I stay there for an hour, my hand still on her face, staring at the wall. The witty retort doesn’t come. The sharp-tongued Peter Hale is gone, replaced by a man sitting in a dark room, realising that the woman he just broke didn’t surrender to his power—she surrendered to his pathetic, rotting soul.
I feel a cold, sharp ache in my chest, right where my heart should be. I hate it. I want to rip it out.
I stand up, my face hardening back into the mask of the monster. I walk to the window and look out at the gates, where the lights of the North End are gathering like wolves.
“Vane,” I say into my radio, my voice cold enough to freeze blood. “Ready the hounds. I’m in the mood to kill something that can scream.”
Wendy
The room is cold. That’s the first thing I feel—the absence of the heat he radiates like a dying star.
I reach out, my fingers trembling as they brush the silk sheets where he should be. The bed is vast, a desert of white linen and the lingering, suffocating scent of him. I’m alone. The silence of the room is heavy, pressing down on my chest until every breath feels like I’m inhaling glass.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed. My body is a map of yesterday’s sins. I feel the ache in my thighs, the sharp sting of the bite mark on my shoulder, and the heavy, bruised sensation between my legs. I should feel disgusted. I should feel like a victim.
I look at the door. It’s slightly ajar.
The lock isn’t engaged. I could walk out. I could find a window, a servant’s entrance, a way through the shadows and out past the gates.
Rule number one: You do not leave this estate.
His voice is a loop in my skull, echoing with that terrifying, melodic certainty. I stand up, my knees buckling for a second before I catch myself on the mahogany bedpost. I hate that I’m listening. I hate that my body instinctively tenses, waiting for his hand to catch my throat, for his teeth to claim my skin.
But the worst part—the part that makes me want to rip my own heart out—is the hollow, aching vacuum in the centre of my chest because he’s gone.
“I hate you,” I whisper to the empty air.
A sob breaks out of me, jagged and ugly. I sink to the floor, my forehead resting against the cold wood.Why am I looking for him? Why did my heart skip a beat when I thought I heard his boots in the hallway? He’s a monster. He’s a butcher who hangs skin like laundry and calls it decor. He’s a man who broke me until I begged for the ruin.
“I want to kill you,” I gasp, the tears hot and blurring my vision. “I want to watch the light go out of your eyes. I want to carve the loneliness out of you until there’s nothing left.”
I’m crying so hard I’m shaking, my breath coming in short, panicked gulps. I’m battling a war inside myself where every side is losing. One half of me is screaming for escape, for the girl who lived a normal life, while the other half—the fractured, dark half he created—is starving for the way he looks at me. Like I’m the only thing in the world that matters. Like I’m his only anchor in the dark.
I remember what I said to him before I slept. I remember the look on his face—that split-second where the mask cracked and I saw the rotting, hollow core of the man.
“You’re pathetic,” I sob into my hands. “And I’m worse. I’m fucking worse for wanting to stay.”
I want to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze until he stops smiling. And in the very same breath, I want him to walk through that door, throw me back onto this bed, and remind me why I don’t have a name anymore.
The door creaks open further.
I freeze, my breath hitching in my throat, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I don’t look up. I just stay there on the floor, a broken, sticky mess of honey and lace and salt, waiting to see if the monster has come home, or if the world is finally coming to take me back.
And God help me, I’m praying it’s him.
The door pushes open with a soft, melodic chime of brass against wood. I scramble backward on the floor, my robe catching on the splinters of the mahogany bedpost, my eyes wide and stinging with salt.
It isn’t him.
A woman glides into the room, carrying a heavy silver tray that smells of toasted sourdough and fresh rosemary. Her name is Sloane. I remember Peter mentioning her once—the only person in the house, he’d joked, who wasn’t afraid of his temper. She’s stunning, a contrast to the jagged violence of this room. Her skin is the deep, rich colour of mahogany, and her hair is cropped into a sharp, confident fade that frames a face of terrifying symmetry.
She doesn’t look at the floor where I’m cowering. She doesn’t look at the bite marks on my neck. She moveswith a calm, sweet grace, setting the tray down on the vanity with a quiet clink.
“Good morning, Miss Wendy,” she says, her voice a warm, honeyed contralto. She turns to me, her dark eyes reflecting a kindness that feels like a slap. “I’ve brought you some tea. Bergamot and orange. It’s good for the nerves.”
She walks over and offers me a hand. Her grip is firm, steady—the hand of someone who isn’t a prisoner. She helps me up, her touch light as she brushes the dust from my silk robe.
“You should eat,” she murmurs, leading me toward the chair. “The house is quiet today. A rare thing.”
