My breath grew thin and ragged. I was already regretting my question. My stomach contracted into a tight ball, seeing him turn slowly toward me. My skin grew clammy, and I felt myself becoming chalk white the moment he revealed himself to me for the first time. I gasped and stumbled backward.
My fingers sought out anything they could hold on to and tightened on the edge of the table. His burning gaze was dead set on me as my eyes darted around maniacally, afraid to meet his. Radcliff wasn’t hiding anymore—he was letting me see who he was, and that was terrifying.
I gulped before finding the courage to crane my neck. My stare collided with his, and when I did, my terror dissipated.
The light of the candles illuminated half of his face. The half that was perfect and untouched. The other half, the one that was dark and scarred, was hidden in the shadows.
My chin up, I held my breath to not give away my thoughts. He was analyzing me, letting me observe him like a monster in a circus. It was a test. He wanted fear, but I wouldn’t give it to him.
I stared at the gruesome slices in his face, as if he had been cut by blades. A long scar traveled from his cheek and cut through the middle of his eyebrow. The part of his skin surrounding the scar was mottled and ridged. The splotchy scar was darker than his skin tone, similar to the thorns of a rose. It looked like he had been burned by hell itself. His scar was old, but it felt like it could reopen at any moment and expose the layer of skin hidden behind the wound.
My gaze froze on his bloodshot left eye, with vessels that had burst inside. Fine filaments tarnished the white of it to plunge into the darkness of his black pupils. A part of me screamed that behind Radcliff’s apparent coolness, a boundless hellfire was raging in every one of his cells.
But I didn’t feel disgusted by that half of him. On the contrary, it held an entire world of story, a road map to the pain lurking underneath his skin.
What happened to him? What cruelty did that man suffer? What shaped him to be the man he was today? Hundreds of questions spiraled in my mind.
He was human, after all.
The Devil had bled. He had a vulnerability. A human’s past. He knew about pain.
“Aren’t you scared, little witch?” he muttered, danger in his voice.
“No.” I wasn’t.
I’d been surrounded by my own demons; he couldn’t compete against them. For one reason: I could put a face on him while I was never able to put a face on the ones in the dark.
A hard knot constricted my throat, making it hard to breathe. “What happened?”
“What makes you feel I want to talk about it with you?” The way he pronouncedwith youwas as if I was an abomination to him, a curse he couldn’t get rid of.
“You’re the one who wanted me here,” I deadpanned.
“Don’t make me regret that decision.”
His lips curled into a slight snarl, sending the sensation of a spider crawling down my back. Radcliff was so controlled, almost artificial, to the point that one would wonder if he was capable of feeling anything at all. At the most, right now, I was entertaining him like a puppet you could easily dispose of.
“You’re here because I want you to create a perfume for me,” he added.
My core awakened. My breath quickened. “W-What?”
“You heard me. And you’ll be using the Devil’s Corpse.”
The flower.My attention sparkled like a shark smelling blood. I was hyperalert.
“Obviously, that perfume will be strictly your creation, and you’ll be working on it alone. You’ll have until the first day of spring to succeed, and you’ll remain in Ravencliff Manor as my guest until then.”
I was without a voice.
Was I intrigued? Yes.
Did I want to study that flower and create a masterpiece?Heaven, yes.
Was I seriously considering this? Hell, yes.
He spoke to my obsession, the one that saved me from a life I didn’t want but cursed me into an endless torment.
“Why? Why couldn’t my uncle—”
