Something was watching her. Raina sat upright in bed, the velvet blanket tangled around her legs. She hadn't slept not really.
Not with the chandelier above trembling as if it breathed, or the walls whispering things she couldn't hear but somehow felt.
The room was beautiful. Luxurious. Cold. But it didn't feel like hers. It felt… borrowed. Like it belonged to something ancient, and she was just passing through. She looked around, muscles tense. The armoire stood closed. The curtains were drawn. A fire hadn't been lit, yet the air pulsed with warmth unnatural, still.
Then her eyes landed on the nightstand. The contract. It hadn't been there when she entered the room. Now, it lay open. Waiting. She rolled to her side, eyes narrowing. The parchment hummed. Softly. Faint, but constant. Like a lullaby sung from inside the walls.
Raina reached for it, her heartbeat speeding up. The moment her fingers brushed the surface, a pulse shot through her hand not pain, not heat. Something deeper.
A vibration beneath her skin, like a voice whispering her name in a language she didn't speak. For half a second, she felt calm. Like the paper… recognized her. Then it stopped. She jerked her hand back. The hum died. She swung her legs off the bed and pressed her bare feet to the floor. Cold marble grounded her. But the feeling in her chest didn't settle.
This place didn't want her to rest. It wanted her to remember. Creak. Her head snapped toward the door. Footsteps. Soft. Measured. She moved silently to the door and opened it a sliver. No one. But then down the corridor, a figure. Lucien.
He stood with his back to her, shirtless in front of a tall mirror at the end of the hall. His body was lean, pale and sculpted.
But it wasn't his form that stunned her. It was the scars. Dozens of them. Silver-lined. Crisscrossing his back like ancient runes carved into flesh.
They shimmered faintly under the chandelier's dying light. They didn't look recent. They looked eternal. She knew she should close the door. Give him his privacy. But she couldn't.
Something about him about this moment held her in place. His reflection shifted. He turned. Their eyes met through the mirror. "You couldn't sleep." Not a question. Raina swallowed. "No." Lucien turned fully to face her.
His eyes silver, unblinking pinned her to the floor. His voice was quieter now. "The house remembers you." "I've never been here before." "Not in this life." Her breath caught.
"What do you mean?" He didn't answer. Instead, he tilted his head as if he were listening to something only he could hear.
Then his gaze shifted past her, and he turned, disappearing down the hallway. No sound. No footsteps. Just gone. She stared after him, pulse racing. Just before she closed the door, something glinted in the dark.
A symbol. Etched into the back of his neck. Glowing faintly. The same symbol from the contract. Her chest tightened. She looked down at her own hand. There. Faint. Glowing just beneath the skin.
A crescent mark. She staggered back a step, breath shallow. It hadn't been there earlier. Not when she arrived. Not when she signed. But now it was hers.
She closed the door softly. Like slamming it might wake something ancient. Back in bed, she didn't even try to sleep.
She stared at the ceiling, mind spinning, the shape on her skin pulsing with warmth. How did she end up here? What had she really agreed to? And why did she feel like… this wasn't her first time?
When morning came if it could be called that it brought no sun.
Just a grey haze that seeped through the curtains like light was afraid to enter.
She rose from the bed and walked to the window.
The fog outside was thicker than before. The mansion grounds were barely visible.
She pressed her palm to the cold glass, staring out at a world that didn't feel like it belonged to this century.
Didn't feel like it belonged to her, either.
And yet, something inside her whispered otherwise.
She turned her hand over, the mark still glowed faintly.
The same one Lucien wore, the same one from the contract the same one th
at called her here.
She hadn't come by accident.
She hadn't been hired.
She'd been claimed.