I didn't even realize how unsteady my legs had become until the world tipped sideways. My eyelids felt leaden, and every inhale was a struggle.
He caught me just in time, his hands firm but careful around my waist. My cheek pressed against his chest, his pulse steady and strong. He muttered something low under his breath—something I couldn't make out, lost in the pounding of my own heart. His brow furrowed, concern threading through the usual smirk I hated.
"Stupid woman," he said, almost to himself, the words rough but gentle.
I tried to speak, to protest, but my lips barely formed a whisper. "Passing out… from just a little… conversation…"
He didn't respond with words. He simply carried me like I was the most fragile thing in the world, yet somehow also the most precious. Each step he took was deliberate, controlled, protective, as though the entire world outside the car couldn't touch me.
The engine of the sleek black car hummed beneath us, a quiet growl that matched the rigid tension in the air. Outside, the courtyard spread wide and imposing. The wrought‑iron gates loomed like dark sentinels, flanked by stone lions and discreetly positioned cameras. Antique lanterns dotted the long cobblestone driveway, casting soft, flickering light over black sedans parked strategically as if anticipating an ambush.
Inside the car, I could barely focus on anything but the warmth of him. His hands remained around me, steady, unshakable. I tried to speak again, a small sound that fell somewhere between a sigh and a whimper, but it dissolved against the beat of my own pulse.
"Shh," he murmured, voice low, commanding. "Just rest."
The way he said it sent a strange shiver down my spine. Rest. As if I could trust anyone to keep me safe right now—but him? Him, who had just torn through my life, who had claimed me as if my world was already his? Yet the certainty in his hands, the weight of his presence, made my body surrender, inch by inch.
By the time we arrived at the mansion, my consciousness had begun to slip entirely. I felt more like a marionette than a person, strings pulled by fatigue, fear, and the slow, almost overwhelming tension coiling around us.
He carried me inside without a word. The grand interior swallowed us in shadow and grandeur. Black-and-gold drapes pooled on marble floors, reflecting the soft light of the chandelier above. The air smelled faintly of polished wood and old leather, with an undertone of gun oil that made my stomach tighten. He navigated the space as if he knew every inch, every hidden panel, every silent trap.
I tried to take in the room—the walls lined with bulletproof windows, the massive iron artwork that dominated one wall, the subtle hints of weaponry concealed in sleek panels—but my brain refused to form coherent thoughts. Everything was distant, like watching someone else's life through fogged glass.
He didn't let me go, even as I felt myself slipping further. He laid me on the king-sized bed with a gentleness that contrasted sharply with his usual ferocity. My wedding dress, ruined and soaked with blood from events I could barely process, clung to me. He grimaced, brushing the fabric aside as though the sight hurt him, before carefully lifting the corner of the dress.
His fingers traced the edge of my shoulder as he adjusted me under the black satin sheets, ensuring I was tucked in properly. His touch was deliberate, measured, careful. I could feel the warmth radiating from his hands even as my vision blurred, the world around me dissolving into soft shadows and half-formed shapes.
"Stay with me," he whispered, voice low, intimate, almost unbearably close. His lips brushed my collarbone in a light, feathered kiss. The sensation was electric yet grounding. My body shivered involuntarily, the last conscious thought I had being that he wasn't leaving. He stayed. He was watching, attending, guarding me as I teetered on the brink.
I tried to speak, tried to protest, but my throat had gone dry, my chest heavy, my limbs leaden. My eyelids fluttered like trapped butterflies, failing to stay open.
"I… can't…" I whispered weakly, the words dissolving into a breathless sigh.
"Shh," he repeated, voice firm yet soft, almost reverent. "You don't have to."
My body finally gave in. Darkness pulled at the edges of my mind, seductive and complete. Even the faint glint of moonlight filtering through the blackout curtains failed to anchor me. I felt the bed shift slightly beneath me as he adjusted my position one last time, the weight of him on the mattress beside me enough to let me drift without fear.
His hands lingered near mine, keeping me close, a silent promise etched into every careful movement. The last thing I felt before surrendering fully to unconsciousness was the warmth of his chest beneath my cheek, the steady, rhythmic sound of his heartbeat, and the faint, intoxicating scent of him—spiced, dark, dangerous, yet achingly familiar.
And then nothing.
No sound. No pain. No fear. Only the slow, serene dark that let my body rest even as my mind remained trapped in the echo of his presence.
---
Outside, the mansion remained still, shadows long and silent—but somewhere in the depths of those black-and-gold halls, he was awake, alert, and waiting.
---
The world was heavy and liquid. Shadows twisted at the corners of my vision, and the scent of the mansion—polished marble, faint gun oil, cold metal—drifted through my dreams like smoke.
I was falling, tumbling endlessly through corridors that stretched wider than memory allowed. Whispers echoed off invisible walls.
"Aish…"
The sound was his, low and threaded with something I couldn't place—anger? longing? it didn't matter.
I reached out, fingers brushing empty air. My chest ached. Every heartbeat pounded in my ears like a warning drum. The warmth I had felt on the bed—the press of his body, the careful touch of his hands—faded with every second, leaving a hollow ache that spread from my collarbone down to my stomach.
A faint light appeared. I moved toward it, desperate. It shimmered like the moon caught in water, soft but unreachable.
I could feel him then, or at least the memory of him—the weight of him beside me, the heat of his breath on my skin, the unrelenting certainty in the curve of his fingers as they had brushed my hair.
"You're mine," his voice whispered through the dark.
The words struck like cold fire. I wanted to reach for him, to feel that impossible warmth again, but my limbs refused. My body was heavy, unresponsive, suspended between sleep and consciousness.
A door appeared at the end of the corridor—black, iron-bound, the same color as the mansion itself. I tried to push it open, but it resisted, pressing back against my hands as if daring me to try.
Pain flared suddenly, a sharp, wrenching ache across my side—my ribs? my heart?—I couldn't tell. My breath hitched.
And then I felt a hand.
Warm. Certain. Solid.
It brushed my hair from my face, rested lightly on my cheek. The touch was gone as quickly as it came, leaving nothing but the echo of heat and fear.
I cried out in my dream, a sound swallowed immediately by the vast, empty corridors. The walls themselves seemed to close in, cold and unyielding.
"Stay with me," a voice said. I thought it was him. Maybe it wasn't. My mind was a tangle of shadows and memories.
Pain lanced again, a reminder that this world wasn't just imagination. My body throbbed, my skin cold beneath the soft, black satin sheets. But the mansion felt alive, aware of me, pressing in from all sides.
A candle flickered somewhere, casting tall, trembling shadows. I saw his silhouette in it, impossibly tall, impossibly real.
"Wake," he murmured. Not harsh, not commanding. But filled with a weight that shook me to the core.
I tried. I tried to open my eyes. I felt the pull of consciousness, the slow creeping warmth of the real world—the bed, the sheets, the faint scent of gun oil mixed with his cologne lingering like a phantom.
And then my mind slipped again, caught between the warmth of his hands and the cold fear of everything else.
I was lost. Alone, yet shadowed by him. Safe, yet burning with the memory of danger.
And I realized, in the quiet torment of my dream, that the mansion itself had claimed me. And so had he.