All Chapters of LOVE ME LIKE A CURSE: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

(POV: Arabella)>>>’t scream.It whispered first.I noticed it in fragments—half-formed, out of context, sliding into my morning. "buzzzzzzzzz!!!!"A vibration on the nightstand. A notification I didn’t recognize as normal Instagram group chats. A platform I hadn’t opened in months lighting up like it knew my name.At first, it didn’t make sense.A comment notification from a gallery page I didn’t follow. Someone tagging a username that wasn’t mineThe Art Collective had posted overnight, although I don't know the exact time range cause I've been online since last night searching through the internet.not a full feature. not a spotlight. Just a single image—cropped badly, photographed at an angle, the lighting uneven. Whoever took it hadn’t bothered with framing. The edges of the canvas were cut off, as if the person holding the phone hadn’t wanted to get too close.The caption was neutral to the point of cruelty.“Anonymous submission during last night’s open pa

Lucien’s POV: ——— I don’t usually question myself. That has always been one of my defining advantages—clarity. Decisions come easily when you understand who you are, what you want, and what you will never allow. I’ve built entire systems—companies, hierarchies, lives—on that certainty. People respect it. They mistake it for confidence. They trust it because it never wavers. Until today. Until her. Ms'Vale walked into my office like she belonged there, Not dramatically. Not in a way anyone else would notice. Just enough that I noticed. I noticed the way my attention sharpened when she crossed the threshold. The way the ambient noise of the building—the distant hum of printers, the muted cadence of phones ringing, the soft echo of footsteps beyond the glass walls—seemed to revolve around her presence. As if the room had quietly reorganized itself to accommodate one variable it hadn’t anticipated. I didn’t like that. I dislike surprises even more when they

SETTING: D'ARAGON MANSION >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Lucien disliked evenings that arrived unannounced. The mansion always warned him—through routine that seemed to settle the same way every night—but tonight felt altered, not dramatic. Just… interrupted. He had dismissed the guards an hour earlier. Not because he was vulnerable. But because he wanted silence. He stood near the tall windows of the west wing, jacket discarded, sleeves rolled to the forearms, a glass of dark liquor untouched in his hand. He sensed her before she spoke. Her heels made no sound against the stone as she entered the room She wore black. Of course she did. “You’ve changed the staff rotation.” Duvesa’s voice was smooth, unhurried, as if she belonged in the space simply by noticing it. Lucien didn’t turn immediately. “You notice trivial things.” “I notice you,” she replied lightly. “Trivial has never been your brand.” He faced her then. “You replaced three senior attendants,” she continued

POV: Arabella >>>>>>> I’m glad the rumors flying about the painting had already subsided. No one was talking about it the way they had in the previous days— with the whole internet flareup and all.... I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding as I stood alone in my room, the quiet wrapping around me like a fragile truce. The world had moved on. Or pretended to. Either way, I was grateful. I stepped toward the mirror. It was a simple thing—full-length, slightly worn at the edges—but it had always been honest with me. Too honest sometimes. I studied my reflection slowly, critically, the way I always did when my mind was restless. I didn’t mean to stare at myself for that long. At first, it was just habit—pausing in front of the mirror the way i always did before leaving the room, checking that nothing was out of place. Hair. Clothes. I tilted my head slightly. There it was again. That thought. "I don’t understand how someone like me is still alone." —

Setting: THE BONE ORCHARD >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The Bone Orchard quaked. Silence pressed down as if the world itself were holding its breath. Its pale soil cracked and hissed, exhaling the scent of blood long buried, centuries drowned beneath ash and silence. Every tree—a calcified sentinel, every branch—a frozen scream reaching for a sky starless and mute. The wind carried no mercy, only the hollow groan of a world that had forgotten how to fear. The air grew thick, dense pressing against unseen lungs. Shadows coiled, stretching, stretching until they bled into themselves, forming angles the mind could not bear. The bones of the First Brood shivered in their graves beneath the orchard, rattling faintly, a warning whispered through millennia: A pulse began—a rhythm that was not of the orchard, not of the soil, not of the moon. It throbbed with patience, deliberate, eternal. Then, without announcement, without hesitation, the first crack of light bled through the marrow of th