The roses were suddenly there, thrust into her space like a bloody offering, Their scent was cloying, a heavy, suffocating sweetness that seemed to coat the back of her throat. Almost on instinct, her fingers curled around the stems.

"You’re back, then."

The voice was familiar, but it didn’t belong to the man she had been mourning for five days. It was Mathias, yet the cadence was off—the words hung in the air with a predatory stillness that felt fundamentally wrong.

Olivia surged to her feet, her chair screeching against the floorboards like a panicked animal. She spun to face him, the roses trembling in her white-knuckled grip.

"I’m back," he whispered. A small, rehearsed smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he opened his arms wide, inviting her into the dark. "Won’t you hug me? Come here, dearest."

He expected the soft surrender of a grieving woman. Instead, he met a whirlwind of thorns and raw fury. Olivia swung the bouquet with every ounce of her strength. The flowers didn’t land as a gesture of love; they lashed across his face like a whip. The thorns bit deep, dragging across his skin and leaving stinging tracks in their wake, while the crimson petals exploded around them like a spray of fresh blood.

The sound of the impact—a sickening mix of a wet slap and the shredding of silk—echoed through the hollow silence of the room.

"Hug you?" she spat, her eyes Narrowing with a lethal, white-hot intensity. "You vanish for five days without a single word, leaving me to rot in this house, and you walk in here expecting open arms? You absolute bastard!"

Mathias bit his lip, forcing down a flicker of irritation as he glanced at the floor. The crimson petals were scattered across the wood like a butchered memory, ruined and trampled. When he looked back up, his face was a mask of cold composure, but his gaze pinned her to the spot.

"Where were you?" she demanded. She locked her arms across her chest, her posture rigid, a fragile wall built to keep herself from shattering.

"I had business," he said, his voice flat.

"What business?"

"Are we really going to drag this out now, Olivia?" He let out a sigh—a jagged, hollow sound that seemed to rattle in his chest. "I’m tired."

"Tired?" The word exploded from her as if it had been clawing at her throat. "I spent the last five days weaving the most horrific scenarios in my head! I imagined a thousand ways you could have been mutilated, a thousand ways you could have died! Do you have any idea what that kind of terror does to a person? Why didn’t you speak to me? Have you lost your mind? Are you truly insane?"

Instead of recoiling from her rage, Mathias felt a dark, pulsing satisfaction. A slow, predatory smile curled his lips, his eyes gleaming with a disturbing brand of pleasure as he drank in her distress. He moved closer, invading her space until the scent of the dying roses was all that remained between them.

"Say it," he whispered, his voice dropping to a low, melodic vibration.

"What?"

"Say it... ’I was worried about you.’ That’s what this is, isn’t it? Just say the words, Olivia."

Olivia stared at him, her breath hitching in a jagged rhythm of disbelief. "What? Have you lost your mind? Are you drunk? Mathias, I am ’scolding’ you. I am furious. What is actually wrong with you?" 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

He didn’t offer a defense. Instead, he closed the distance between them with a fluid, predatory grace. His hands slid around her waist, his grip firm and unyielding, dragging her flush against him until the white-hot heat of her rage collided with the unnatural, deathly chill of his skin.

"My wife was worried about me," he murmured, his voice a low vibration that felt less like a question and more like a dark boast. "Wasn’t she?"

She tilted her head back, refusing to break eye contact, forcing herself to look at the wreckage of his face. Up close, the toll of the last five days was a map of exhaustion; his features had gone gaunt, the sharp, aristocratic angles of his cheekbones jutting out like blades, and the hollows beneath his eyes had deepened into bruised, violet shadows.

"Yes, I was worried about you!" she snapped, the admission tearing from her throat. "You are my husband, Mathias. Is that the plan? To make me a widow? Now, stop this. Tell me—where were you?"

​She reached out, Her fingers hovered just an inch away from the scratches on his cheek—the wounds she had just inflicted. Her hand trembled. The sight of his blood, mixed with his gaunt, ghost-like appearance, hit her with a wave of cold reality. For five days, she had hated him, but now that he was here, looking like a man who had crawled out of his own grave, the hatred felt heavy. Unbearable.

​She didn’t touch the blood. She just looked at it, her voice dropping to a broken whisper.

​"You vanish for five days... and you return looking like a hollowed-out beast. Do you expect me to just... forget?"

​Despite her words, she didn’t pull away when he stepped closer. She was paralyzed by the sheer, terrifying relief of his presence. She wanted to push him, to scream more, but her body had betrayed her; it was already leaning into his cold shadow, seeking the familiar anchor she had been missing.

"I was preparing a new gift," he whispered, his voice dropping into a low, hum that resonated against her skin. "A surprise for you."

