I didn't know how long I'd been crouched there.
My body was folded tight behind the couch, knees drawn to my chest, arms locked around myself as if I could physically hold my fear in place. The room was pitch black. Not shadows—darkness. Dante had killed every light from the main switch, plunging the entire house into a thick, suffocating void.
He preferred it this way.
I knew that instinctively.
My breath came shallow, trapped in my chest. I pressed my palm over my mouth, terrified even the sound of air leaving my lungs would betray me.
Then I heard him.
Footsteps.
Slow. Unhurried. Moving across the living room like he had all the time in the world.
Crunch.
My stomach twisted.
He was chewing something.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Ice.
The sound was sharp, deliberate—teeth grinding down on frozen cubes like it was nothing. Like pain didn't register the way it did for normal people.
A soft clink followed. Glass against glass.
He was holding a drink.
"Aurielle," Dante called, his voice smooth and almost fond, echoing through the dark. "Where are you hiding, hm?"
My spine went rigid.
He was close. Too close to tell how close.
"I turned the lights off for you," he continued lightly, as if this were a kindness. "Did you notice? I thought you'd appreciate the atmosphere."
Another step.
Crunch.
Ice again.
"Come out, come out," he murmured, amusement curling through the words. "Wherever you are."
A pause.
Then he laughed—quietly this time, to himself.
"The big bad wolf is getting bored."
I squeezed my eyes shut, willing my body to disappear, to melt into the floor, into the couch, into nothing at all. My heart slammed so loudly in my ears I was sure he could hear it.
Footsteps shifted.
Closer.
The smell of whiskey drifted faintly through the air.
"I can hear you thinking," Dante said softly. "That little panic rhythm. You've always had it."
Always?
Something twisted sharply in my head.
A flash.
Running.
Bare feet slapping against the ground. My lungs burning. Tears blurring my vision as fear chased me from behind.
Blonde hair.
A man's silhouette ahead of me—tall, unfamiliar, urgent.
"Jason—please," I heard myself cry in the memory, the name tearing from my throat like a prayer.
My breath hitched.
Jason?
My hand flew tighter over my mouth as the memory vanished as quickly as it came, leaving my head pounding and my chest aching.
Who was Jason?
Why did my body remember running when my mind didn't?
"Aurielle," Dante called again, closer now. Right there. Somewhere in the dark. "You're very quiet."
I froze completely.
"I like that," he added softly. "It means you're listening."
Crunch.
The ice shattered between his teeth.
"Don't worry," he said, almost gently. "I'm not angry anymore."
My blood ran cold.
The silence that followed his "gentleness" was worse than his anger. It was the silence of a
trap door about to swing open.
Clink.
The sound of his glass being set down on the marble coffee table felt like a gunshot. It was barely three feet away from where I was curled.
"Actually," Dante's voice was lower now, dropping into a register that felt like a caress against my skin.
"I lied. I am a little angry. Not because you stabbed me—that was almost... impressive. No, I'm angry because you think you can hide from me in a house I built to keep you."
I felt the air shift. The weight of his presence moved.
Then, I heard the sound that made my soul leave my body.
The slow, heavy drag of a shoe.
He didn't lift his foot. He dragged the sole of his leather loafer across the marble, right toward the back of the couch.
Screeeeee.
It stopped. Directly beside my head. I could see the silhouette of his shoe in the sliver of moonlight—polished, expensive, and terrifyingly still.
I pressed my hand over my mouth so hard my teeth cut into my palm. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying to a God I didn't remember.
"Enough, Aurielle," he whispered. He sounded like he was leaning right over me, his breath fanning the stray hairs at my temple.
"This is becoming difficult. And when things are difficult, I lose my patience. If I have to reach down there and find you, the punishment won't be a schedule change. It will be a mark you'll carry for a month."
I didn't move. I couldn't.
"Come out," he commanded. "Princess, come out, come out, wherever you are..."
He paused. I could hear him inhale, as if he were scenting the air.
"If you don't make a sound in the next five seconds," he said, his voice turning into a dark, jagged edge, "I'm going to call Kieran. And I'm going to tell him that while he was searching the world for you, you were busy begging me to stay inside you. I'll make him listen to the way you scream my name until he realizes that even if he 'finds' you, he's only getting my leftovers."
I gasped.
The sound tore out of me before I could stop it—a sharp, ragged sob of shock.
In the darkness, I heard the slow, triumphant curl of a smile in his voice.
"There you are."
The couch suddenly groaned as he braced his weight against the back of it, looming over me like a shadow that had finally come to life.
"Don't look so scared, Aurielle," he murmured, his hand reaching into the dark toward me. "The hunt is the best part. But the capture? That's where I really have my fun."