his body angled away, maintaining a careful distance, as if the idea of our chests touching would break some rule he set for himself.

I glare at him the entire time, the same unwavering stare burning into the side of his face, but he doesn’t look at me once. Not even a glance. Just the rigid line of his jaw, the steady rhythm of his steps, the way he holds me without effort.

And for a moment, I see what Enzo meant.

His hands are…nice. Infuriatingly so. Big and strong, with knuckles that look like they’ve broken more things than I could count, yet the skin is clean, the claws reduced down to nothing but pale, harmless crescents. Hands that look human at a distance but reveal their strength the longer you stare, veins running like faint blue strokes beneath the skin, fingers long and sure, a grip that holds me firmly without bruising, steady as though he’s built for carrying weights heavier than me.

They’re the kind of hands that could snap a neck, or set a bone, or lift heavy wood in a village he no longer belongs to.

He carries me through the doorway on the right, and the moment we cross the threshold, the air shifts. The hallway stretches long and dim, lit only by narrow sconces fixed to the walls, their flames thin and sharp like they’re afraid to burn too brightly under his roof. The floorboards are dark, polished wood, old enough to creak if they dared, but they don’t; they seem to hold their breath around him, just like everything else in this place.

My eyes lift as he walks further in, and I see the wide wooden staircase rising to the upper floor, thick beams, carved posts, a banister shaped by hands that belonged to a century before mine. A row of doors lines the second floor, partially in shadow, each closed, each keeping its secrets. To the right, near the front of the hall, two heavy wooden doors stand tall, panelled and iron-braced. I assume they lead outside.

But he doesn’t go toward them. He moves straight down the hallway, past darkened frames and cold stone accents, until he reaches the final door. He pushes it open with his foot and steps inside.

The bathroom is enormous, bigger than the living room of the house I grew up in, bigger than anything a human would ever need for something as simple as bathing. The walls are made of dark wood, almost black, polished to a muted sheen that swallows the light instead of reflecting it, boards fitted so perfectly together that they look carved from a single massive tree. There is no mirror, not a single reflective surface anywhere, not even a silver plate, as if the idea of seeing oneself is unnecessary or unwanted here.

The tub sits in the center, crafted from wood as well, but a different kind, something rich and heavy, almost mahogany in colour, reinforced with black iron bands that circle it like restraints. It’s deep enough to drown in, wide enough to lie down fully inside. The brass pipes twist upward from the floorboards, curving like serpents toward the rim of the tub, water ready to spill from between them.

Candles sit in iron holders along the walls, marking the space with fragile circles of amber light that never quite touch the corners, leaving the edges of the room in a soft, ominous darkness. The air smells faintly of damp wood, herbs, and something cold and metallic, like the memory of rain.

I stare, overwhelmed despite myself.

He sets me down, and pain sparks hot and sharp in my right leg the moment it hits the floor. I wince, sucking a breath through my teeth, my hand flying to the edge of the tub to steady myself. I lift the injured leg off the ground, balancing awkwardly.

“Strip.”

I blink at him, stunned, half convinced I didn’t hear him correctly. “What?”

He repeats, irritated: “Hurry up. I can’t waste all day on your crap.”

My stomach drops. “I’m not going to strip in front of you,” I snap, the outrage crackling through me before I can stop it.

He stands there, arms crossed, expression carved from cold iron. “I’m not leaving you alone so you can swallow a whole shampoo bottle.”

My mouth falls open in disbelief. “I’m not going to…what? I just want to clean myself, that’s all!”

“Then go on,” he says, gesturing lazily at the tub. “Do it.”

“Not with you standing there!”

He raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “I’ll stand where I want.”

“You can’t just watch me,” I hiss, heat rising up my face despite the freezing air.

“I’m not watching you,” he snaps back, as if offended I’d even suggest such a thing. “I’m making sure you don’t try anything.”

I stare at him, utterly flabbergasted. “Like what? Drowning myself in bathwater? Drinking soap? Levitating a razor blade into my throat?”

He narrows his eyes. “You’re creative. I’ve seen that.”

