The Monster in My Kitchen
1462 Words
The words hung between them like a blade.
You killed them.
Aria backed away so quickly her hip struck the counter behind her. Pain shot through her side, but she barely felt it. Every nerve in her body had become one thing only—
Fear.
No.
Not fear.
Hatred.
The man standing across from her looked nothing like the nightmare burned into her memory.
He was barefoot in a palace kitchen.
Half-dressed.
Holding a wooden spoon.
Sunlight from the high windows spilled across his shoulders and caught in the dark waves of his hair. He should have looked ridiculous.
Instead, he still looked like death wrapped in skin.
His golden eyes dimmed slowly back to human darkness, though something feral remained beneath them.
“I remember,” she whispered, voice shaking. “I remember everything.”
That was a lie.
She remembered pieces. Blood. Screams. Bodies. His hand around Lucian’s throat. Her father falling. Her mother unmoving on the stairs.
But trauma didn’t need full truth to become terror.
He set the spoon down carefully.
The soft clink against the pan sounded far too calm.
“You remember enough to hate me,” he said.
His voice was deep, steady, almost gentle.
She hated that more than if he had shouted.
“Don’t speak to me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you didn’t murder my family!”
The room answered with silence.
Then he took one step forward.
Aria grabbed the nearest thing she could find—a glass jar of dried herbs—and hurled it at his head.
It shattered against the wall beside him in an explosion of glass and rosemary.
He didn’t even flinch.
Good.
She grabbed a copper ladle.
Then a bowl.
Then another jar.
The kitchen became a battlefield of flying objects.
He dodged nothing. He blocked nothing. He simply stood there while dishes shattered around him, herbs rained over the floor, and rage tore through her like fire.
When she ran out of things to throw, she reached for a knife.
His expression changed.
Not fear.
Interest.
Aria lunged.
She had never held a knife with intent before. It showed. Her grip was wrong, her strike wild, fueled by grief more than skill.
He caught her wrist before the blade touched him.
The shock of his hand around her skin made her breath hitch.
Warm.
Strong.
Familiar in a way that made her sick.
“Let go of me!”
She twisted, kicked, clawed with her free hand. He released her instantly, stepping back as if the contact burned him.
The knife clattered to the floor.
She stared at him, chest heaving.
He stared back.
Then his gaze dropped to the small cut on her palm where the blade had nicked her during the struggle.
Something dangerous flashed across his face.
In one movement he crossed the distance again.
Aria tried to run, but he was faster.
His hand caught her wrist—not roughly, but with absolute certainty. He lifted her palm between them.
A thin line of blood welled bright against her skin.
His jaw tightened.
“It’s nothing,” she snapped.
He looked up.
“It’s yours.”
Before she could understand what that meant, he pulled a clean cloth from the counter and wrapped her hand with surprising precision.
She froze.
Murderers were not supposed to know how to tie bandages.
Murderers were not supposed to look angry over paper-thin cuts.
Murderers were not supposed to smell like temptation and winter and make her heart pound for reasons she despised.
When he finished, he let her go immediately.
Aria yanked her hand back like the cloth itself offended her.
“Why am I here?”
He turned away and went back to the stove.
The sheer audacity of it nearly made her scream.
“I asked you a question!”
He plated something from the pan onto a black ceramic dish. Eggs, roasted vegetables, fresh bread, slices of fruit arranged with maddening elegance.
Then he placed it on the island between them.
“Eat.”
Her mouth fell open.
“You kidn*pped me!”
“Protected you.”
“You murdered my family!”
His shoulders hardened.
“Eat.”
She snatched the plate and flung it across the room.
Porcelain shattered against stone.
Food slid down the wall.
Neither of them moved.
Then, slowly, he looked at the mess.
Back at her.
And to her utter disbelief—
He smiled.
Not kindly.
Not warmly.
A slow, dangerous curve of amusement.
“You’re expensive,” he murmured.
“I hate you.”
“Noted.”
“I hope you choke.”
“That can be arranged.”
She wanted to throw something else, but the kitchen had become suspiciously empty of throwable objects.
He moved to a drawer, took out another plate, and began cooking again.
Fresh eggs cracked one-handed into the pan.
Butter hissed.
Aria stared.
“Are you insane?”
“Frequently.”
“You think breakfast fixes murder?”
“No.” He flipped an omelet with irritating skill. “But starving yourself would annoy me, and I refuse to reward that behavior.”
Her fingers curled.
“Who are you?”
This time he answered.
“Kael.”
The name slid through the room like dark silk.
It fit him too well.
“And what are you?”
He glanced over his shoulder, expression unreadable.
“The reason no one enters this palace without permission.”
That was not an answer.
Yet something in her already knew.
The growl.
The eyes.
The impossible speed.
Monster.
She took a step backward.
Then another.
He noticed immediately.
“Aria.”
The sound of her name in his voice made her spine lock.
“Don’t say my name.”
“It belongs to you.”
“Not from your mouth.”
His gaze sharpened, but he said nothing.
Good.
Let him choke on silence.
She turned and fled the kitchen.
The corridors seemed larger now, colder, endless stretches of stone and moonlight. Her bare feet slapped across marble as she ran without direction, panic clawing at her lungs.
She needed a door.
A lock.
A weapon.
A way out.
She rounded a corner and nearly crashed into a suit of armor. With a gasp, she shoved it aside and kept moving.
Every hall looked the same.
Every portrait watched.
Every shadow felt alive.
She yanked at one door.
Locked.
Another.
Library.
Another.
Empty sitting room.
Another—
Balcony.
Wind hit her face.
Aria stumbled onto the terrace and gripped the stone railing.
The view stole what remained of her breath.
The palace sat atop a mountain of black rock surrounded by forests so vast they swallowed the horizon. Peaks rose in the distance beneath low clouds. Below, far below, she saw walls, guard towers, rooftops, fires burning in a village built around the palace grounds.
An entire world hidden beyond the one she knew.
She was trapped in it.
The realization sank like ice into her veins.
There would be no taxi.
No phone call.
No father sending security.
No Lucian arriving with charming apologies.
Lucian.
Her knees nearly gave out.
He was dead.
She had watched it happen.
Tears burned hot and furious.
She hated herself for crying where he might see.
Too late.
A coat settled over her shoulders.
Heavy black wool carrying that same maddening scent.
She spun around.
Kael stood a few feet away, now fully dressed in dark trousers and a fitted black shirt rolled at the forearms. The casual domesticity of it all was obscene.
“Take it off,” she said.
“It’s cold.”
“I’d rather freeze.”
“Liar.”
She ripped the coat from her shoulders and threw it at him.
The wind caught it midair.
Before it could fly over the railing, he caught it one-handed without looking.
Show-off.
He draped it over his arm.
Then he said, very quietly, “You can hate me. You can throw knives. You can break every plate in this palace.”
He stepped closer.
The air itself seemed to tense.
“But you are not leaving.”
Aria lifted her chin, tears drying into fury.
“Watch me.”
His gaze swept over her face, lingering at her mouth.
When he spoke again, his voice was lower.
“Your voice is divine.”
The compliment hit her like an insult.
Something inside him softened, just for a second.
A mistake.
Aria smiled coldly.
“Then you’ll never hear it again.”
Before he could move, she climbed onto the stone railing and threw herself over the castle wall.
A smirk curved her lips as their eyes locked one final time—
Then she disappeared beyond the edge.
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