PRINCE OF SIN

Chapter 4

The Valerius estate was not a home; it was a gothic monument to ego and cruelty. Perched on a jagged cliff overlooking the churning gray waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea, the castle was a sprawl of black basalt and obsidian glass.

Julian hadn’t spoken a word to me since we left Florence. He kept me in the back of the car, the silence between us thick and suffocating, though the air still seemed to vibrate with the ghost of that violent kiss. He didn’t look at me, but I could feel him, a constant, heavy pressure in the periphery of my vision.

He led me through corridors lined with portraits of men who all shared his cold, predatory eyes. They looked like a lineage of monsters, each one more hollow than the last.

“This is your wing,” Julian said, throwing open a pair of heavy iron bound doors.

The room was opulent and terrifying. A canopy bed of black silk, walls draped in deep crimson velvet, and a single, massive mahogany desk. But my eyes were drawn to the center of the room, where a glass display case sat. Inside was a single, ancient dagger, its blade made of a strange, iridescent white stone that seemed to glow with a pale, sickly light.

“The Alabaster Blade,” Julian murmured, appearing behind me. His voice was a low hum against my neck. “The only weapon in existence capable of piercing the heart of a Valerius.”

I shivered, stepping closer to the glass. “Why would you keep something like this in your house? Isn’t it… dangerous?”

Julian’s hand slid around my waist, pulling me back against his chest. He didn’t embrace me; he gripped me, his fingers digging into my hips with a bruising intensity. He leaned down, his lips grazing the shell of my ear.

“It is the most dangerous thing in this castle,” he whispered. “Because it only works if the hand wielding it carries the blood of the Thorne lineage.”

I froze. The name hit me like a physical blow. “Thorne? I don’t know any Thornes. My father was a historian, he…”

“Your father was a liar, Penelope.”

Julian turned me around with a sudden, violent motion, forcing me to look up at him. His eyes weren’t just dark now; they were burning with a terrifying, manic hunger.

“There was no debt. There was no contract signed in blood. Your father didn’t sell you to me; he spent twenty years scrubbing your name from every record, hiding you in the shadows of Florence, praying that the House of Valerius would never find the last Thorne.”

My heart hammered against my ribs. “What are you talking about?”

Julian’s smile was slow, cruel, and utterly devoted. He reached out, his thumb tracing the line of my throat, right over the artery where he had felt my pulse in my bedroom.

“You aren’t my prize, Penelope. You are my executioner.” He leaned in, his voice dropping to a guttural rasp. “I didn’t bring you here to own you. I brought you here because I want to see if you have the courage to kill me. I want to feel your hand on that blade. I want to see the moment you realize that the only way to be free of me… is to carve my heart out of my chest.”

He kissed me then, but it wasn’t the conquest of the previous night. It was a plea. A dark, twisted prayer. He kissed me like a man who was already dead, begging the only person who could end his suffering to finally do it.