On the second floor of the quiet mansion, Aliana’s footsteps remained light and elegant even while her pulse raced beneath her skin.

Her eyes lowered towards the plate she was holding, and her fingers unconsciously tightened around it as Winston’s words from earlier replayed vividly inside her head.

"There must be quite a few guests who often visit this mansion, aren’t there?"

The butler had blinked in mild surprise before answering smoothly, "Actually, no, Madam. Hardly anyone ever visits here apart from Master Cillian and a couple of others related to work. In fact, you are the first person to ever visit and stay here, Madam.

Her eyes had widened in genuine astonishment at the revelation.

But to clear any lingering doubts, she folded her arms, adopting a deceptively playful tone.

"Really? But with how exceptionally attentive you are, I am certain you must have plenty of experience tending to high-society ladies. I doubt business associates are the only ones visiting this estate."

At that, Winston had quietly cleared his throat, finally understanding the true meaning behind her question.

"No, Madam," he had answered calmly. "No lady has ever set foot in this mansion. The master fiercely guards his privacy, so only a select few are even aware of this property’s existence, let alone allowed to visit when absolutely necessary."

That answer had silenced her instantly.

She carefully studied the old butler, trying to see whether he was lying to her. But the longer she observed him, the more she realised Winston did not appear to be lying at all.

’So... I’m the first woman to ever be here?’ she had thought quietly to herself.

Coming back to the present, her footsteps halted directly in front of the door next to her own room. It was a room she had never stood before until this very moment.

’I wonder if he is resting...’ she thought to herself and looked down at the plate in her hands.

’Should I simply leave it here on a table, or just forget about it and head back to my own room altogether?’

She remembered how Gavriel had walked away wordlessly when they first arrived at the mansion. Even though he had not said a single word or expressed himself out loud, she had still felt it. He was upset with her.

Taking a deep breath to steel her nerves, she pulled herself together.

’This is the least I can do,’ she reasoned. ’After all, I don’t want any unnecessary bad blood between us before the wedding.’

With that final thought, she shifted the weight of the plate to one hand. After a second of hesitation, she raised her free hand and knocked softly against the heavy wood.

Seconds ticked by, and the silence from within was starting to make her nerves spike.

When no sound came from the other side, she wondered if he was occupied in the bathroom or had already fallen asleep.

But then a more troubling thought crept in.

Was he simply avoiding her now, just as she had been avoiding him earlier?

Aliana felt a fresh wave of guilt at that thought because not only Gavriel was protecting her by allowing her to stay in the mansion. He had also unknowingly taken another enormous burden off her shoulders by becoming her suitor long before the timeline her father had given her.

And in return, she had behaved that way towards him.

But what else was she supposed to do?

How else was she meant to protect herself from forming thoughts that might only end up hurting her in the future?

Not wanting to dwell on it any further, she lowered her gaze towards the plate in her hands and pressed her lips together tightly before finally turning away to leave.

....

It was past midnight when another man crashed onto the carpet of his apartment floor with a loud, heavy thud. The victim’s eyes and mouth were wide open, his skin turned entirely pale, as if every ounce of life had been violently sucked from his body.

And it had.

Standing directly over the corpse was a tall silhouette dressed in all black, wearing a long coat that brushed against his knees.

His crimson eyes stared blankly at the glowing remnant of yet another tainted soul hovering in his palm, before he closed his fist, absorbing the energy directly into himself. The moment the power fused with his veins, he closed his eyes as an intense wave of dark energy coursed through him.

Yet, he did not look pleased at all.

Gavriel clenched his jaw tightly, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Still not enough."

He could still feel the insatiable hunger coiled deep within his chest, a dark craving fueled entirely by burning anger. It was an anger constantly fed by the exact same memory that had driven him out of the mansion tonight.

The memory of Aliana stiffening the moment he drew close to her, as if his touch and proximity were something she instinctively wanted to avoid.

That single image continued to burn relentlessly in his mind, forcing him to flee his own estate before his dark impulses took over, pushing him to do something he would deeply regret.

’Why? Why would she react like this?’

His thoughts raced in an agonising circle of confusion and fury.

’Wasn’t she leaning into me like she wanted to drown in my arms just this afternoon? So why would she suddenly avoid me like I am some plague... like I am some... monster...’

At the thought, he paused.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, the deep crimson iris gradually bleeding back into their icy blue and whispered into the empty room, "I am a monster, after all."

’Yesss,’ the darkness within him hissed in response, coiling around his mind like a serpent. ’But she is still ours... claim her before she tries to run away.’

Gavriel’s fist tightened in response, the veins around his neck bulging as he fought to keep his burning desires under absolute control.

But the darkness continued to whisper. ’Take her. Show her what we can give her so she can never resist us again.’

"Shut up," Gavriel hissed through his gritted teeth, his aggravation mounting by the second.

’Why? Don’t you want her just as much? She smells so incredibly sweet...’

"I said, shut up!"

In a flash of pure rage, Gavriel threw his hand outward. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

A powerful, pitch-black sphere crackling with volatile red lightning erupted from his palm. The blast tore through the apartment, completely obliterating an entire section of the brick wall and the ceiling above it, leaving a massive, smoking crater in its wake as if a giant hand had carved right through the building.

Thick black smoke billowed from the wreckage, immediately triggering the apartment’s overhead sprinklers. A piercing fire alarm began to blare, its deafening shriek instantly alerting the entire luxury high-rise building.

Within his mind, the darkness snickered, mocking Gavriel for his clumsy blunder and his total failure to maintain control.

Yet Gavriel stood completely unfazed beneath the downpour of the icy water soaking through his clothes.

Outside the door, the sound of panicked shouting and rushing footsteps increased at an alarming rate. Any second now, he knew the building security or neighbours would barge right into the apartment.

Still, he made no effort to flee.

His eyes grew colder by the second, as if his heart were freezing under the weight of the memory playing on a loop in his mind.

Raising his hand with lazy indifference, he pushed his wet hair back from his forehead. A low, dark chuckle escaped his lips at the sheer absurdity of the situation.

He, of all the creatures, was being completely unhinged by a woman. No, worse... by a human.

Before he could dwell on it any longer, the shadows rose around him, swallowing him whole.

A heartbeat later, he materialised in the bedroom of a completely different apartment.

Inside, a beautiful woman with cascading brunette hair and striking purple eyes, clad in a revealing red nightgown, gasped as a heavy, suffocating presence suddenly appeared behind her.