Marienne pushed open the study door—
And froze.
Her breath turned to ice. Because the office was not empty.
The connecting door to Cassian's private chamber stood ajar, just enough for candlelight to spill across the floor like liquid gold. Shadows flickered, soft and warm.
And in the middle of that light lay Cassian Vale.
Asleep.
His broad form was half-turned toward the door, a thick blanket tossed low over his hips, baring the stark line of his muscled back. His hair was disheveled, damp with sweat. His breathing was deep and heavy.
Spent. Disarmed. Human.
Marienne's heart jolted painfully.
Cassian never slept during the day. Cassian never allowed himself to be vulnerable. Cassian never—
She swallowed hard and let her gaze drift. That was when she saw her.
Seraphine Arden.
Standing beside the bed.
She wore a slip of silk that clung to her body like moonlight, thin and shimmering, nearly translucent. The fabric traced her curves with shameless intimacy, shifting with every breath she took in a way Marienne could not ignore.
Her hair was loose. Mussed.
Marienne's stomach dropped.
The air carried a scent she recognized.
Warm. Sweet. Skin. Heat.
Seraphine turned her head slowly, deliberately.
And smirked. A languid, devastating smirk.
"Marienne," she purred, her voice dripping like poisoned honey. "What a surprise."
Marienne's lips parted, but no sound came.
Seraphine glided forward, moving with a confidence that made Marienne's jaw clench. The silk whispered against her skin as she walked.
Every detail about her, disordered, glowing, faintly flushed, was a message meant for Marienne alone.
"What… what is this?" Marienne managed, her voice cracking.
Seraphine tilted her head. "Oh? I thought it was obvious."
She leaned casually against the doorframe, blocking Marienne's path inside. The pose curved her silhouette into something unbearable. Behind her, Cassian shifted in his sleep, the blanket sliding lower before settling again.
Seraphine didn't even turn to look.
Marienne's face burned with humiliation, anger, disbelief.
"You…" she whispered. "You were with him?"
Seraphine laughed softly. Cruel. Amused.
"Darling," she said, stepping closer, "I wasn't just with him." She leaned in, lowering her voice, her breath brushing tauntingly close to Marienne's cheek. "I was the one he reached for."
Marienne flinched as if struck.
Seraphine drifted around her in a slow circle, her fingers brushing deliberately over Marienne's shoulder as she passed. The touch was mocking.
"So," Seraphine continued lightly, "tell me, proud Lady Lysford… how does it feel?"
Marienne clenched her fists.
Seraphine's eyes glittered. "To know the General, your fiancé," she emphasized each word, "trusts another woman in his bed before you ever earned the right?"
Marienne's breath hitched.
"And worse," Seraphine added, leaning close again, "to know he sleeps peacefully only after I'm the one beside him?"
The humiliation was sharp enough to taste.
"You're lying," Marienne hissed, though her voice trembled. "Cassian would never—"
"Would never what?" Seraphine cut in smoothly. "Touch me? Want me? Chooseme?"
She stepped aside just enough for Marienne to see Cassian again, his hand curled loosely into the pillow beside him, as though it had been holding someone moments before.
Seraphine's voice dropped to a whisper. "He already did."
Marienne shook her head and stumbled back a step.
Cassian had rejected her touch. He had turned away. He had told her she was the cause of all this.
But this… this was something else entirely.
Seraphine watched her unravel, her smile sharpening.
"Oh, Marienne," she murmured, "you always thought you were the best among all ladies." She lifted Marienne's chin with one slender finger. "How strange that he prefers the woman he cast aside over the bride he's meant to cherish."
Marienne's breath stilled.
Seraphine leaned in, her lips brushing Marienne's ear. "Tell me," she whispered, "does pride taste bitter yet?"
Marienne jerked back, trembling. "You… you will not win."
Seraphine laughed. Low. Warm. Lethal.
"My dear," she said softly, "I already have."
Her gaze drifted meaningfully toward Cassian's sleeping form. "And the best part?" Her smile widened. "He didn't even call your name."
The color drained from Marienne's face.
"Well then," Seraphine added lightly, "do give him my regards when he wakes. I imagine he'll still be tired."
Marienne fled the room.
Seraphine watched her go, her smile curving slowly, cold as silk sliding over a blade.
This was only the beginning. And Marienne had just learned what it meant to be hunted.
---
It had begun hours before dawn.
Cassian returned to the Vale mansion late, later than he cared to admit. The weight of the day clung to him like armor he couldn't remove.
The confrontation with Lysander. The bruises throbbing along his jaw. Seraphine's voice echoing long after she left.
"You will regret this."
He tried to drown it. Bottle after bottle.
Cassian wasn't a man who drank. He wasn't a man who indulged. He wasn't a man who allowed himself to fall apart.
But tonight, he broke his own rules.
He sat in his private chamber, shirt discarded, collar open, hair falling messily across his brow. The bottle emptied too fast. Then another. His vision blurred. His breaths deepened.
He was slipping.
And when the room began to sway, his mind reached for the only anchor it had ever known.
Her.
Seraphine.
His quiet place. His stolen softness. His secret sin.
As the drink dragged him under, his thoughts filled with her. Her warmth. Her voice. The way she once looked at him as though he were human.
He felt her before he saw her.
A ghost of fingers brushing his temple. A whisper of silk against skin. A familiar scent, faint and sweet, like rain on summer petals.
"Cassian…"
Her voice was a memory. A wound.
He closed his eyes.
It couldn't be her. It couldn't—
But a drunk man's mind has no discipline. The dream took him whole.
In it, she came as she used to. Soft. Trembling. Devoted. Her hands cupped his face, drawing him down from the edge of the world. Her lips brushed his brow like a prayer.
He reached for her. Of course he did.
"Seraphine…" he whispered her name the way he always had, low and reverent, as though she were the last salvation left to him.
She made a small sound, one he remembered too well.
His breath faltered. He pulled her close.
The dream swallowed him deeper.
Warmth. Familiarity. The way she fit against him as though she belonged there.
His voice broke against her shoulder. "Don't leave me… please… I'm sorry…"
And the dream answered softly, "I won't."
Time blurred. Sense dissolved.
Sleep dragged him under.
---
But it wasn't a dream.
Seraphine lay beside him long after he fell into exhausted slumber.
She watched his chest rise and fall, watched his fingers twitch faintly as though still reaching for her even in sleep.
She smiled. A slow, victorious smile.
"Oh, Cassian," she whispered, brushing a finger along the bruise on his jaw, "you're far easier to take back than you think."
She shifted, drawing the blanket higher, savoring the warmth that still lingered.
She had chosen her timing perfectly.
Marienne always came early after a scandal. Always desperate to reclaim his attention.
Seraphine's lips curved.
"Any moment now," she murmured.
Footsteps echoed down the hall.
Seraphine sat up, smoothing the silk against her skin, ensuring her meaning was unmistakable.
Cassian didn't stir.
She slipped from the bed and walked toward the door, slow and deliberate, letting candlelight shape her silhouette.
The handle turned. The door creaked open.
And Seraphine stood exactly where Marienne could see her.
She looked back over her shoulder. And smiled like a predator.