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The dark corner is completely engulfed in swirling, unnatural shadows. There’s a broad, imposing outline of a man leaning casually against the stone pillar, but his physical form is obscured by liquid blackness. I can’t see his skin. I can’t make out his face. I can’t even see his eyes. Only the dark, lethal silhouette of a demon watching me from the dark.
“You locked the fucking door,” I snap. As I turn to face the shadowed corner, I plant my feet firmly on the stone floor.
“And? It’s my house. I can do what I want.” Vesper’s voice ripples through the cool air, coming closer without his shadow moving a single inch. “I explicitly stated the rules in my letter. Did you fail to read them, or are you naturally this disobedient?”
Fucking asshole. He said I could explore the estate. He never said I couldn’t walk out to the gardens. “Your rules mean nothing to me. I don’t take orders from kidnappers,” I retort. The scent of cinnamon and deep ocean hits me like a physical touch, making my core ache in a way that pisses me off to no end.
Vesper tsks, and even that sound can be so damn cocky and amused. “You promised, Bellamy. Your life. Your breath. Your body.” The last sentence is drawled out and emphasized with a whisper along the shell of my ear, and a sensual caress from several of his dark, shadowy tendrils.
My chest heaves as my heart hammers frantically. Terror mixes with adrenaline. How the hell is he whispering in my ear while still across the room? My nipples pebble as my traitorous body reacts to his presence. His words.
I try my hardest to ignore the fact that I’m wildly turned on. Despite the situation, it feels so fucking good. For the first time since Gregory tried to lock me up, I feel… alive. I shake my head, shoving the thoughts away. “You healed me just to keep me caged. You’re no better than Gregory.”
A low, dark chuckle echoes from the darkness, rich and sensual.
“Comparing me to that pathetic fucking worm is a damn insult,” Vesper murmurs. His voice slides over my skin like warm silk, making the fine hairs on my arms stand on end. “He locked you in a cage to break you. To hurt you. I keep you behind these doors so my hound doesn’t have to burn the world down just to protect you.”
“I don’t need your protection!” I scream. “Unbolt the door, Vesper.”
“No,” Vesper replies, his cocky amusement practically palpable in the dark air. He takes one step forward, shadows following.
“Then show yourself, coward. Stop hiding.”
“No,” he says again. “You aren’t ready to see what I am, Bellamy. And as for the door… You bargained away your right to leave the moment you spilled your blood on my crossroads and said deal.”
The shadow in the corner shifts, melting into the floor and vanishing entirely, leaving only the lingering warmth of his scent behind.
“Enjoy my estate,” his velvet voice whispers from the ambient air around my ears, fading away into nothing. “It is the prettiest gilded cage you will ever own.”
I glare at the empty corner, my hands clenched into tight fists at my sides, my breathing ragged. Behind me, the deadbolt remains firmly locked. On the stone floor at my feet, the massive, feral shadow of the beast slowly stretches out, resting its dark head near my boots like a loyal, terrifying guard dog. His eyes glow that eerie, familiar blue, and I wonder if he’d actually burn the world down to keep me safe. A memory tries to surface, but never comes.
I’m trapped. Beautifully, luxuriously trapped.
And as I look down at the beast’s shadow hovering beside me, feeling the lingering echo of Vesper’s voice burning beneath my skin, I realize the most terrifying truth of all.
The furious outrage of being trapped burns in my throat, but God help me, I’ve never felt this safe in my life.
Chapter four
Vesper
Seven days. Seven whole fucking days I’ve spent skulking around the high rafters and shadowy corners of my own estate, stalking a creature who looks far too fucking beautiful to belong in a place this dead.
My Devil Dog sits beside my boots in shadow form, panting silently with its phantom tongue lolling out like a damned eager golden retriever staring at his human master. I glare down at the mass of writhing darkness hovering against the cold floorboards. It has been two decades since I bound my soul to this ancient, non-verbal cryptid to save its infernal hide from fading into nothingness. Twenty years of raw instinct, violent territorial urges, and cold, calculating slaughter. Not once in those two decades has the beast reacted to a soul on this earth. Not to my fellow high demons, not to blood offerings, and certainly not to a fragile little human.
Yet the moment Bellamy’s blood touched the mud at the crossroads, the cryptid nearly tore through my ribcage just to claim him. Mine. That damn word. That was the only thought echoing through our shared link.
A primal, suffocating demand.
Up on the grand balcony, I watch through the heavy veil of night magic as Bellamy stands near the locked rose garden doors. Every night he goes there, testing the door. Searching for a way out. His hands are still balled into fists, his knuckles pale against the glow of the sconces. His chest heaves beneath the oversized silk dress shirt I had left in his quarters.
It fits him like a damn sin. The fine white silk drapes over his shoulders, falling halfway down his thighs, leaving those long, pale legs bare. His long, wavy brown hair tumbles over his collarbones in reckless, untamed curls. There is a delicate, almost feminine softness to the line of his throat and the sweep of his jaw, but the fire burning in his green eyes is pure, unadulterated venom.
He hates me. He hates the locks. He hates the invisible walls keeping him wrapped in silk and safety.
And fuck me if it doesn’t turn me on to no end.
I watch him spin on his bare heel, muttering a string of filthy curses under his breath as he marches back toward the grand staircase. He stops for half a second, his head tilting toward the exact patch of shadow where I am concealed thirty feet above him. His brow furrows. He studies the darkness with an uncanny, razor-sharp focus.
