LOGINEthan’s face stayed strong, cold, and straight. For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t say anything. Then suddenly, he smiled. It was faint, almost careless, like none of it mattered to him.
“I’m not interested,” he said calmly, his voice steady. “Whatever happened to my mother is in the past. I have no reason to search for her killer.”
The words made my chest tighten. I stared at him, studying his face, and I knew he was hiding something. No one hears a truth like that and dismisses it so easily. Darius looked furious at first, his eyes dark with anger, but as Ethan spoke, I saw his tension ease. His jaw relaxed, and the storm in his expression slowly faded.
Darius walked closer to the old slave and leaned down to her ear. He whispered something I couldn’t hear. Ethan’s eyes never left them. Neither did mine. Whatever Darius said seemed to drain her completely. She went quiet, her body sagging as if the strength had been pulled from her.
Darius straightened and signaled to the guards. They pushed her into the boot and shut it firmly. Then he turned away like nothing had happened.
“Shall we?” he asked casually, already walking toward the car.
I followed behind them, my mind restless, my curiosity burning, knowing that something important had just been buried alive along with her.
As we approached the car, I glanced at Ethan. He walked ahead, calm and unreadable. When our eyes met briefly, I searched for some pity, guilt, even just recognition of what I’d lost. But there was nothing. I don’t know why, but I’d thought he might be different.
“Put on your seatbelts,” Darius said flatly, settling into the front passenger seat.
I slid into the back, unsure where to place myself. Ethan joined me. He leaned over suddenly, and my breath hitched. His body was close , too close. His chest brushed mine, his thigh pressing firmly against me as he reached for my seatbelt.
The chill of his skin seeped through my dress, trailing goosebumps down my arms.
It was strange.
He was cold, yet something about his nearness felt warm. Intimate.
As a slave, I never expected tenderness. But his fingers didn’t rush. They lingered, slow and deliberate, as he buckled the seatbelt for me.
His breath was cool, minty. It touched my neck like a secret.
"There," He whispered low, too soft to catch but his voice curled around my spine.
Our eyes locked. His gaze didn’t waver. There was something there intensity, heat. It made my nipple tighten beneath the thin fabric of my dress.
Desire was the last thing I wanted to feel.
The driver started the engine and began moving slowly out of the estate.
Ethan leaned quietly into his seat, his movement calm and composed melting something soft in my chest.
"Selene," Darius called with a smile. His voice had the familiar tone people use just before an introduction. You could tell from his look.
"This is Ethan, my first son. He’s twenty-three," Darius said proudly, shooting a quick glance at me as if to see how I’d react to the information.
"Ooh. Ethan." I stretched out my hand politely for a handshake.
“It’s nice to know you,” I added with a small smile.
Ethan chuckled softly. He took a brief glance at my hand... then ignored it. On purpose.
But he smiled, and I knew he did it in that cold, deliberate way of his.
“You already know me, Selene,” he replied, his voice even and unreadable.
I inhaled deeply, clutching the sting to my heart. Slowly, I pulled my hand back to its place on my lap.
Not long after, we passed a lonely route shrouded in thick bushes. Mountains surrounded the path, winding like something out of an old tale.
We arrived at the sacred hall, a forgotten temple.
A breeze swept through, brushing my hair lightly as we got down. My eyes roamed around the place.
Exotic cars lined both sides of the building. It was quiet. Still.
Everywhere felt… strange.
“Creepy indeed,” I muttered, the air raising the hair on my arms as old memories surfaced. I remembered how a lot of our kind has been buried for a safer hunt. Including my family.
Three guards in black fully armed approached us, bowing their heads.
“ Mr Light welcome,” one of them said.
They smiled at Ethan. It was clear they knew each other.
But Ethan didn’t smile back. He looked away, jaw clenched, and walked inside without a word.
“Check the boot,” Darius ordered, striding into the hall.
I followed quickly behind them, trying to steady my breath.
My hands began to tremble. Then my legs.
My heart pounded wildly as I stepped into the Sacred Hall.
I looked around gazing at the towering walls.
They were covered in eerie paintings.
Images of demons, angels, and unknown creatures danced across the surfaces in strange, dark patterns.
Each wall told a story... and none of them were peaceful.
Then my eyes locked on the altar.
A statue stood tall, its figure frozen in motion.
It held a gleaming sword raised high mid-swing as though striking a wolf.
My stomach twisted.
Immediately, I shifted my gaze and spotted others in the hall. They looked like hunters.
Realization dawned. My breath hitched.
I grew more nervous, trying to regulate my breathing.
Suddenly, Ethan’s cold hand wrapped around mine.
Our eyes met instantly, his icy blue gaze piercing straight through me.
He pulled me closer, his cool palm enveloping my trembling fingers, the chill of his touch sweeping over my skin.
“Stay with me,” he murmured, his voice low and steady.
My heart pounded, nipples tightening beneath my shirt.
I was caught completely lost in the unexpected tenderness of his touch.
I sat beside him, placing my hands gently on my lap, trying to calm the storm inside me.
Then came a sharp voice.
“Darius,” a man said. The head of the Brooklyn family.
He stared at me directly, eyes sharp with arrogance.
“Why don’t you let me have a little night with your slave? You can have 15% of the treasures I’ve acquired,” he added, licking his upper lip.
My grip tightened on my seat.
Anger rose inside me like fire licking up my chest.
'How dare he?' I thought, keeping my rage buried behind a cold stare.
The head of the Brooklyn family suddenly burst into laughter, as if his insult had been a joke.
It wasn’t funny. Not at all.
His laughter was so vile, so condescending, that it made me roll my eyes in silent rage.
