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His praise warms my cheeks, but my eyes stay locked on his. The way he looks at me like I’m perfect is too good to lose.
He drapes the cloak back over my shoulders. The fabric feels protective now, less like a costume of purity.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” I admit, still trembling.
Reese and Lucian approach with their hoods lowered and masks removed. Reese’s eyes shine with unmistakable pride.
“You took that round.”
Lucian scoffs. “All Patrick did was have her ride him.”
I don’t care what Patrick and Bridget did. But I do wish Edwin’s brothers didn’t have to watch.
My legs shake when Edwin helps me stand. He lifts me easily, gathering me into his arms, where the world can’t touch me.
The only thing I want now is to disappear with him somewhere quiet and dark. Somewhere the rules of the Order can’t reach.
CHAPTER 40
ZAIYA
“Zaiya.”
I startle awake, searching in the dark for whoever called out my name.
Edwin is behind me, his arm draped heavily across my waist, refusing to let me drift too far even in sleep. Beyond the windows, the world remains wrapped in darkness.
Must have been a dream.
The final Trial exhausted me more than I realized because my body feels wrung clean. I should be able to close my eyes and disappear back into my dream, but my mind won’t follow. It keeps turning over the memory of us in that chamber. The way our connection felt like a live wire under my skin. How being bound to him made the world fall away until there was nothing left but heat and pain and his body so deeply attached to mine.
My mouth is parched, but I hesitate to get up. I lie still for a minute, listening to the sounds of Highstone Manor. It’s never truly silent. Old wood groans as the walls settle. A clock ticks faintly somewhere along the wall.
As spooky as it is, I decide to be brave. I’ve mastered the route to the kitchen by now.
Gingerly, I slide out from under Edwin’s arm. He shifts, a small, possessive movement that makes me freeze. Even asleep, he notices when I’m gone. But his face remains peaceful, lashes dark against his skin.
I pull his black robe around myself. It hangs from my shoulders and nearly swallows my body, but I prefer it to the skimpy silk thing he has for me. He took me to bed naked, as if clothes were unnecessary between us now.
The hallway outside the bedroom is dim, lit by wall sconces that barely do their job. The wallpaper is nearly black. Intricate patterns curl across it like veins. Every time I walk these halls at night, I feel like a woman from another century chasing ghosts with nothing but the light from the candelabra in her hand.
I move quietly, bare feet finding the places where the floorboards don’t creak. I know the long corridors and sharp turns. The walls where portraits stare down with grave expressions.
I’m halfway down the hall when something pale flickers at the edge of my vision.
A woman’s figure in a dress, moving down the far corridor with an easy glide.
For a heartbeat, my body locks. My breath stops. But when I turn my head fully, she’s gone.
My pulse trips over itself.
Edwin is convinced this place is haunted. By his mother, his father, by generations of Crotaveres who lived and died here. He told me no one ever truly leaves Highstone Manor. That grief gets stuck in the walls.
At the time, I didn’t know whether to believe him. Now, I find it more likely.
I walk towards where I saw her and reach the end of the hallway where there’s a single closed door.
It feels wrong to pry. The manor is full of rooms that seem to belong more to memory than to the living. But if this place is becoming my home, I should know what travels through its walls.
