Sold To The Reaper

The Contract

Sunlight filtered in through the high arched windows in pale, gentle gold, far too soft for the kind of place Lilian had braced herself to wake up in.

For one disoriented moment she wondered if she had died sometime in the night, except death surely wouldn’t come with this pounding ache behind her eyes, or the chill settling over her bare shoulders, or the unfamiliar scent of vanilla and jasmine soaked deep into the sheets beneath her. She blinked against the light, waiting for her vision to clear, and slowly the room around her resolved into something far removed from the dungeon her fear had spent the night painting in vivid, terrible detail.

It was, instead, a room, though calling it merely a room felt almost like an insult to the marble floors stretching beneath towering curtains, the chandelier overhead that likely cost more than the entire house she’d grown up in. The walls weren’t really walls at all but panels of expensive wallpaper interrupted by built-in wardrobes, and she found herself lying in the exact center of it all, still fully dressed in the humiliating chiffon gown from the auction stage.

She sat up too fast, the dizziness hitting her in a wave that left the edges of the room swimming.

Before she could gather her bearings, the door opened and two women swept into the room like ghosts dressed in crisp black and white uniforms.

One began unpacking what looked like a parade of designer shopping bags onto the chaise near the window, while the other arranged a row of shoes across the polished floor, murmuring to herself about brands and labels as though sorting through a catalog.

“Your tea, miss,” the older of the two said without ever meeting her eyes, setting a steaming porcelain cup on a silver tray beside the bed before offering a small, practiced bow and turning away again.

Lilian blinked, certain she had misheard, “Wait,” she managed, her voice cracking around the single word, “This is for me?”

The younger maid finally lifted her gaze, though only briefly, “It’s the Master’s order to have you ready to meet him in the gardens”, she said simply.

They stripped her with a gentleness she hadn’t expected, guiding her into a bath drawn with steam curling off the surface.

Their fingers were careful, and when one of them worked lavender oil into her scalp with slow, circular movements, something inside her chest loosened despite every instinct telling her not to let it.

Wrapped afterward in towels softer than any blanket she’d ever owned, she stood before a closet larger than her childhood bedroom, where three outfits waited, each one more stunning and more foreign than the last. The maids gestured for her to choose, and she stared at the options for a long moment before finally pointing toward the one that seemed least likely to make her feel like a trophy being dressed for display-a white gown patterned with soft blue florals, simple and feminine.

The maids nodded their approval, and she didn’t argue when they styled her hair with the same careful precision they’d shown all morning, though she did shake her head firmly when the makeup brushes appeared.

“No makeup,” she said, “I don’t want…”

“Master only sees the best,” the head maid replied, already smoothing concealer beneath her eyes before Lilian could finish the protest, and she swallowed the rest of her objection along with the question that followed it.

“Does your master have a name?”

No one answered her, which she supposed was an answer in itself.

The greenhouse, when she was finally led there, looked like something pulled directly from a dream rendered in gold and green, glass walls enclosing rows of overgrown orchids and rare roses, with small hanging pots dripping from the ceiling like suspended teardrops. In the center of it all sat a table set for two, and at that table sat him, looking for all the world as though he belonged to this place more completely than any living thing growing within it. His legs were crossed with unhurried elegance, one hand resting lazily against the table’s edge while the other cradled a teacup, and when his eyes finally met hers, they didn’t so much as flicker.

“Sit,” he said, and she found herself obeying before she’d fully registered the decision to do so.

“You didn’t answer my question earlier,” she said, working to steady her voice as she lowered herself into the chair across from him, “Do you have a name?”

He arched a single eyebrow, unhurried in his amusement, “Why?” he asked, his voice smooth as polished glass. “Already practicing how you’ll address me in the bedroom?”

Heat flooded her cheeks before she could stop it. “That’s not…that’s not what I meant”

“I know exactly what you meant”, He took a slow sip of his tea, entirely unbothered by her flustered protest.

“You want a name to curse when I make you blush”

“I don’t blush,” she shot back, though the burning in her face made an excellent argument against her.

He didn’t bother arguing the point. Instead he simply watched her for a long moment before reaching into a folder resting at his elbow and sliding something across the table toward her. It had a sleek, brand-new phone, clearly the latest model, and beside it, a thick stack of papers that made her stomach drop the instant her eyes landed on them.

