The storm broke just after midnight.
Thunder cracked the sky in two, and rain lashed against the ancient stained-glass windows. The castle moaned in its bones, as if awakening from centuries of sleep. Shadows moved on their own. Candles sputtered. The very stone breathed.
Isadora stood on the balcony of the west tower, soaked to the skin. Her nightgown clung to her like wet silk. Her hair whipped around her face, tangled and wild.
But it wasn't the wind that made her tremble.
It was him.
Lucien stood behind her, silent as ever, the rain beading on his bare chest like melted pearls. His shirt hung open, forgotten, his hands clenched at his sides like he was at war with himself.
"You shouldn't be out here," he said softly.
"I can't sleep."
A pause. Then, "He came again, didn't he?"
She nodded, slowly.
"I dreamed of my childhood," she whispered. "But it wasn't mine. It was hers. The one you loved before. I saw you… with her."
Lucien didn't answer at first. When he did, his voice was strained.
"You are her. And yet… not."
"I'm tired of being haunted," she said, turning to face him. "Tired of belonging to someone I don't even remember."
Their eyes locked — grief in his, fury in hers, and beneath both, an unbearable ache.
"I want to choose," she said. "Just once. For myself."
He stepped closer. His hand touched her face gently — and yet it burned.
"You don't know what you're asking for," Lucien said.
"Yes, I do," she breathed.
She reached for him. And he didn't resist.
Their lips met like a wound being torn open — slow at first, trembling, but desperate. Lucien gripped her like he was drowning. She clutched him like he was the last thing tethering her to reality.
Clothes fell away. The storm raged louder.
They fell into each other like sinners into flame.
The bed was cold, but their bodies were fire.
His mouth on her throat. Her hands in his hair. Their limbs entwined with the desperation of two souls who knew this could not last.
But even as their bodies found rhythm, shadows gathered around the room.
The mark on her chest glowed bright red.
Lucien saw it. He froze.
"He's watching," he gasped.
Isadora arched beneath him, a tear slipping from the corner of her eye. "Then let him see. Let him see I choose you."
A flicker of movement in the mirror. A shape — tall, horned, smiling.
Lucien drove into her harder, as if to push the Devil from her body with every thrust. Their cries echoed against the walls. The candles blew out one by one.
And then…
The fire flared.
Every candle in the room burst into flame at once.
The mirror shattered.
And Isadora screamed — not in pain, not in pleasure, but in something in between. Something darker. Something eternal.
Lucien collapsed beside her, gasping, sweat and blood mingling on his skin.
The mark on her chest had changed.
A second spiral had begun.
Later, as she lay awake, Lucien sleeping beside her like a man half-dead, Isadora heard it again:
The Devil's voice.
Right behind her ear.
"Now I'm in you, too."
End of Chapter Six.