7

Mira, with her soft touch and gentle voice, the one who always tried to convince Lena that everything was normal, everything was fine.

That she wasn’t losing herself.

I could feel Mira’s presence, too.

She was concerned, trying to fix what wasn’t broken.

Trying to make Lena believe in something she could hold on to, when the truth was that Lena was mine.

She always will be.

I waited, patient as ever, as the conversation drifted to things Lena wasn’t ready to hear.

Mira urged her to get out, to meet someone new, to forget about everything that was happening.

But Lena wasn’t ready for that either.

Not yet.

It didn’t matter.

Eventually, she would be.

She would come to me—because there was no one else left.

No one else could make her feel the way I could.

No one else could make her feel mine.

And as she sat there, trapped in the uncertainty of her own mind, I pressed closer.

Just a whisper, just a touch against her mind.

The seeds were planted.

Now, all I had to do was wait for them to grow.

Soon, she would be mine.

She would belong to me.

Forever.

12

LENA

I woke to the feeling of warmth—something lingering on my skin, something that should not have been there.

My sheets clung to my body, damp with sweat, the air in my room unnaturally thick.

A slow, steady breath left my lips, my chest rising and falling in time with the silence.

But then… something changed.

A presence.

The hairs on my arms stood up.

A chill slithered down my spine, contradicting the heavy warmth pressing into my mattress.

My fingers twitched against the sheets, my body rigid.

My instincts screamed at me, whispered in my ear that I wasn’t alone.

I swallowed hard and turned my head—slowly, carefully.

And I saw him.

A man stood in the farthest corner of my room, half-draped in shadow.

He was watching me.

Tall.

Still.

Predatory.

My breath caught in my throat, my pulse hammering violently.

The darkness clung to him like a second skin, outlining the sharp planes of his face—inhumanly beautiful, his features sculpted as though by a god who had known only sin.

His lips, full and parted, were curved in something that was not quite a smile.

His eyes, dark as an abyss, gleamed with a hunger that made my blood turn to ice.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t breathe.

His gaze burned into me, branding me from across the room.

He didn’t belong here.

He couldn’t be real.

But the way he watched me—the way his presence suffocated the air between us—was something I couldn’t deny.

A tremor ran through my body, a shudder so deep I thought I might shake apart.

And then he spoke.

"Lena.”

My name slid from his lips like silk, smooth and slow, each syllable curling in the air around me.

The voice was velvet and smoke, a whisper of something forbidden, something I shouldn’t want to hear.

I blinked.

And he was gone.

The air in my lungs rushed out all at once.

The corner where he had stood was empty now—just a sliver of shadow and the faint, lingering feeling of something missing.

But I could still feel him.

My sheets were still warm, my skin still tingling, and deep down, in a place I didn’t want to acknowledge…

I knew he had been real.

Because the scent of him still clung to the air.

Something dark.

Something rich.

Something that made my stomach twist.

I wasn’t alone in this room.

Not anymore.

13

LENA

The shadows had eyes.

I felt them watching me—unblinking, hungry.

Even when I was alone, even when my doors were locked, and my windows shut tight, I felt him.

Cassian.

I knew his name now.

I didn't know how.

It just… came to me.

Like a whisper curling through my mind, sweet and slow, wrapping around me like silk.

At first, I convinced myself it was stress.

Fatigue.

A trick of the mind.

But then the dreams started.

No, not dreams.

Encounters.

It always began the same way—waking to a strange warmth in my bed, a breath of heat against my skin, the press of something invisible, something unseen.