CHAPTER FOURTEEN:THE UNWELCOME GUEST
1164 Words
The air was thick with something strange that morning—something Aurelia couldn’t quite name. It wasn’t the cold that coiled through the stone walls of the mansion, nor the gray clouds that hovered low over the mountains. It was a shift in energy, as if the house itself had sensed something... or someone.
Lucien was different, too.
He hadn't spoken much during breakfast, only casting his usual unreadable glances from behind his tall glass of dark red liquid. Aurelia couldn’t tell whether it was wine or something else. Something much darker.
But it was his tension that clued her in. His knuckles were white against the silverware. The head maid, seemed more rigid than usual as well. Her footsteps were brisk, her responses clipped. The maids—hired few weeks hafter Lucien’s ruthless command—whispered among themselves, fear scrawled across their faces like ink.
After breakfast, Lucien stood and addressed the room. His voice, smooth as velvet and cold as winter steel, silenced the crackling fireplace.
“No one leaves their room tonight,” he announced, eyes narrowed as if issuing a death sentence. “Not for any reason.”
The maids bowed their heads in submission. Aurelia stiffened, her curiosity stirring.
“Why?” she dared to ask, heart thumping.
Lucien turned to her, slow and deliberate. “Because I said so.”
She flinched but didn’t look away. His gaze lingered for a moment—intense, burning with something dangerous and ancient—then he turned and strode out of the dining room, his coat flaring behind him like the wings of a dark angel.
Aurelia’s gut twisted. That warning wasn’t normal. It wasn't like the petty cruelties he'd doled out before. There was something else. A fear Lucien never showed.
That night, she stayed in her room, lying in bed wide-eyed as the wind howled outside the castle walls. The red crescent moon hung low in the sky like a bleeding scar, and the shadows in her room flickered strangely, as though something—or someone—watched from them.
She tried to distract herself with books, with the dull candlelight, with pacing, but the tension wouldn’t leave her body. Her fingers itched to touch the handle of her door. Her mind kept spinning:
Who’s coming? Why now? Why so suddenly?
And then she heard it.
A knock. Not on her door—but on the great front doors of the castle.
The sound echoed through the mansion like thunder.
Footsteps. Heavy. Measured.
She rushed to the window, pushing the curtains aside to see—but the courtyard below was cloaked in darkness. Still, she caught a glimpse of something… pale hair glinting like moonlight. A tall figure. Too tall. And then—Lucien.
He moved fast, intercepting the visitor before they could step inside the main hall.
Aurelia squinted. Her breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t make out his face, but there was something horrifying about the man's presence. The stranger leaned in toward Lucien, smiling like a wolf. Lucien’s body tensed. Not in fear. But in loathing.
Aurelia slipped into the hall. She knew it was reckless. Suicidal, even. But her body moved before her mind could stop it. She had to see.
She crept through the long corridors, heart hammering as the wind outside whistled louder, crueler. She reached the grand stairway and peeked over the rail.
There he was.
The stranger.
His hair was white as bone, falling past his shoulders in waves. His eyes glowed faintly red beneath the shadow of a wide-brimmed hat, and his lips curved in a smile that promised ruin.
Lucien stood directly in front of him, blocking his view of the stairs, of her.
They were speaking—too low for her to hear. But their stances said enough. This wasn’t a reunion. It was a battlefield.
Then it happened.
The stranger’s head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing. “You smell different, Lucien,” he said, his voice drifting through the silence like smoke. “There’s something new in this place.”
Lucien didn’t flinch. “You’re mistaken.”
“Am I?” The man’s eyes flicked past Lucien’s shoulder. Just for a second.
And they landed on her.
Aurelia’s breath froze in her chest.
Their gazes met.
The stranger’s smile deepened, his tongue flicking over his bottom lip.
“A little mouse in your castle?” he murmured.
Lucien moved fast—faster than she’d ever seen. He grabbed the man by the collar and shoved him back, slamming him into the stone wall with a sickening crack.
“She is none of your concern,” Lucien growled.
The man laughed, unfazed. “You’re slipping, old friend. Keeping toys now?”
Lucien didn’t speak. His fists trembled with restraint, eyes burning like coals. Finally, he released the man, stepping back, jaw tight.
“You’ve overstayed your welcome, Erevan.”
“Just dropping by,” Erevan said, straightening his coat. “We’ll speak again soon.”
He glanced up the stairs once more, winked at Aurelia, and vanished into the night like smoke.
The door shut with a deafening thud.
Lucien didn’t turn around immediately. But Aurelia knew what was coming.
When he finally turned, his eyes met hers with fury—not the cold kind he usually wore like armor—but wild, vicious rage.
“You disobeyed me.”
“I—”
“You were told to stay in your room.”
Her voice shook. “I wanted to know who he was.”
Lucien stormed up the stairs. She backed away instinctively, but he was faster. He grabbed her wrist—tight, unyielding.
“You endangered both of us tonight,” he hissed. “You have no idea who that was.”
“Then tell me!”
“No.”
“I deserve to know! I’m not just—just some slave you own!”
He laughed bitterly. “Aren’t you?”
His words slapped her harder than any physical blow. She stared at him, stunned.
“You think you’re something special?” he continued, voice low and venomous. “You think because your father sold you to me, you’re a lady now? You’re not. You’re a servant. A burden I didn’t ask for.”
Her chest heaved. “Then why not let me go?”
“Because you’re mine,” he said, his eyes glowing faintly now. “And I don’t like my things being seen.”
Tears welled in her eyes. She wrenched her arm free. “You’re a monster.”
He didn’t deny it.
She turned and fled down the hall, heart shattering with each step. She collapsed into her room, slamming the door shut behind her and sliding down the wall.
Her body trembled.
Her tears wouldn’t stop.
And there was a flicker of something that passed across Lucien’s face before she left.
It wasn’t rage.
It was something else.
Something like... fear.
Not of Erevan.
But of losing her.
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- Writer
