SHACKLES

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

At that very moment, my aunt chose to enter through the parlour door.

Aunt Mia, aghast, exclaimed, “What blasphemy unfolds before my very eyes?”

She was visibly shaken, flustered by the scene that lay before her, her face paling as though she had witnessed some ungodly spectre.

In that moment of trepidation, my instincts took hold of me, and without a moment’s forethought, I reached forth and tore away the cloak that concealed the stranger’s face.

Beneath it was a vision most unexpected—he possessed the most exquisite hair I had ever beheld: golden, lightly curled, falling just above the shoulder, glinting like threads of sunlight. He resembled those noble gods of Olympus which Mama once spoke of in her stories—ethereal and otherworldly.

Aunt Mia, however, looked as though she had seen a ghost. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she stood rooted to the spot, unable to utter a word.

Before I could make sense of what wasl unfolding, he had drawn a blade—swift as a shadow—and seized me, twisting me roughly about.

“You little vixen,” he hissed, his voice laced with menace. Then, turning to Aunt Mia, who now trembled like a leaf in the wind, he said in a voice that sent a chill racing down my spine, “I trust you shall breathe not a word of what you have witnessed here—not a syllable, madam—or else…”

Still at his mercy, with cold steel pressed against the delicate skin of my neck, he turned to me and inquired, “What is your name?”

I remained silent, defiant, until the knife pressed more insistently against my throat, a cruel reminder of his resolve. At last, I whispered, “Zoe.”

He responded only with a grunt—“Hmm”—before thrusting me toward my aunt, who stood as though in a trance, mute, and eerily still, as if caught in the clutches of some dreadful déjà vu.

And then, without further word or gesture, the door clicked shut behind him, and he was gone.