“Oh my god,” I mutter, dragging a hand through my filthy hair. “You are unbelievable.”

“And you are wasting my time,” he answers flatly.

“I just want a bath,” I say.

“Then take it.” His tone makes it sound simple. Easy. As if my dignity were as irrelevant as the temperature of the water.

I grip the tub harder, staring him down, chest heaving, fury burning an ember into my ribs.

He stares back, cold and unmovable.

I tighten my grip on the edge of the tub, the wood cool beneath my fingers, and force myself to breathe slowly as I stare him down.

“Turn away,” I say, my voice steady even though everything inside me is a snarl of humiliation and anger. “At least while I take my clothes off.”

“I don’t see you as a woman, and I’m not interested in your lacking body.”

The insult strikes like a slap, sudden and cold. My jaw drops, then locks, and the heat rising up my chest is so intense I’m surprised the wooden floor doesn’t ignite beneath my feet.

“You-” I inhale sharply, trying not to shout. “I am not interested in the sadistic monster you are, either. But there’s this thing called manners.”

Faintest twitch of impatience flickers in his expression. He turns his back to me, giving me nothing but the rigid line of his spine. “You have two minutes.”

I clench the clothes to my chest with one arm and grab the bottle of soap with the other, lifting it just slightly, my shoulders tightening, my wrist cocked back. The weight of the bottle feels perfect in my hand, heavy enough to hurt, light enough to throw well. I picture it hitting the back of his head. I picture the sound it would make. A dull thud. A soft grunt. Maybe even a surprised oath. The image plays loud and detailed in my mind, and for a dangerous heartbeat, I want it, want to see him flinch, want him to know what it feels like to be caught off guard, to be hit, to be treated as something less.

You arrogant, cold-blooded, empty-souled, ego-rotted-

I lift my arm higher, fingers tightening around the bottle.

“You have one minute left,” he says calmly.

I stop mid-throw, breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my rage. I blink hard, steadying myself, lowering the bottle before I actually do something that would cost me more than my dignity.

I place the soap down with a force that borders on slamming, then toss the clean clothes onto the floor beside me. My hands move quickly now, fueled by the humiliation simmering under my skin. I peel off my shirt, careful not to tug too harshly on the right side where the dried blood clings to the fabric.

By the time I’m bare, the cold air bites at my skin, but I refuse to flinch.

The tub stands in front of me, the rim reaching up to my waist, impossibly high for someone who cannot put weight on one leg. I grip the edge with both hands, trying to hoist myself up, but my right leg trembles violently, refusing to lift. I grunt under my breath, frustrated and embarrassed, attempting again to climb in, my arms straining as I try to swing my good leg over the side.

“I can’t get in,” I say at last.

He turns around immediately, and I snap my arms across my chest, pressing them tight, instinctive and defensive, my chin lifting in a challenge even as my body curls in on itself.

He doesn’t look impressed or sympathetic, or interested. His steps are steady, and the closer he comes, the smaller the room feels.

He stops right in front of me, his shadow swallowing the candlelight.

Then he bends slightly and places his hands under my hips again, fingers firm, grip secure, and he lifts me as easily as he did before. And as he does, my instincts take over. I bend my knees up to my stomach, curling inward, pulling my legs up to hide every vulnerable inch of myself as tightly as possible. My body folds into a near-ball in his hands, and it feels childish and pathetic and utterly human, but I do it anyway.

The corner of his mouth twitches upward, just a fraction, barely a breath of a movement, like some buried muscle remembered what amusement feels like and tried, briefly, to imitate it.

“You look like a scared hedgehog,” he says lightly.

I glare at him with every drop of fire left in my body, wishing I could burn that faint smile off his face, wishing my stare could cut bone. He meets my eyes for a split second, and the amusement doesn’t fade; it deepens, just slightly, as though my hatred only entertains him further.

He lowers me into the tub with steady, practiced ease, making sure my legs clear the rim. He reaches for the faucets and turns them, adjusting the handles until a steady stream of warm water pours from the spout, steam curling upward like soft ghosts.