“Fifteen percent?” he scoffed.
“You shouldn’t be haggling over a ring. Fifteen percent for a beautiful damsel like her?”
He added mockingly, clearly trying to make jest of the head of the Brooklyn family.
“Is fifteen percent too big?” the Brooklyn head asked, already sounding irritated.
“Thirty percent,” the head of the Lester family scoffed again. “Thirty percent for you, my queen,” he added with a smirk, raising his shoulder arrogantly.
Darius chuckled, his eyes locked on me.
I already knew what that look meant.
“As you all know the rules,” Darius said sharply, “the highest bidder takes her… for just a night.”
His eyes briefly darted away from mine.
“She cannot be priced!”
Ethan’s voice rang out, cutting through the tension, filled with rage.
He stood up quickly, fists clenched.
I was stunned.
“Why would he stand for me?” I wondered, staring up at him in confusion.
My heart began to race, not knowing what was about to happen next.
The days that followed carried a fragile, careful happiness, something I hadn't allowed myself to fully believe possible only weeks before, watching Ethan slowly relearn me, watching myself fall for this new, evolving version of him in return, all of it unfolding against the ticking clock of the resealing ceremony still looming three weeks out."The perimeter readings held steady again this morning," Andy reported during our regular gathering, a routine that had become almost comforting despite the danger still underlying everything. "Whatever we're doing, it's holding.""Any word on Darius or the Warden," Ethan asked, his hand finding mine beneath the table with the easy familiarity that had grown between us over the past two weeks."Nothing concrete," Matthias said, frustration evident in his voice. "They've gone completely dark. No movement, no communication, nothing our contacts have been able to track.""That worries me more than open aggression would," my father said, his own ex
The days that followed settled into a strange, fragile rhythm, urgent research into the resealing ceremony filling most of our waking hours, punctuated by small, careful moments between Ethan and me that felt like rebuilding a house one brick at a time, uncertain but steady.We relocated to a secure property Ethan's household maintained closer to the Hollow, easier to monitor the readings from, and easier, I suspected, for Ethan to justify keeping his own people close while still allowing Mira, my father, and me to remain nearby without the awkwardness of us all crowding under one roof."The readings held steady again overnight," Andy reported one morning, nearly a week into our new routine, everyone gathered around the same makeshift command table that had become the center of our days. "Whatever you and Mira did, it's proving more durable than we initially hoped.""That's good news," Ethan said, though the careful relief in his voice carried an edge of wariness that had become famil
We regrouped at the perimeter camp as dawn broke pale and gray over the tree line, exhaustion settling heavy over everyone who'd survived the night's desperate ritual. Andy and Matthias met us with visible relief, helping distribute blankets and hot coffee while Greta, who'd arrived sometime during our absence, moved quickly to tend the wound across my palm properly."The readings have stabilized completely," Andy reported, checking the monitor one final time before finally allowing himself to relax. "Whatever you did in there, it worked.""For now," Mira said, accepting a blanket gratefully, her own exhaustion evident in the slight tremor still visible in her hands. "The seal's reinforced, but it's not permanent. We bought time, not a solution.""Time is enough for tonight," my father said, settling heavily onto a folding chair near the small fire someone had built. "We'll face tomorrow's problems tomorrow."I found myself sitting slightly apart
The hours that followed passed in a blur of frantic research, Mira and my father poring over every fragment of guardian text they could access while Andy and Matthias coordinated the perimeter defenses with Ethan's guards, everyone working against a clock that felt, with every passing minute, more impossibly short.I found myself standing near the tent's entrance sometime past midnight, staring out at the darkened tree line separating us from the Hollow, the distant hum of generators and hushed, urgent voices the only sound accompanying the fear coiled tight in my chest."You should rest," Ethan's voice came from behind me, and I turned to find him standing a careful distance away, his expression still guarded, though something in the late hour seemed to have worn down some of the earlier hardness."I can't," I admitted. "Not with all of this hanging over us."He didn't leave, though he didn't move closer either, simply standing there in the cool night air, his eyes fixed on the same
We reached the perimeter Andy had established just as the sun began sinking low behind the tree line, the small convoy of vehicles pulling to a stop at a checkpoint marked only by a hastily strung line of orange tape and two guards I didn't recognize, their expressions tight with barely controlled tension. "Selene." Andy appeared from behind one of the parked SUVs, relief flickering across his face at the sight of us despite the grim circumstances drawing us all back together. "You shouldn't have come. You're still healing." "I wasn't going to sit in that farmhouse while everyone else faced this," I said, climbing out carefully, my father close behind me, his own wounded arm still bound tight against his chest. "What's the situation." "Worse than an hour ago," Andy said, guiding us toward a small command tent erected near the tree line, monitors and equipment crowded inside on folding tables. "The readings keep spiking. Irregular now, not the steady climb we saw before." Inside th
I stared at the screen, the faint, pulsing glow captured in the photograph seeming to burn itself into my vision despite the safety of the quiet farmhouse kitchen around me. "How do you know," I asked, my voice unsteady. "How do you have eyes on that chamber at all.""I left a tracking device," Mira admitted, "the night we first discovered the location. A precaution, in case things went badly. I never expected to actually need it." She rubbed her eyes, exhaustion evident in every line of her face. "It's been transmitting low-level readings for the past two days. I only just noticed the pattern shifting overnight.""Shifting how," I pressed."Energy readings climbing," Mira said. "Slowly, but steadily. Whatever's happening in that chamber, it's not simply residual magic settling after a failed ritual. It's active. Growing."My father appeared in the kitchen doorway then, his arm still bound in a sling from the wound he'd taken protecting me at the