“You’ll need this,” he said, tapping the phone once, “And this.”

Her gaze scanned the top page, and the word contract leapt out at her with terrible clarity. “You’re giving me a job?”

“No” His tone stayed light, but final, the way a door sounds when it closes for good, “I’m giving you a place, one with rules”

She picked up the pen with fingers that trembled despite her best efforts to still them, and for one unbidden moment Kyle’s face flashed through her mind-his laugh, his promises, the way he’d always told her she was worth more than anyone back home seemed to believe. The weight of that memory settled heavy in her chest, and without quite meaning to, she caught her bottom lip between her teeth, an old habit born from years of stress she’d never managed to outgrow.

“If I wanted to watch you bite your lip,” he said softly, “I’d rather do it myself”

She went still, every nerve in her body suddenly aware of him in a way she didn’t want to examine, though his expression never shifted and his tone never changed.

“You’re to sign the papers,” he continued, as though he hadn’t just said something designed to unravel her composure entirely.

Her fingers tightened around the pen, “So I do what you say until when? Until you’re tired of me?” She set the pen down before she could stop herself. “I can’t sign this, I need time”

He set his teacup down with a sound that was soft and yet somehow deafening in the quiet of the greenhouse. “I must have given you the illusion that you have a choice,” he said, his voice never rising, only falling, settling over her like something final and immovable. “You don’t. From the moment you climbed onto that stage, the word ‘choice’ was erased from your path entirely, you now belong to me”

She swallowed hard, watching him rise from his seat with unhurried grace, adjusting cuffs that hadn’t needed adjusting in the first place.

“But it’s your first day,” he said, “so I’ll spare you”

Spare her? The word nearly made her laugh out loud at its absurdity.

He took three measured strides toward the doors before pausing just short of them, glancing back over his shoulder with something unreadable flickering across his expression.

“Alexandro Von Dio,” he said.

Her brows lifted slightly at the offering, unprepared for it.

She gathered the phone and the contract and left the greenhouse behind, her heels echoing sharply down the long hallway as she walked. The moment she was alone, she typed in Ari’s number with hands that hadn’t quite stopped shaking, and the second the call connected, the words spilled out of her before she could think better of them.

“Ari?”

“Lily?! Oh my God, Lily! I’ve been calling you nonstop! Where have you been? Don’t tell me it was that witch Laura and her demonic little entourage again just say the word and I will drag them by their hair, I swear to God!”

Lilian laughed despite everything, a real, belly-deep, tears-pricking laugh that took her by surprise as it tore loose from somewhere she’d thought had gone numb. Hearing Ari’s voice felt like breathing again after drowning for far too long beneath the surface.

“Why are you laughing? I’m being serious, have they finally driven you completely insane?”

“I’m just happy to hear your voice,” Lilian managed, the words thick around the lump rising in her throat.

“Yeah, well, you’ve had me worried sick. Kyle called me, you know the most panicked I’ve ever heard him sound, and I figured he was exaggerating until I saw twenty missed calls from you on my own phone. Twenty, Lily”

Lilian blinked, the name landing somewhere just beneath her ribs-Kyle.

She wasn’t listening anymore, lost instead in the sudden spiral of her own thoughts, scrambling to remember the last time she’d spoken to him at all.

“He didn’t want me to tell you yet, but he’s in town.”

The world seemed to drop away beneath her entirely.

“He’s…wait, that’s good, right? I know long-distance has been hell on you two, but you’re still making it work?”

No, no, no. Why is he here? He can’t be here, not now, Not when…

“Lily? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“I’m a little busy right now,” she choked out, forcing the words past the tightness closing around her throat. “I’ll call you when I’m free”

“…You sound off, babe, you know you can tell me anything, right? Just heads up, Kyle mentioned he might stop by your place today. So please, try to work things out with him. Call me later, okay? Love you, bye”

“Bye, love,” Lilian whispered back, though the line had already gone dead, the silence afterward ringing louder than anything Ari had said. She stared down at the screen until her vision blurred, nearly losing her balance entirely before a maid appeared in the doorway just in time to steady the moment.

“Breakfast is served, miss,” the maid said, and Lilian forced herself to breathe, knowing full well that breakfast was the very least of what was about to find her today.