Chapter 4 — Cold Milk
662 Words
Chapter 4 — Cold Milk
The guest suite was quieter than the dungeon.
Elara took a long, scalding shower. Scrubbed her arms until they flushed red. But her lips still felt cold. That chill—his chill—clung to her like a ghost.
She wrapped herself in a robe and walked to the window. Moonlight sliced the castle into sharp fragments. The shadows moved like things with breath.
She didn’t know what disturbed her more: the way Raphael had kissed her like she was already his, or the way she hadn’t pushed him away.
She should have bitten his tongue off.
A knock came.
Too soft. Not him.
She opened the door. Victor stood there, blank-faced, holding a silver tray. A glass of warm milk. A few delicate pastries.
“Lord Raphael’s orders,” he said.
She didn’t take it. “Is it poisoned?”
Victor blinked. Maybe it was impatience. Maybe it was something else.
“If you wanted to die,” he said calmly, “you could’ve jumped off the tower. This is just… sedative milk.”
She took the tray without saying thank you. He turned and walked away like a shadow retreating down the corridor.
Back inside, she didn’t drink. She set the tray down. Stared at the milk. A film had already started to form on the surface.
Her mother died after drinking warm milk someone else gave her.
Elara sat on the edge of the bed. Looked at her wrists. There was a faint bruise blooming along one arm. She pressed her thumb into it until it stung.
It was where Raphael had grabbed her. Hard enough to hold. Not hard enough to hurt.
Not yet.
She lay back, pulled the blankets over her head, and tried to breathe.
She wanted to use the Death Vision. To check if the milk was safe. But what she saw instead—
White fabric. Her. Dressed in silks, beneath a sky so full of stars it looked like it might collapse. Raphael beside her, smiling in that slow, endless way. He touched her face like it was something sacred.
And then—
Laurent.
Not quite Laurent. Not yet Lorenzo. His eyes weren’t red then. He stood at the edge of the vow like a shadow in the light. His expression twisted. Jealousy sharpened into something brutal.
He stepped forward and drove a dagger into Raphael’s heart.
Blood hit her skin. It was warm.
The memory cracked down the middle. She opened her eyes.
Her whole body was trembling.
She sat up. Shoved the blankets off.
The milk was cold now. The pastry untouched. The castle outside looked unreal in the silver light. Something flew past the window—a blur of wings. Maybe a bat. Maybe something worse.
She walked back to the tray. Picked up the glass.
Still didn’t drink.
There was a faint smell in the room. Lavender and musk. Not hers. Not from the soap.
Someone else had stayed here before her.
She checked the drawers. The wardrobe. Nothing. But the perfume remained.
Everything was spiraling too fast.
Laurent wasn’t just a manipulative ex-boyfriend. He was a ghost from a previous life, back to finish what he started.
And Raphael—
His words had echoed in her: “I won’t let you leave.”
They weren’t just about control.
They were a vow. A memory. A piece of something older than both of them.
He remembered.
He had never forgotten.
The milk sat between her hands, now colder than her lips had been. She set it down.
Her throat felt tight. Her chest—worse.
Outside, something howled in the woods. Or maybe it was just the wind.
She wasn’t sure if she could trust Raphael.
She wasn’t sure if she could trust her visions either.
She didn’t drink the milk.
She didn’t sleep.
She just sat in the dark, watching the castle walls shift in the moonlight,
and waited for morning.
If it came.
- Writer
