Behind the door

The choice named

Chapter 17 – The Choice Named

Elena’s fingers curled tighter around the edge of the desk, the book humming faintly against the wood. The shadows pressed close, whispering in tones she couldn’t quite hear. But her eyes stayed locked on Adrian.

He stood before her, torn between retreat and surrender, his storm-gray gaze restless, haunted. He had confessed the truth—or part of it—and still tried to keep her from stepping further.

Not this time.

“You think I’m fragile,” Elena said, her voice steady, though her heart thundered in her chest. “That I can’t handle the truth. But I’ve walked through this house’s whispers. I’ve read words that burn and bled ink from pages that shouldn’t be alive. And I’m still standing.”

Adrian flinched, the muscles in his jaw tightening.

She stepped forward, refusing to let him pull back into shadow. “So stop protecting me. Stop hiding behind half-truths and curses. If this bond means I have to choose, then I need to know what I’m choosing. Tell me, Adrian—what happens if I say yes to you?”

The air between them thickened, almost alive. The fire groaned, the book trembled, and upstairs the locked door let out another deep, rattling moan, as though the house itself strained to hear his answer.

Adrian’s hands clenched at his sides. His voice came low, guttural, breaking through like something dragged from the depths of him.

“If you choose me,” he said, every word laced with ache, “then my chains become yours. You inherit not just my bond, but my curse. You’ll never escape me. My hunger, my darkness, the thing your grandmother held back—it will be tied to you. To your body, your soul, your heart.”

He closed his eyes, as if the admission itself burned. “And the house… will open. It will claim us both.”

The words wrapped around her like smoke. Dangerous. Irrevocable. But beneath them lay something else—desire, need, a pull that had nothing to do with curses or chains.

Elena’s breath caught. Fear clawed at her ribs, but something fiercer stirred beneath it. She had spent her life numb, unseen, going through motions of existence. And now here was fire, danger, love and ruin in one pair of storm-gray eyes.

Slowly, she lifted her chin. “Then maybe that’s a choice worth making.”

Adrian’s eyes snapped open, wild with fury and longing. “Elena, don’t.” His voice cracked. “You don’t know what I’ll become if you bind yourself to me. You don’t know what it will take from you.”

But even as he spoke, he stepped closer, unable to fight the magnetism pulling them together.

The book shuddered. The rose emblem bled a faint red glow. The door upstairs rattled harder, louder, as if the house was readying itself.

Elena reached out, her hand brushing the back of his. Sparks. A current that wasn’t natural but undeniable.

The choice was rising.

And the house was listening.

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