The tub is empty beneath me, just the cool, smooth wood against my skin, but the sound of water fills the air as he places the shampoo bottle inside the tub beside my knee. Then he moves back, leaning against the wooden wall near the door, arms crossed.

I touch the warm water with my finger,s and the sensation spreads through me like something holy. It’s soft, comforting, almost painful in its gentleness. I haven’t felt warm water in years. Bathing, for me, was a chore done with cold buckets drawn from wells or streams, or whatever freezing basin I could find before nightfall. Water was something that bit the skin, stole breath, numbed limbs. Warmth was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

And now here it is, pouring inches from my hand.

I move instinctively toward the faucet, pulling myself forward until my head is beneath the stream. My shoulder-length hair is drenched instantly, warm water sliding down my back, my chest, dripping into the still-empty tub. Brown water, dirt, grime, dried blood, washes away from me in murky trails, swirling down the drain. I watch it go, mesmerized, forgetting entirely that he is behind me, leaning on the wall, watching every second.

I close my eyes as the water beats gently against my scalp, and goosebumps burst across my arms, racing down my spine, spreading across my legs. My soaked bandage darkens further as water seeps into it, but I don’t care. Not right now. Not when warmth is touching me like this, sinking into my bones, coaxing out the trembling I didn’t realize I’d been holding for days.

“Stop waterboarding yourself,” Lucarn says dryly.

I don’t even look up. “It’s warm,” I murmur, half-laughing, half-breathless with relief.

The smile surprises me as much as it would surprise anyone else. It feels foreign on my face, almost a relic of another life. But I can’t help it. I slick my wet hair back with both hands, pushing it away from my face, letting the water spill down my cheeks like it’s washing a different version of me off.

His voice cuts through the sound of the water. “What’s your name?”

I blink, lifting my gaze toward him. Water trickles down my forehead, my chin, my ribs. I inhale once, steadying myself, though I’m not sure why.

“Thessa,” I say, meeting his eyes through the falling water.

“How did you end up all alone in that forest?” he asks, like he’s asking about the weather, like he didn’t drag me out of it half-conscious and bleeding.

The question drops into the warm air like a pebble into deep water. I reach for the shampoo bottle beside my knee, squeezing some into my palm, the scent unfamiliar but clean. I rub it into my hair, working the lather slowly through the strands, stalling for a moment, I know he won’t let me keep.

“You’re awfully curious for someone who sees me as merchandise.”

He lifts one shoulder in a small, bored shrug. “It’s just small talk.”

I snort bitterly. “My life story isn’t small talk.”

He doesn’t reply.

I lean forward slightly, letting the warm water rinse the foam from my hair. It slides down my scalp, down my neck, going down the drain with the dirt.

“I was looking for food,” I say finally.

His eyes lift in attention. “There was a village nearby. They had more than enough food.”

A humourless smile crosses my face as I sit back, letting the water drum softly against my shoulders.

“They fed me until I turned sixteen. After that, I was required to find my own food and shelter. The house my parents left… it was taken. Claimed by a distant cousin. Someone who had a better claim on paper than I did in blood.”

“How old are you now?” he asks, the question coming as casually as the last.

“Twenty,” I answer.

He watches me for a long moment, eyes narrowed slightly. “You look younger.”

I let out a slow breath, fingers drifting through the warm water. “Malnourishment plays an important part,” I reply.

He doesn’t answer.

I gather the foam floating near my hands, cupping it gently between my palms. I rub my hands together, shaping the lather, making a small circle with my fingers. Carefully, I blow through it.

A bubble drifts upward, trembling, catching the candlelight in its fragile skin. I follow it with my eyes until it touches the ceiling and disappears soundlessly. I make another, this one larger. The bubble rises slower, turning lazily in the air like it’s reluctant to leave the warmth of the room.

It’s the smallest, stupidest source of joy.

Lucarn pushes off the wall and walks toward me, the quiet heaviness of his presence replacing the softness of the bubble in an instant.

“Playtime is over,” he says, voice low, already reaching for the faucet to shut the water off.

A spark of rebellion flares up inside me. “I’m not done yet,” I say, lifting my hand.

