Val - Red Door

Last stop, the dining room, ripped from a gothic fever dream. People wear powdered wigs and discuss bloodlines over roasted swans in a place like this. It's massive, like everything else in this mansion, but there's only one table in the center. Long, black, polished enough that I can see my own distorted reflection on the surface.

Dinner's already laid out.

Roast beef, pink in the center. Piles of honeyed carrots, potatoes so crisp they steam at the edges. A boat of gravy, actual gravy, thick and dark and shimmering. I haven't smelled anything this good in years. Maybe ever.

Caelum pulls my chair out for me, the gentleman host. I sit because I don't trust myself to stand without drooling.

He doesn't sit across from me. No, he settles in right beside me, thigh pressing against mine, hand draped over the back of my chair.

"You should eat," he says, voice low and indulgent. "You'll need your strength."

I clench my hands under the table. "Not hungry."

His grin is slow. "Is that a lie, pet?"

I ignore the name through gritted teeth. I'm not giving him that reaction again.

He leans forward, plucks up a fork, and spears a piece of beef. "Want me to feed you again?"

That's it. That's the crack in the dam.

"No," I breathe. "No, please. Just, please let me go."

He tilts his head before replying. "Ah," he murmurs, "see? Begging isn't that hard."

I shove the chair back with a scrape. Stand too fast, and the room tilts. "I'm serious, Caelum." His name tastes like acid. "I can't stay here."

"My home isn't good enough for you?" There's no anger in his voice, just amusement.

"It's fucking awful here. I don't know how you can stand it." My chest is rising and falling at an ungodly pace as I try to suck air in and feed the words falling out of me.

"I'll beg, crawl on my knees, lick your boots. Anything." I hold his violet eyes, which are sparkling and full of wickedness. "Please, please, I can't do this. My squat is better than here."

"Now now Val." He pushes his chair back and swivels to face me fully. "Let's not be dramatic. Your home, should be condemned. This place is a dream."

He holds his hands out, sweeping them dramatically around him.

I'm shaking my head before he's even finished. "No Caelum, you need to hear me. This. Place. Is. Wrong." Each finishing word I space with a loud clap, hoping it really drives the point home.

He's created a tomb.

He's still smiling, but his eyes sharpen. "Wrong?"

"I don't care how many rooms it has, how expensive it is, how much food you pile on that table. It's rotten and makes me want to puke all over your expensive rugs." My throat tightens, the words clawing their way out now. "The walls are watching. If I breathe too loudly, the floor will crack open and eat me."

Something flares in his eyes, his mouth parts and there's the slightest hitch in his breath.

"I knew it," he breathes. "You're fucking made for me."

I don't know what that means, but I have no time to process because he rises to full height in one fluid motion, holding out his hand palm up.

"Come."

"No."

His smile never wavers. "Don't make me carry you again."

I shake my head.

"Let me show you something."

If I hadn't caught the single moment that pleading slipped into his voice, I would have speared him with a fork and ran.

But I did catch it. So I make a monumentally stupid decision.

I take his fucking hand.

Quickly, he leads me to the back of the room. Past the table, behind velvet drapes, to ornate glass doors I hadn't noticed before. Pushing them open, he pulls me out into the cool evening air, and we careen down the side of the building.

As brick ends, and we move onto dew-soaked grass, he points to the right. My gaze follows the line and lands on a small patch of trees, tucked behind them, a single brick outbuilding.

Ooookay. Murder room, it has to be.

Getting there is rapid at the pace he's dragging me. It's nothing really, just light brick and a squat red door. But as we approach, it's obvious that the door isn't just red. It looks carved, from molten metal then cooled.

As we pull up in front of it, he stops, brings me to his side, hand still wrapped around mine. There's a hum in the air, soft at first. Then pulsing louder, deep in my chest, in my bones. It pushes past my skin, floods me like a drug. I feel my pupils dilate, light rushing in, making everything too bright. Endorphins flood me so fast I gasp.

"What the…"

Caelum takes a step, putting himself right in front of me, leans down so we're face to face. The grin is sinful, his pupils blown wide matching mine. The skin of our lips brush against each other as he finally speaks.

"Did you really think I would fucking live here?" he whispers.

Then he opens the door.