"Good. Does it free you?"
I look into his eyes—those silver mirrors of my own darkness. No expectations. No recitals. No father judging my weight. No mother judging my marriage prospects. Just this. Just the music. Just the man who crossed oceans of time and morality to steal me.
"Yes," I confess. The word is a sob. "It frees me."
Alaric’s eyes darken. The pupil swallows the iris. "Then show me," he growls.
He doesn't drag me to the bedroom. He lifts me up. He carries me back to the piano. He sits me on top of the closed lid. The black lacquer is cool against my thighs, slick and hard. He steps between my knees, pushing the skirt of my dress up to my waist.
"We played the Adagio," he whispers, his hands gripping my hips, bruising the skin. "Now we play the Cadenza."
He kisses my throat, biting the pulse point. "Open for me."
I wrap my legs around his waist. I pull him closer. I am crying, but I am not sad. I am mourning the girl who died three days ago. And I am welcoming the monster who killed her.
He enters me right there, on top of the Steinway. The movement is sharp, deep, absolute. I gasp, my head falling back, my hair spilling over the black wood like spilled ink. He moves with the rhythm of the storm outside. Relentless. Powerful. Inevitable. Every thrust is a declaration.Mine.Mine.Mine.
And as the pleasure builds, sharp and blinding, I dig my nails into his shoulders and realize the final, twisted truth of our duet. He didn't just steal me. I let him. I was waiting for him in Vienna. I was waiting for him in New York. I was waiting for the Devil to come and collect his due.
And now that he's here... I’m never letting him go.
[LATER]
The fire in the hearth has burned down to embers. We are lying on the rug in front of the fireplace, tangled in a mess of limbs and discarded clothes. The piano looms above us in the shadows, a silent witness to our desecration.
Alaric is tracing patterns on my bare back with his fingertips. I am resting my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. It is slow again. Steady.Thump. Thump.
"Alaric?"
"Hmm?"
"If I'm dead," I trace a scar on his pectoral muscle. "Then who am I now?"
He catches my hand. He kisses the bite mark on my palm. "You are the Muse," he says simply. "You are the Siren of Hallowed Halls."
He shifts, propping himself up on one elbow to look down at me. "But sirens attract ships, Elodie. And ships bring sailors. And sailors bring war."
"What do you mean?" I frown, sensing a shift in his mood. The peace is fracturing.
"I removed Vance," he says quietly. "But Vance was not acting alone. He was a symptom of a larger infection." He reaches for his discarded jacket and pulls out a second file. This one is black. Thinner. He hands it to me.
"What is this?"
"Vance's leverage," Alaric says grimly. "We found it in his car before the... accident."
I open the file. It contains blueprints. Blueprints of Hallowed Halls. And a list of names. My name is at the top. Circled in red. But there are other names. Senators. Judges. CEO's children.
"He was selling patient data," I whisper. "Blackmail."
"Worse," Alaric says. "He was building a dossier for a takeover. A hostile acquisition of the facility." He taps the bottom of the page. There is a note scrawled in handwriting I don't recognize.Target verified. The Director is compromised. The girl is the weakness. Strike when he is distracted.
"He knew," Alaric says, his voice cold. "He knew I was obsessed with you. He planned to use you to force me to sell."
"So killing him... it wasn't just jealousy."
"It was strategic," Alaric agrees. "But here is the problem,petite." He takes the file back and tosses it into the dying fire. We watch the paper curl and blacken. "Vance had a partner. Someone who gave him those blueprints. Someone on the inside."
I feel a chill that has nothing to do with the temperature. "Inside the asylum?"