Before he can react, the foam still resting on my fingertips flicks forward with the movement and flies straight into his face.

The moment it hits him, the quiet thff of bubbles against his skin, he goes utterly still.

Then he growls. A deep vibrating sound that rolls from his chest like a warning from a creature who doesn’t bother with second chances.

I slap my fingers against my lips immediately, trying to trap the laugh before it escapes. My shoulders shake despite my effort to hold it in. I breathe hard through my nose, stifling the sound, hiding the smile behind my wet knuckles like it’s contraband.

And then, because I’m not completely suicidal, I dip my hands into the clean water and wash the foam from my fingers, scrubbing quickly until my palms are wet and clear. I shift forward, pushing myself up onto my knees inside the tub, the warm water sloshing quietly around me.

I reach toward him.

I can barely get close; he’s tall, and the tub is deep, but I stretch, leaning my whole body forward over the wooden rim until my fingertips reach his cheek. He leans slightly over the tub, bracing one hand on the rim, watching me the way a predator studies something that is, for the first time, behaving unexpectedly.

I wipe the foam from his jaw, from the corner of his mouth, from the line of his cheekbone. My fingers skim the cold smoothness of his skin, the warm water dripping off my wrist and down onto his collar. I struggle to keep my expression neutral, to hold the smile in, to bite back the laugh that’s still bubbling in my chest.

But warmth spreads through me anyway, because I’ve never come this close to touching him without fear being the primary force in my body.

He stands there like a statue, silent, rigid, his jaw tight beneath my fingertips. His eyes track every movement of my hand, sharp and unblinking, as if he’s trying to decide whether this moment is insolence or… something else entirely.

When I wipe the last bit of foam from the edge of his chin, I drop my hand back into the tub and sit down again, water rising gently around my ribs.

“Sorry,” I say, the word light and strangely cheerful, utterly betraying the apology. “Just… it was an accident.”

His expression resets, nothing but the cold, familiar authority that fits him like a second skin.

“You have ten minutes,” he says flatly. “Finish bathing. I’ll be in the hall.”

He steps back from the tub, already turning toward the door.

“When the time’s up,” he adds, hand on the handle, “I will drag you back to your couch. In whatever state you’re in.”

The door shuts behind him with a soft, final sound, and the echo of it settles in the air like a reminder that whatever illusion of softness existed in the last few minutes was nothing more than a thin membrane stretched over the truth of what he is.

And yet I find myself leaning back against the wooden rim of the tub and letting the water rise, as though it can cleanse the absurdity from my thoughts, even though nothing could ever wash away the reality that I, in all of my worn-out fragility, reached up and touched him.

It hits me all at once, this strange and unsettling awareness that my hands had been on his skin. That my fingers had traced the foam along his jaw. That I had leaned toward him instead of away from him. That he had allowed it, standing still, leaning over the tub, watching me. It feels impossible that I had the audacity to close the distance between us when every instinct in my body should have been screaming to shrink back, to disappear into the warm water, to avoid provoking him further.

What kind of madness took root in me that I dared to reach up and wipe his face? That I dared to make bubbles in front of him. That I dared to laugh when the man has threatened me since the first breath I took in his presence, when he has made it perfectly clear that he sees me not as a person but as something to be sold, used, exchanged.

And yet, despite every fact that should have kept me trembling and obedient, there is this stubborn, inexplicable truth that coils inside me: I have been the only one between us to draw blood, to attack, to strike first, to spit in his face with defiance I had no right to carry, to hurl a bowl at him with enough force to shock us both, to fling foam at his face and he did nothing in return. He didn’t retaliate, didn’t strike, didn’t even shove me away when my hands touched his skin.

I don’t know where my courage is coming from, whether I am becoming unhinged, softened by warmth and exhaustion. Or am I simply reacting to the alien sensation of being held, carried, touched in ways that aren’t designed to break me, even if every word he speaks is meant to remind me of how breakable I am.

And perhaps the most terrifying part of all of this is that he leaned closer, and I don’t know what that means for him, or for me, or for the shifting boundary between monster and captive that I am beginning to cross without realizing it, one reckless heartbeat at a time.