Ann didn't remember falling asleep — but she remembered waking. Not to the sound of the storm this time, but to the soft click of a lock she didn't know existed.
Her eyes fluttered open. The room was darker than before, as if the shadows had grown thicker while she dreamed. Damian sat at the edge of the bed, his back to her, shoulders tense under the silk shirt that clung to him like second skin.
He was holding something in his lap — a small, battered notebook bound in red leather. When Ann shifted, the sound of the sheet rustling made him turn, his eyes finding her like they always did in the dark.
"You're awake," he said softly, but there was no warmth in it. Only a promise that made her chest ache.
Ann pushed herself up on her elbows. "What is that?"
Damian's thumb traced the notebook's spine. "Your confessions."
Her breath caught. "I never wrote—"
He cut her off with a look that silenced her tongue. He opened the notebook and flipped through pages filled with jagged handwriting that looked too much like hers to deny.
Page after page — dreams she didn't remember having. Fears she thought she'd hidden behind her smile. Her mother's voice. Her father's fists. The tiny hopes she'd buried when she said yes to a man whose ring weighed heavier than any chain.
"I didn't write that…" she whispered, but her voice trembled because a part of her knew she had.
Damian stood, closing the book. He placed it on the nightstand beside her, as if daring her to pick it up. Then he leaned over, his palms sinking into the mattress on either side of her hips — caging her under him like a promise carved in flesh.
"You don't remember," he said, his voice soft, patient, cruel. "Because you keep locking the door inside you. The one that leads back to them."
His thumb traced her bandaged wrist — the tiny bite still warm, still pulsing with his claim.
Ann tried to push back, but his weight pressed her into the pillows. His lips brushed her jaw, then her ear — that cold kiss that always made her forget how to lie.
"I can open it for you," he murmured. "Would you like that?"
She shook her head, but her breath betrayed her — shallow, hot, hungry.
Damian's laugh was quiet thunder in her throat. "You say no. But your heart says please."
A knock rattled the window. Not soft this time — a fist pounding three times, the glass shivering under the force.
Damian didn't flinch. His mouth found hers — cold, deep, biting enough to make her whimper against his teeth.
"Look at them," he growled between kisses. "They're hungry for what you hide. But I'm the only one who knows how to break you open."
Ann's nails dug into his shoulders as he pressed closer, his weight crushing the fear out of her lungs. The knock came again — harder, faster, as if whoever waited outside was pounding on her chest from the inside out.
Damian's fingers slipped under her chin, forcing her eyes to the window. This time, the handprint was larger — hers. Perfectly shaped. Perfectly wrong.
"See?" he whispered. "You've always been knocking. I'm just the one who answered."
Tears slipped down her temples, lost in his hair when he dipped to kiss her throat — cold teeth scraping the spot where her pulse betrayed her truth.
"Open it for me," he demanded. "Let them watch. Let them know who you belong to."
Her voice cracked. "I can't…"
Damian smiled against her skin. "Then I'll open it for you."
He kissed her wrist again, teeth grazing the tiny wound until her breath turned to frost in the room that should have been warm.
Outside, the storm howled — but inside, the door she'd kept buried for so long creaked open with a single knock.
And Damian's darkness crawled through it, filling every corner she thought she'd kept hidden — sealing her fate with the taste of thunder and cold iron on her tongue.