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 the candlelight inside to spill out like liquid gold across the floor. The shadows flickered, soft and warm.
And in the middle of that light—
Cassian Vale lay asleep on his bed.
His broad form was half-turned toward the door, a thick blanket tossed over his hips, baring the stark line of his muscled back. His hair was disheveled, damp with sweat. His breathing deep, heavy.
Spent. Disarmed. Human.
Marienne's heart jolted painfully.
Cassian never slept in the daytime. Cassian never let himself be vulnerable. Cassian never—
She swallowed hard. Her gaze moved.
And that was when she saw her.
Seraphine Arden.
Standing beside the bed.
Clothed in a slip of silk that clung to her body like moonlight—thin, shimmering, nearly translucent. The fabric hugged her curves with shameless intimacy, every breath she took making the silk shift in ways Marienne could not ignore.
Her hair was loose, still mussed from—
Marienne's stomach dropped.
The air carried a scent she recognized.
Warm. Sweet. Skin. Heat. Sex.
Seraphine turned her head slowly, deliberately—
And smirked.
A slow, languid, devastating smirk.
"Marienne," she purred, her voice dripping like poisoned honey, "what a surprise."
Marienne's lips parted soundlessly.
Seraphine glided forward, moving with a confidence that made Marienne's jaw clench.
The silk whispered against her skin.
Every detail about her—disordered, glowing, still flushed—was a message meant for Marienne's eyes alone.
"What… what is this…?" Marienne managed, voice cracking.
Seraphine tilted her head. "Oh? I would've thought it obvious."
She leaned one arm casually against the doorframe, blocking Marienne's path inside. The pose made her silhouette curve in ways that made the truth even more unbearable. Cassian shifted behind her in his sleep, the blanket sliding lower on his hips before settling again.
Seraphine didn't even turn to look.
Marienne's face flushed with humiliation, anger, disbelief.
"You..." she whispered. "You were with him?"
Seraphine let out a small laugh. Soft. Cruel.
"Darling," she said, stepping closer, "I wasn't just with him." She leaned in, lowering her voice, letting her breath ghost 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 along Marienne's shoulder as she passed. The touch was mocking. Dominant.
"So," Seraphine continued lightly, "tell me, proud Lady Lysford… how does it feel?"
Marienne clenched her fists.
Seraphine's eyes glittered with vicious delight. "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 beneath him?"
Marienne swallowed hard. 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 with a smile. "Touch me? Want me? Choose me?"
She stepped aside just enough for Marienne to see Cassian again, his hand still curled loosely in the pillow beside him— as though he had been holding someone there a moment earlier.
Seraphine's voice dropped to a whisper. "He already did."
Marienne shook her head, taking a shaky step back.
Cassian had rejected her touch. Cassian had turned away from her. Cassian had said 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 softly, "you always thought you were the best among all ladies." She reached out and lifted Marienne's chin with one slender finger. "How strange that he prefers the woman he cast aside… over the bride he's supposed to cherish."
Marienne's breath stilled.
Seraphine leaned closer, her lips brushing Marienne's ear as she whispered: "Tell me... does pride taste bitter yet?"
Marienne jerked back, trembling. Her voice came out broken. "You… you will not win."
Seraphine laughed. Low. Warm. Lethal. "My dear," she said, "I already have."
She let her gaze drift 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. Seraphine gave a soft, mocking sigh.
"Well then," she said lightly, "do give him my regards when he wakes. I imagine he'll still be tired."
Marienne could no longer speak. Could no longer breathe. She 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 began hours before dawn.
Cassian had returned to the Vale mansion late — later than he wished to admit — and the weight of the day crushed him like armor that refused to come off.
The confrontation with Lysander. The bruises throbbing along his jaw. Seraphine's voice echoing inside him long after she left.
"You will regret this."
He had tried to drown it. Bottle after bottle.
He wasn't a man who drank. He wasn't a man who indulged. He wasn't a man who allowed himself to feel enough to fall apart.
But tonight... 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 clung to.
Her. His Seraphine. His quiet place. His stolen softness. His secret sin.
And as the drink dragged him under, his mind filled with her. The warmth of her. The sound of her. 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, sweet, like fresh rain on summer petals.
"Cassian…"
Her voice was a breath. A memory. A wound.
He closed his eyes.
It can't be her. It can't be—
But the mind of a drunk man has no discipline, no armor. And the dream took him whole.
In the dream, she came to him as she used to — soft, trembling, devoted. Her hands slid to his face, guiding him down from the edge of the world. Her lips brushed his brow like a prayer. Her voice cracked with longing, like she was breaking just to touch him.
He reached for her.
Of course he did. His body remembered even when his mind denied it.
"Seraphine…".He whispered her name liked he used to — low, hoarse, reverent — as though she was the only salvation left to a ruined man.
She made a small sound, one he had heard countless nights before, the soft whimper that always undid him.
His hands trembled. His breath faltered. He pulled her close.
And the dream swallowed him deeper.
He remembered the warmth. The softness. The way she fit against him like she had been carved for his arms alone.
He remembered her voice — shaking, pleading, breathless — his name breaking on her tongue like a confession she couldn't hold.
He remembered the way she clung to him as though she had nowhere else in the world to exist.
As though he was home.
His heart ached. His breath stuttered. His voice fell into her shoulder with a shudder.
"Don't leave me… please... I'm sorry…"
And the dream answered him with a trembling whisper: "I won't."
Time blurred. Sense dissolved.
The world faded to warmth, and breath, and the ghost of a woman he loved more than his pride allowed him to admit.
He surrendered to it. Until sleep dragged him into darkness.
---
But it wasn't a dream.
Seraphine lay beside him, awake long after he drifted into exhausted slumber.
Her hair spread over the pillow. Her cheeks still flushed. Her eyes half-lidded in drowsy satisfaction. She watched his chest rise and fall, watched his fingers twitch faintly as though still reaching for her even in unconsciousness.
And she smiled. A slow, victorious smile.
"Oh, Cassian," she whispered, brushing a finger along the bruise Lysander left on his jaw, "you're far easier to take back than you think."
She shifted on the bed, drawing the silk blanket higher over her legs. Her body still felt warm — warmer than she remembered. The air still held the remnants of heat, of closeness, of the moment she stole back what Marienne believed was hers.
Seraphine stretched lazily, a cat basking in her triumph.
She had chosen this timing perfectly. Marienne always came early after a scandal. Always came desperate to salvage Cassian's attention.
Seraphine almost felt amusement rising in her.
"Any moment now…" she murmured, eyes glinting.
She laid back on the pillows, partly draped in the silk that clung to her curves with almost sinful elegance. Her breathing slowed. Her eyes grew heavy.
She was tired. Perhaps she could close her eyes for just a moment—
A footstep echoed from the hall. Then another.
Seraphine's eyes snapped open, alert and gleaming. She sat up, smoothing her silk against her skin, ensuring the neckline dipped just enough to make her meaning unmistakable.
Cassian didn't stir. She smirked softly.
"Oh, Marienne," she whispered, sliding gracefully off the bed. "I hope you'll enjoy the show."
She walked toward the chamber door, slowly, deliberately, letting her silhouette glow in the candlelight.
The doorknob turned. The door creaked open.
And Seraphine stood exactly where Marienne could see her, looking back over her shoulder—
Smiling a predator's smile.