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She Haunts Him

Author: DB Novels
last update Last Updated: 2025-05-12 15:45:04

Chapter Ten – “She Haunts Him”

POV: Ardyn

I didn’t move for a full minute after he walked away.

Caelum’s kiss was still on my lips, his handprint still burned into my wrist, and my body still trembling from how close we came to crossing the line we kept dancing around like fools with gasoline and matches.

And then Lucien—tall, unreadable, eerily calm—just had to catch us. My robe was open. My body was flushed. My legs were still wrapped around his thigh.

The shame hit like a slap. But so did the arousal.

I liked it. God, I liked being caught. Being seen. Tied, taken, claimed. Even if none of it ever went far enough.

Caelum left me aching. Always aching.

I walked back to my room on shaky legs and stood in the mirror, just staring at myself.

Was I losing it? Was I becoming one of those girls? The kind that got off on being punished, controlled, silenced?

He didn’t even like me. He made that crystal clear. I was a mistake he regretted the moment I opened my mouth. But he kissed me. He kissed me like he’d been starving and I was his last breath.

And then he stopped. Again.

Because I look like her.

The woman in the photo.

She was beautiful—hauntingly so. Same long dark hair. Same pale skin. Eyes like they’d seen too much. A kind of sadness in her expression I couldn’t stop thinking about.

I needed to know who she was.

I had to.

I waited until the house settled. Midnight, maybe later. Lucien’s footsteps had stopped echoing hours ago. Caelum hadn’t come back upstairs.

I slipped out of bed, barefoot, wearing nothing but an oversized T-shirt I’d swiped from the laundry room that still smelled like his cologne. I crept down the hallway and back toward the forbidden wing of the mansion.

Back to the room I wasn’t supposed to enter. The one with the locked doors, dust-covered piano, and a photo tucked in a cracked leather frame.

It was still there. Still hidden in the drawer behind a stack of old sheet music.

Same woman. Same hollow stare. Same curve to her lips that almost looked like a smirk if you tilted your head just right.

On the back of the photo was a name written in faded ink: “Mireille.”

I whispered it to myself like a secret.

Mireille.

Was she a lover? A sister? A ghost?

And why did Caelum react like I’d stabbed him when I brought her up?

I put the photo back, carefully, and closed the drawer. But this time I noticed something I hadn’t before.

A diary.

Worn, weathered, tucked between two books with cracked spines.

I shouldn’t have. I really shouldn’t have.

But of course I did.

The diary was hers. Mireille’s.

I sat on the edge of the cold guest bed and opened the first page.

“He only kisses me when he’s drunk. Otherwise, I’m just a shadow to him.”

The words punched me in the gut.

It was like reading my own thoughts.

Page after page was filled with confessions. Pain. Craving. Punishment. There was obsession written between every line, both hers and his. And it was Caelum. She called him C.

It was always C.

I read until my eyes burned. Until my legs went numb. Until I felt like I knew her—or maybe I was her. Reborn. Replaced.

What the hell happened to her?

Was she dead?

Is that why he looks at me like I’m a ghost?

---

I didn’t sleep.

By the time morning light spilled through the hallway windows, I was curled in the chair outside Caelum’s study, still holding the diary in my lap like it could protect me from whatever storm was coming next.

He found me there.

Of course he did.

He looked tired. Hair tousled. Sleeves rolled up, collar loose. His eyes dropped straight to the diary, and everything about him froze.

“Where did you find that?” His voice was like gravel.

I stood, slowly. “In the piano room. The drawer behind the books.”

“You went in there again.” It wasn’t a question.

“I needed to know.” I licked my lips, heart thudding. “Who was she?”

“You had no right to touch that.”

“Then tell me who she was.”

“She was none of your concern.”

“You kissed me,” I snapped, stepping closer. “You tell me I’m nothing, and then you kiss me like I’m all you want. And I see her—her—and I need to know if I’m just a substitute. Or a mistake. Or—fuck—I don’t know. Something real.”

He closed the space between us in two strides. Gripped my jaw hard enough to make my pulse skip.

“You want to be real?” he growled. “You want to know what I see when I look at you? I see everything I shouldn’t want. Everything that makes me weak.”

“Then why do you stop?”

“Because if I don’t, I’ll destroy you.”

“You already are,” I whispered. “You’re killing me every time you touch me and don’t finish it.”

He kissed me again.

Hard. Brutal. Desperate.

It was the kind of kiss you give when you know it’s the last time you’re allowed to taste something forbidden. His teeth scraped my bottom lip. His hands grabbed my ass and pulled me against him, and he was hard. So hard it made my head spin.

I moaned into his mouth, arching, begging without words.

And then—

He pulled back.

Always.

Pulled.

Back.

I wanted to scream.

“I won’t touch you again,” he said, voice low and broken. “Go to your room, Ardyn.”

I slapped him.

Not hard. Not to hurt.

Just to feel something.

And his eyes—God, the rage in them.

But he didn’t lash out. He didn’t punish me.

He just stared, like I wasn’t even real anymore.

“You’re not her,” he said quietly. “You never will be.”

And that hurt more than the slap ever could.

I didn’t see him again for two days.

Lucien brought me food. Delivered chores. Watched me, but never said much.

His eyes lingered, though. I felt them every time I bent over. Every time I walked away. Like he wanted to say something. Do something.

But he never did.

Because he respected Caelum.

Even if I didn’t.

The dream came back the third night.

This time, it was Caelum watching.

Lucien had me tied to the bed, hands above my head, shirt ripped, thighs spread.

And Caelum watched from the corner of the room, in shadow.

Silent.

Watching.

Breathing heavy.

And when I came, it wasn’t Lucien’s name I screamed.

It was his.

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