Recommended Listening:
đ” "Wicked Game (Instrumental Cover)" â Ursine Vulpine
(for dark yearning and the slow unraveling of self-control)
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The hall outside Lucian's chamber was quiet, but it did not sleep.
Renak stood just beyond the staircase, his back rigid, fingers twitching at his sides. Shadows flickered across the stained-glass windows, stretching into claws. He'd been here for over an hour. Waiting. Listening.
He heard nothing from within. Not a word. Not a whisper.
It was maddening.
Lucian hadn't let anyone in. Not even him. Not since the boy arrived.
Renak's expression darkened.
"I don't trust it," came a low voice behind him.
Mara.
She stepped from the far corridor, her crimson sleeves whispering along the stone floor. Her eyes, dark as oil, gleamed beneath the torchlight.
Renak's jaw tightened. "He doesn't answer to you."
"No," Mara said. "But he should." Her gaze drifted to the tall black door at the end of the hall. "Especially now."
"You're obsessed."
She smiled faintly. "So are you."
They both turned toward the silence again.
"Why him?" Mara asked quietly. "What spell does this boy cast?"
Renak's lips thinned. "Not a spell. A sickness."
---
Inside, Kyrell stood near the window, arms crossed over his chest. He could feel the eyes even when the room was empty. As if someone watched him through the walls themselves.
Lucian had been gone for hours.
He'd left after that knock. Said nothing else. Just vanished like mist.
Kyrell didn't understand itâbut he felt the pull. Deeper now. A constant ache under the skin. He wanted answers. Wanted him.
When Lucian returned, it was just past midnight.
Kyrell was still awake.
"You're avoiding me," he said softly.
Lucian paused near the threshold, one hand resting against the doorframe. He looked⊠weary. Sharper. As if the world outside had stolen something from him.
"You should be resting."
Kyrell stepped forward. "I did."
Lucian said nothing.
There was a quiet defiance in Kyrell's voice now. "You brought me here. You saved me. Why leave me alone in it?"
Lucian's eyes narrowed slightly. "Because I must."
"Why?"
Lucian crossed the room in two steps, faster than Kyrell expected. The air shifted. The temperature with it.
"I don't owe you explanations."
Kyrell's voice was steady. "Then why do you keep coming back?"
Lucian stopped.
Their eyes met. The silence crackled between themâtoo full, too tense.
"Because," Lucian said lowly, "something about you makes everything I've built feel⊠fragile."
Kyrell took another step. "And that frightens you?"
Lucian looked at him as if he were the answer to a question he hated asking.
"No," he whispered. "It tempts me."
The words fell like thunder.
Kyrell's breath hitched. His voice, when it returned, was barely audible. "Then stop fighting it."
Lucian turned his face away. "You don't know what I become when I stop fighting."
---
Outside the room, Mara pressed closer to the wood, her breath catching.
She could hear them now.
She bit her lip until it bled.
"I'll kill him if I have to," she whispered.
Renak said nothing. But the hunger in his eyes matched her fury.
---