The guilt and violation hardened into a single, sharp need: to tear it down.
Tear it down! Tear it down!
Her skull enraged.
She grabbed the stool the tray had been on, its legs scraping against the stone. She climbed onto it, wobbling for balance.
Even standing tall, the painting hung just out of reach. She stretched, her fingertips brushing the bottom of the frame, straining to hook it and pull.
She was so focused—breath held, muscles taut, eyes fixed on that captured version of herself—that she didn't hear the key turn in the lock. She didn't hear the door sigh open. She didn't hear his, quiet as shadows, crossing the room behind her.
His hand closed around her wrist, not rough, but firm enough to still her completely. His touch was warm, startling. His body pressed lightly against her back.
Then, his voice—a low, dangerous whisper beside her ear.
"Don't you dare."
She went still for the moment.
Not in surrender, but in the sudden, electric awareness of his presence—the heat of his chest against her back, the unyielding grip on her wrist.
Then she turned, sharp and sudden, on the stool. The movement forced space between them, but his hand remained locked around her arm, tethering her in place. She was now facing him, her eyes level with the cold, polished surface of his mask.
Her breath came fast, but her voice was a low scrape of defiance. "Take it down."
For a long moment, Tenebrarum was silent. Then, slowly, he released her wrist.
He did not step back. Instead, he reached up—past her, his arm brushing her shoulder—and laid his bare fingertips against the edge of the painted frame. The gesture was almost tender.
"This is not the version of you that defies me," he said, his voice a low, intimate vibration in the space between them. "This is the one that obeys."
His masked face was close enough that her own breath fogged faintly against its surface. The words hung there, not as a threat, but as a quiet, devastating correction.
"You…" Her lips parted, but the words dissolved into the charged air between them.
"Little rabbit," he murmured, the name a soft, mocking caress. "I knew you would always be selfish." She could hear the faint, cold laughter behind the mask.
He turned his head slightly, his attention shifting to the tray on the low table. The bread was torn, the cheese bitten, the carafe half-empty. He observed the evidence of her meal with a slow, deliberate stillness.
When his gaze returned to her, it felt heavier. In that look, she could read his judgment as clearly as if he'd spoken it aloud.
Sorana—the one you claim to care for—is dying. And here you are, your stomach full, your thoughts consumed by a portrait instead of what truly matters.
He saw him as nothing but a fool.
A shallow, hungry creature distracted by her own reflection while the world burned around her.
She felt the shame, hot and cloying, but she would not let him win. Would not let him watch her crumble.
"Selfish?" Her voice was steadier than she felt. "Maybe I was hungry. But you are worse than I. At least I trust Kaelen to help her."
The words slipped out before she could cage them. She had meant to hold them in her thoughts, a silent defence, but her voice had betrayed her, sharp and clear in the quiet room.
His stillness became absolute. The faint, mocking energy around him seemed to solidify into something colder, more dangerous.
"You… trust Kaelen," he repeated slowly, each word measured, as if tasting something bitter.
It wasn't a question. It was an autopsy of her sentence.
What has she done?
"Tenebrarum…" The name left her lips in a shaken whisper as she slipped off the stool, her balance fleeing with her courage. She stumbled, caught between the stool and him.
He moved before she could fall.
Her white hair falling, touching his clothes.
His hands came down on either side of her, palms flat against the wall, caging her between the solid stone and the heat of his body. She was trapped, her back to the wall, his masked face inches from hers.
Her violet eyes were wide and big, looking at him, guilt filled her lips.
She could hear his breath—rising and falling in a slow, controlled rhythm that felt more threatening than any shout. The comparison had struck true. He hated it.
"No," he said, the word a low, final decree in the scant space between them. "You are not going anywhere."
His voice was dangerously soft, each word a measured drop of ice. "Really? I thought Camilla was overreacting… but perhaps she was right. I shouldn't have gotten close to a nobody."
A nobody!
The insult landed not like a slap, but like a slow-acting poison. It wasn't just cruelty—it was erasure.
He leaned in closer, his breath brushing her lips as he delivered the final decree.
"And from now on, you will call me master. I never want to hear my name—ever—from your lips again."
Her violet eyes widened, searching the blank surface of his mask. She could feel the anger radiating from him—a living, breathing force that filled the space between them. She stayed silent, staring.
He mistook her speechlessness for defiance. For playing dumb.
"Do you hear me!"
He slammed her back against the wall. The impact shuddered through her bones, knocking the air from her lungs. His fingers dug into her shoulders like talons, pressing until she cried out—a sharp, pained sound—and her back screamed in protest, threatening to snap.
Her gaze dropped, defeated, to the floor.
"Y… ye…essss," she stammered, the word weak and trembling, torn from a place of shock and raw, searing hurt.
For a long moment, Tenebrarum simply looked down at her—a slow, measuring stare from behind the mask, observing the effect of his violence as if studying a finished canvas.
Then, he moved.
Doing something even worse than the strike itself.
Tenebrarum hand rose slowly.
His fingers—the same ones that had just bruised her shoulders—came to her face.
He touched her cheek sluggishly , his thumb tracing the line of her jaw with a chilling, deliberate slowness. His skin was warm, his touch almost tender, a stark contrast to the throbbing pain in her back and the terror in her veins.
It felt like a claim. A silent correction. A reminder that even in her brokenness, she was his alone to handle.
Then, without a word, he turned and left the room.
The door did not lock behind him.
The silence he left behind was more terrifying than any treat.
Aurelia looked down, her eyes fixed on the shadow his body had left on the floor.
No matter what I feel, she repeated inside her head, the words a hard, silent vow.
No matter what happens … I am going to escape.
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To be continued...