"A surprise?"

"Yes. I’ll show it to you later. Agreed?"

"What are you even talking about?"I—...

​Mathias saw the flicker of hesitation in her eyes—the moment her fury met her exhaustion. He didn’t give her a chance to rebuild her walls.

His lips crashed onto hers with a sudden, ravenous hunger, a desperate collision that He stole the air right out of her lungs, in a succession of searing, frantic kisses. He moved with a feverish intensity, giving her no room to breathe, no space to think, as if he were trying to pull her very soul into his own chest to silence the demons howling in the dark.

When their lips finally parted, Olivia was left gasping, her heart hammering against her ribs like a bird frantic to escape its cage. Mathias didn’t let go. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, inhaling her scent with a desperate, lung-aching greed, as if her skin were the only thing tethering his soul to the earth. Without a word, he hooked his arms beneath her and hoisted her from the floor.

He carried her toward the bed, his strides heavy and resonant, filled with a dark, singular purpose. When he laid her back against the silk sheets, his frame loomed over her, a silhouette that seemed to swallow the very light of the room.

"No more questions, Olivia," he whispered. His fingers found the ties of her nightgown, his touch like ice, though his gaze burned with a feverish, unsettled light. "I only want you. Right now. Nothing else exists."

But even as he stared down at her—lying defenseless and flushed beneath him—the internal silence he sought remained out of reach. The voices in his head had reached a frantic, serrated pitch. They were no longer the low whispers of his shadow; they were jagged shrieks that tore through his consciousness, a cacophony of the dead and the damned that even her warmth couldn’t fully drown out.

’Choke her. Kill her. Break her into pieces.’

The darkness within him surged—a foul, predatory instinct that looked upon her vulnerability and saw only a target to be shattered. Mathias’s fingers knotted into the silk sheets, his knuckles white and straining as he waged a silent, agonizing war against the rot in his own mind. Every nerve was a scorched battlefield; he was fighting the visceral, pulsing urge to wrap his hands around her throat instead of her waist.

Yet, his desire—a twisted thing fueled by the very madness he fought—was absolute. It was the only force in his fractured psyche stronger than the voices. He didn’t just want to possess her; he wanted to be consumed by her. He sought to use her light as a shroud, a desperate hope that if he stayed close enough to her fire, he could drown out the black sun rising in the wasteland of his soul.

After a night defined by a desperate, bone-deep possession, the morning arrived with an unexpected softness.

​Olivia opened her eyes to find Mathias sitting beside her. The predatory edge from the night before had vanished, replaced by a domestic stillness she hadn’t dared to hope for. He was bare-chested, the pale morning light catching the sharp lines of his shoulders as he toyed with Black, the cat.

​He felt her stir and glanced between her and the feline, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. "Oh, look. It seems your mother is finally awake."

​A soft, spontaneous laugh escaped Olivia. "What are you doing?"

​"Bonding with my son while we waited for his mother to join the world of the living," he replied easily.

​Before she could process the word ’son,’ Black took a flying leap, landing squarely on top of her head. Mathias narrowed his eyes at the cat, a mock betrayal crossing his features. "You traitor. We were just getting along, and the moment you see her, you run? Ungrateful brat."

​Olivia swiped a hand over her face, her laugh muffled by the cat’s fur. "Mathias, for heaven’s sake, leave the cat alone."

​But he didn’t stop. He continued his relentless pestering, leaning down to poke at the cat’s paws, his movements fluid and light.

​Watching him, Olivia found herself smiling—a genuine, unyielding smile that felt foreign yet right. For a fleeting second, the clocks seemed to stall, freezing the world in place to grant her a sliver of happiness she hadn’t imagined was still possible in this house.

While their laughter still lingered in the air, the atmosphere in the Emperor’s study was suffocating.

​There was no warmth here, only the sharp, rhythmic tap of fingers against a desk.

Lucius’s voice echoed through the room, heavy with the skepticism of a ruler who knew that every ’favor’ in this court came with a price. He leaned forward, his gaze dissecting the man standing before him.

​"Are you certain you wish to take part in this campaign Duke Alister?".

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.Dear Readers,

​As promised, I am thrilled to announce that ten new Chapters will be released on May 14th!

​To celebrate this milestone, I would be incredibly grateful if you could support me with every Ticket you have. Your votes truly mean the world to me and help the story grow.

​Additionally, if you enjoy my work, please consider supporting the story with Gifts. I want to be clear—there is absolutely no pressure, as the choice is entirely yours. However, seeing your generosity helps me realize how much you truly love this story.

​My big dream is to reach a Magic Castle. I know it is a difficult goal, but with your incredible support, I believe that one day we can make it happen!

​With all my love and gratitude,

​Your Author, Ines