Chapter 6: The One Who Was Promised Blood
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POV: UNKNOWN
The bridal suite was meant to dazzle. Fresh-cut orchids. Gold-threaded linens. Perfume of roses, of wealth, of ownership. But now, it stank of betrayal.
He stood in the middle of it, still dressed in ceremonial white. The servants had fled. The music had died hours ago. The silence? That was new.
The silence told him she was gone.
Jasmine. His bride.
Hand-picked. Hand-packaged. A daughter bartered by a desperate father clinging to power. He couldn’t remember her face—only the ledger her name belonged to. She wasn’t a person. She was a contract. A vessel. A future sealed in blood.
And she had run.
The butler had come stammering in, pale and shaking. “She is gone, sir.”
At first, the words bounced uselessly around his skull. But then he’d stormed down the hallway, kicked open the suite door—and saw the mess.
The wardrobe: empty. The bed: stripped. The window: broken, the curtains fluttering like they were waving goodbye.
He was a man raised on control. Entitlement carved into his bones. From the moment he could speak, he was taught: women are assets. Daughters are debts. Jasmine was a payment long overdue.
And she had dared.
She had dared to run.
The card on the bed caught his attention next. Black matte, red insignia. Elegant. Mocking.
He picked it up.
Etched in coded script:
"To cage fire, you must first survive the burn."
It meant nothing. It meant everything. And when his fingers curled around it, the microshock burst like lightning into his palm, and a crackle of pain exploded through his fingers. A high-voltage shock surged through him, flooring him in a second.
He landed with a thud, his body twitching. He screamed, falling back, slamming into the dresser. Smoke curled from the scorched skin.
The guards rushed forward, but Niccolo knelt and spotted the fine line of microshock wiring woven into the ink.
"Microshock Sensory Tech," he muttered. "Laced onto the card. Whoever did this… they knew what they were doing."
He stood slowly, pain radiating up his arm. His jaw tightened. But his face, expressionless. Cold.
He had been taught early on that emotion is a leash. And he refused to wear one.
Then his eyes locked on Mr. Sterling.
The man was already on his knees. Sweat poured down his temples. Fear clung to him like a second skin.
“My Lord, please! I didn’t know. She was never meant to disobey. She...she was trained better than this. She's just a girl...”
“She was mine.”
“Please… I have another daughter. She’s younger. Still untouched. Take her...”
He struck him. Not with a punch, but with his words.
"You’ll give me her. One day. That’s all you get. One day to bring her back. Or I will burn your house from the roots."
He turned his back as Sterling sobbed into the marble floor.
The pain wasn’t what infuriated him.
The message did.
It was cryptic, but familiar.
He knew this symbol. These tactics.
It belonged to the underground.
To the whispers in back alleys and crumbling cities. To the shadows that smuggled daughters out of gilded cages. To the voices that called themselves righteous but stank of rebellion.
He had killed for less. He would kill for this.
That’s when he saw it.
A flicker of white against the black velvet floor.
A photo.
Not Jasmine.
He knelt and picked it up.
The girl in the image wasn’t his bride. But she was worse. So much worse.
She was beautiful. Wild. Untamed.
Young. Powerful. Not with strength, but with defiance.
Her face was soft, too soft to be in this game.
But her eyes held storms. She had a fire in her gaze that screamed, Come closer. I dare you.
His lips curled. His heart did something strange... a quick, stuttering throb.
Not fear.
Hunger.
“Who is she?” he muttered.
Niccolo hesitated. “That’s not Jasmine.”
“She helped her. Look at her. That face doesn't hide. It challenges.”
A heartbeat stuttered in his chest.
Beautiful. Daring. A mistake.
His.
Niccolo looked unsure. "She could be anyone. A servant, a relative, or an innocent..."
“Innocence is irrelevant. She touched what was mine. And now... so is she.”
He held the photo like scripture.
“Find out who she is. Where she sleeps. What she eats. How she breathes.”
His voice dropped lower, darker.
“How she screams.”
He looked at the image again.
He imagined her chained. Stripped of fire. Eyes hollowed. Voice broken.
And it calmed him.
“When I find her...” he murmured. “She will learn pain in syllables. Regret in color. I’ll teach her what a scream tastes like.”
Niccolo flinched, studying the photo. The girl...so young, so vivid.
She looked like someone who didn’t belong in this world. Too real. Too alive.
She had no idea what was coming.
He turned back to his boss. “If she’s innocent...”
He cut him off.
“She’s mine.”
He had worked long enough under this man to know that beauty was a death sentence if the wrong eyes saw it.
He looked away.
Because the girl in the photo, whoever she was, had just become prey to a monster who didn't forgive, didn't forget, and didn’t stop.
And her face… would haunt more than just one nightmare.
She wasn’t Jasmine.
But she would suffer as if she were.
Because now.... he wanted her.
It was her mistake, being caught in the wrong room, at the wrong time.
But mistakes had consequences.
He stepped toward the window Jasmine had escaped through. Leaned out.
The wind didn’t sting his burn. It cooled him. Fueled him.
“She will scream,” he said, not to anyone in particular.
“Not because she’s Jasmine. But because she isn’t. Because she defied me. Because she reminds me of everything that refuses to kneel.”
He turned, a cruel smile blooming. A photo. Just one.
It must’ve slipped from a pocket, or perhaps it was planted. He didn’t care.
Because she had a fire in her eyes that dared him to burn.
He glanced up at the photo again, fingers trembling now from something colder than anger.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
The girl looked back at him from the still image.
This wasn’t the girl he was promised. But this—this was a challenge.
His voice dropped to a murmur, venomous and still.
“I’ll make her scream for interfering. I’ll break her until she forgets she ever stood against me.”
Because this wasn't just about Jasmine anymore.
This was personal.
“I’ll carve her name out of her myself.”
He turned to Niccolo. “Prepare the dogs. If she runs—I want to hear her scream in the distance.”
Niccolo said nothing. He looked again at the girl’s face in the photo.
Beautiful. Unlucky.
And now marked by a monster.
He tucked it into a folder, silently praying she’d vanish before they could find her.
But monsters rarely pray.
And they never forget a name—even one they haven’t learned yet.
Especially the ones they plan to bleed into the walls.
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Much Love ❤
Riya
- Writer
