He smiled wickedly.
“Instead,” he said, softly, “I fell in love.”
The words hit me like a narcotic—beautiful, dangerous, paralyzing. My limbs felt heavy. My thoughts scattered like ash in the wind. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know who I was anymore.
All I knew was that something had shifted.
And there would be no turning back.
Chapter 15
Balthazar
Ihad shifted back into my “normal” form as I lay beside Alina, staring up at the ceiling of the dingy brothel room. The space reeked of mildew and forgotten sins. Damp clung to the walls like moldy parchment, and the air was thick with the stench of rot—of sweat, despair, and cheap perfume ground into the wood over years of use.
The room was pitifully small, furnished with nothing more than a rickety bed, a plain wooden chair with one uneven leg, and a chipped washbasin resting atop a three-legged stool that looked one breath away from collapse.
The only light came from a single window, its glass streaked with grime and framed by threadbare curtains faded to the color of old bones. A sickly yellow glow seeped in from the street beyond, casting a jaundiced hue across the bed and the warped floorboards. Every shadow twitched with secrets.
In the corner sat a battered wooden chest, half-open, filled with the poor whore’s meager belongings. A pair of stained blouses. A dirty brown shawl. A cracked hand mirror with silver peeling at the edges. A handful of trinkets, none worth stealing. The total of a forgotten life.
There were no personal touches—nothing to hint at joy or comfort—just survival.
The only thing hanging on the walls was a single oilpainting—a woman, her hair coiled in intricate curls, her cheeks dusted rose, her face painted a pristine, ghostly white. She was elegance captured in pigment—beautiful, noble, untouchable.
She mocked the rest of the room.
She didn’t belong here—not in this nest of sweat-stained sheets and whispered transactions. And yet, the woman in the painting hung above the bed like a ghost of forgotten elegance, her powdered face and coiled curls watching over the filth below with cold detachment.
A silent witness to the endless cycle of flesh and coin.
It was the perfect place to reveal my true self—a room steeped in habitual depravity, where shadows clung to the corners and secrets breathed beneath the floorboards.
A place where anything could happen.
And no one would ever know.
A grim smile tugged at my lips as I reflected on what Alina and I had just done—what we’d shared. No one who had ever entered this room had experienced anything like that. Of that, I was certain.
I had let herseeme—truly see me, in all my grotesque, unfiltered depravity.
The truth beneath the glamour.
I was born of decay—a creature of rot and shadow. I had no place in the light, no form meant to be loved. Over the years, I’d learned to wear a prettier mask—to seduce, disarm, and make myself palatable to those who only craved beauty.
But with Alina… everything was different.
Everything.
I never thought I’d find someone who would accept what I was. Not fully. Not in the state that would make most run screaming.
Zara had once loved me, yes, but she was born of darkness, too. We were two cursed things that recognized one another—reflections in a blackened mirror.
But Alina?
She wasn’t just born of darkness—shethrivedin it. Her past aligned with mine like jagged puzzle pieces clicking into place. And when she whispered that she wantedallof me—even the monster—I’d felt something terrifyingly close to awe.
I couldn’t believe it.
