Chapter 6
Balthazar
As the carriage rolled into the distance, its wheels whispering along the path toward the stables, I stood alone before my estate.
The air was scented with the fragrance of summer roses, their sweetness mingling with the breeze that curled gently against my skin. It had been years since I’d stood on this land, yet everything felt achingly familiar—the aroma, the silence, the memories.
And yet, something had changed.Ihad changed.
Alina Tocino—Lady Tocino—was not what I expected. I had come for blood. Come to extinguish a name, erase a lineage. But instead… I found her.
A vision in chaos.
Beautiful. Defiant. Utterly intoxicating.
She was no innocent porcelain doll unaware of the shadows clinging to her soul. No—her villainy was nascent, blooming like nightshade under moonlight, and I longed to pull her deeper into my wicked world. To watch her ripen into something terrifying and exquisite.
She was temptation incarnate.
A ripe fruit, teetering on the edge of surrender.
The thought alone stirred something dark and delicious within me. I suppressed a shudder as the image of her body beneath mine crossed my mind—mouth parted, soul half-consumed.
I turned toward the estate.
The stone pillars flanking the entrance stood as proud and cold as they had a century ago. Weathered but enduring wrought-iron gates creaked open at my approach as if they remembered me.
The night around me held its breath. The grass rustled beneath my boots, and with every step, I felt the thrum of something old and vital returning to life.
I had never felt morealivein all my centuries.
And it was because ofher.
Inside, the marble floors greeted me with a familiar chill. My cloak billowed behind me as I stepped into the grand foyer, the scent of roses lingering here, too, as if her presence had already bled into the walls.
Through the towering windows, the gardens glowed silver under the moon. The paths wound like veins between flowerbeds in full bloom. Topiaries, untouched by time, stretched like reaching hands. Every hedge was still shaped to perfection, the work of artisans long buried but not forgotten.
Beyond the gardens, the villa rose like a monument to memory—stone bathed in moonlight, regal and silent.
This place had once been a sanctuary—a fortress.
But now, with Alina on my mind and her taste still on my lips?—
It had become something else entirely.
A throne.
And she, perhaps, the queen.
I learned of Alina’s whereabouts through a shadow known as Valentina.
She, like me, had survived the fall of the Coven.
Ever since her mother ripped her from my grasp—vanishing into the folds of time—I had hunted Alina with a singular, burning purpose. I tore through realms and decades in search of her, the ghost of her memory whispering promises of vengeance and closure.
And in the meantime, I turned my fury elsewhere.
Mathias’ legacy was the first to fall.
