UNHALLOWED

CHAPTER 1 Weeping Sky The sky was weeping again. “Rain. God, I hate it.” She thought as she exhaled through her parted lips while she looked out of the car’s backseat window. Aurora had always despised the rain—how it fell with a self-righteous, heavenly entitlement, drenching the world until everything was reduced to a cold, monochromatic gray, stripping the world of its color. To her, it was not just weather; it was a persistent, loathsome reminder of everything she had lost. “We have reached the arena, Miss Rory.” The driver’s voice was a polite intrusion into her thoughts. Rory did not hesitate. She summoned a smile—a masterpiece of practiced, honeyed warmth she had spent a decade perfecting for the world. It was a mask so seamless that no one ever looked for the blade beneath it. “Thank you, Mikey,” she replied, her voice the velvet-soft tone of a woman who had nothing to hide. The moment Mikey held the door, Rory unfolded her 5’11” frame from the vehicle with practiced grace. A phalanx of security moved in instantly—two bodyguards flanking her like shields, while another pair held the perimeter by the elevator. Beyond the concrete walls, the muffled roar of the crowd thundered like a physical tide as usual. She did not flinch. After ten years in the eye of the storm, her pulse did not even quicken; her body was a machine, finely tuned to the chaos when she would get on stage to sing and perform for her fans. “Target is secure. Miss Rory has entered the lift,” the bodyguard’s voice crackled over the comms, cold and professional. “Escorting to the third floor now.” The elevator climbed with a smooth, mechanical whine, but inside the car, Rory was in a different world. The heavy, noise-canceling headphones pressed against her wheat-colored hair, vibrating with the frantic, jagged violins of Antonio Vivaldi’s “Winter.” To anyone watching the security feed, she looked like the “Nation’s Poet” lost in a moment of artistic inspiration. In reality, she was using the music as a metronome for her pulse. The aggressive, high-velocity plucking of the strings matched the way her mind worked—sharp, cold, and relentless. As the composition transitioned into its most turbulent movement, Rory’s honey-gold eyes remained fixed on the digital floor display, watching the numbers climb. The music was not a comfort; it was a sharpening stone. The penthouse of his estate did not feel like a home; it felt like a mausoleum of glass and chrome, perched sixty floors above the city’s jugular. Inside, the only light came from the cold, rhythmic pulse of the neon skyline bleeding through the floor-to-ceiling windows. In the center of the dimly lit living area, the air was thick with the scent of expensive bourbon and the desperate, frantic heat of a woman who did not realize she was sleeping with a statue. She was the daughter of an Earth-branch lieutenant—a beautiful, high-society socialite used to getting what she wanted. Currently, she was straddling Malphas on the deep charcoal velvet couch, her back arched, her nails digging into his shoulders as she rode him with a feverish intensity. Her moans filled the cavernous room, echoing off the marble floors, a jagged sound of pleasure that bordered on pain as she struggled to accommodate his grueling, nine-inch length. But Malphas Lucian Mordrake was not participating. He was merely a witness to her effort. He sat perfectly still, his spine a rigid line against the cushions, one hand draped casually over the armrest while the other held a crystal glass of neat Scotch. His silk tie was barely loosened. His eyes—those obsidian, predatory voids—were not on the woman trembling above him. They were fixed on the digital ticker of the global stock exchange, glowing on a discreet monitor across the room. To him, this was not intimacy. It was a biological transaction. A release of tension no more significant than adjusting his cufflinks. The woman let out a strangled cry, her body shuddering as she reached her peak, collapsing against his chest, her breath coming in ragged, wet gasps. She clung to him, seeking a heartbeat, a touch, a flicker of the fire she was trying to ignite. Malphas did not blink. He did not wrap his arms around her or tell her she did well. He simply tilted his wrist, checking his Patek Philippe. “You are three minutes behind schedule, Elena,” he said, his voice a low, clinical rasp that held zero warmth. “The car is waiting downstairs to take you back to the docks. Do not make me tell your father why you were late.” Elena froze against his chest, her breath still hitching from the high he had just given her body, but her heart turning to lead at his words. She pulled back, looking up at his face—that gorgeous, terrifying mask of absolute indifference. A sharp, bitter laugh escaped her lips as she wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. “Three minutes?” she echoed, her voice dripping with venomous sarcasm. She scrambled off him, not bothering to cover herself as she began to gather her discarded lace on the floor. After all, it was not their first time having s*x, and she was used to his dismissive attitude toward her and everyone else around him. “Careful now, Malphas.” Elena responded in a mocking tone, “If you keep showing this much passion, people might actually mistake you for a living being. We would not want to ruin the ‘King of the Dead’ brand, would we?” She stood there for a jagged, ringing moment, her eyes searching his face for a flicker of irritation—a scowl, a sharp retort, a comeback—anything that would prove he was actually listening to her and giving her attention. But, as always, there was nothing. She had been poking at him with her sarcasm for months, trying to draw blood from a stone, but Malphas never barked back. He did not even acknowledge the bite. To him, her insults were merely background noise, no more significant than the hum of the air conditioning. With a frustrated huff, she rolled her eyes, the gesture lost on a man who refused to look at her. She stepped into her heels, snapping the straps with a jagged, rhythmic precision that mimicked his own mechanical movements. “My apologies for the delay,” she continued, sketching a mocking, shallow curtsy. “I forgot I was not sleeping with a man; I was sleeping with a stopwatch. I will be sure to tell my father that the Heir of Heaven is just as efficient as the rumors say—and just as hollow.” She grabbed her clutch, pausing at the door to look back at him. He had not even turned around. “Try not to catch a cold, Mal,” she spat. “It must be freezing living inside a machine.” Malphas did not flinch. He did not even pause his breathing. Instead, he reached out with a slow, steady hand and picked up a silver fountain pen from the side table. With clinical focus, he began to sign a document, the scratching of the nib against the paper the only sound in the room. He did not look at her; he did not even look toward her. The silence was deafening. It was worse than a slap. It was the absolute confirmation that to him, she had already ceased to exist the moment she stood up from the couch. Elena’s face flushed a deep, humiliated crimson. Her jaw tightened so hard it ached. She wanted to scream, to throw her shoe at his perfectly groomed head, to break the expensive silence he wrapped around himself like armor. But the more she fumed, the more his stillness mocked her. He finally spoke, but not to her. He tapped a button on his desk intercom. “Dante,” Malphas murmured, his voice smooth and utterly bored. “The door is still open. Close it on your way out with the guest.” Elena let out a sharp, choked sound of pure rage, spinning on her heel before he could hear her cry. She slammed the door behind her, but even the thunderous noise felt small against the immovable, icy vacuum Malphas left in his wake. “Do not worry,” she muttered, her voice tight with a mix of rejection and disdain. “I will see myself out. I would not want to be the reason your 'perfection' slips by another sixty seconds.”