The silence shattered like glass.
A voice slipped through the shadows low, velvet, and dangerous.
Not a voice meant for daylight, but for candlelight, for midnight, for secrets whispered against trembling skin.
"You shouldn't be here."
The words were not sharp. They were silk, smooth and deliberate, coiling around me like a ribbon I couldn't tear free from. It should have been a warning. Instead, it was an invitation.
I froze, my pulse wild in my throat. My eyes searched the gloom, desperate to anchor to something real, and then I saw him.
At first, only his outline, tall and sculpted from shadow. But then his face caught the weak light of the candles, and his eyes... gods, his eyes. They weren't just dark; they were alive with something stormy and consuming, something that looked at me not as a stranger but as though I were prey.
Or worse as though I were already his.
He stepped forward, and the shadows bent with him, as if they existed only to cloak his movements. His presence devoured the room, and every breath I took seemed stolen from him.
The air thickened.
The storm outside clawed at the windows, thunder rumbling low like a warning drum. Yet none of it mattered. The only sound that existed was the echo of his boots against the floorboards, deliberate and slow, drawing him closer.
"You're not afraid," he said finally, tilting his head. His lips curved in something too sharp to be a smile. "Why is that?"
My throat tightened. I wanted to answer, but words deserted me. My silence must have amused him, because the smallest sound escaped him something between a laugh and a growl, dark and intimate.
"Brave," he murmured. "Or foolish. Perhaps both."
His hand rose, and time fractured. I could have stepped back. I could have screamed. But I didn't. I stood rooted to the spot as his fingers brushed my temple, slow and deliberate, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
The contact was nothing. A simple touch. Yet it seared like fire, a ghostly brand that lingered long after his hand fell away.
I inhaled sharply, the scent of him filling me. Smoke, rain, something warm and sinful that wrapped itself around my senses and refused to let go.
"You don't belong in the light," he whispered, his breath grazing my cheek. "I can see it in your eyes."
The words settled deep inside me, awakening something dangerous I had tried to bury. He was too close now his body almost brushing mine, his lips hovering a breath away. The world tilted, shrank, condensed to this moment, to this unbearable gravity pulling us together.
I swore I felt his mouth ghost over mine, not a kiss, but the promise of one raw, inevitable. My heart screamed for it, my body leaning, betraying me.
And then
The candles sputtered violently.
The flames died in unison, swallowed by a sudden gust that plunged us into complete, suffocating black.
For a heartbeat, the world was soundless.
Then his breath, warm and steady at my ear.
And his voice, darker than before:
"Now, you're mine."
Love me in the shadows, lose me in the light. đź–¤