"I was sixteen. She was all I had." I turn my head to look at him. "Why do you want to know all this?"
"I told you. I want to know everything about you."
"That's not a reason. That's just words."
Something flickers in his eyes—amusement, maybe, or respect for the challenge. "I want to understand what made you. What shaped the woman who looked at a monster and didn't run."
"I did run. That first night, after the gala—"
"You ran from the building. But you didn't run from me. Not really." His hand resumes its movement, trailing down to my hip. "You could have gone to the police. Could have disappeared, started over somewhere else like your mothertaught you. Instead, you stayed. You answered when I called. You came when I summoned you."
"I didn't have a choice."
"You always had a choice." His grip tightens, fingers digging into my flesh. "You chose this. You chose me. I want to understand why."
I don't have an answer for him. I don't have an answer for myself.
***
The estate begins to reveal itself to me in pieces.
I've been here a dozen times now, maybe more—I've lost count. Always at night, always summoned, always leaving before dawn with new marks on my body and new questions in my mind. But I'm starting to notice things I missed before.
The locked doors, for instance. They're scattered throughout the house, unremarkable at first glance, but I've tried enough handles to know that certain rooms are off-limits. The east wing, where I witnessed the murder, is completely closed off—I haven't been back there since the gala, and whenever I drift in that direction, Gabriel finds a reason to redirect me.
The staff, too. They move through the house like ghosts, efficient and silent, never meeting my eyes. At first, I thought it was discretion—the polite invisibility of well-trained servants. But the more I watch them, the more I notice the fear. They're not just being professional. They're terrified.
Of what? Of him? Of something else?
And then there are the serpents.
I noticed them the first time I came to the estate, before everything changed. The motifs are everywhere—carved into the banisters, woven into the rugs, worked into the ironwork on the gates. But now that I'm looking more closely, I see patterns within patterns. Serpents in certain configurations, certain poses. One serpent alone. Two serpents intertwined. Three serpents with their heads together, mouths open, as if sharing secrets.
"The serpent imagery," I say one night, lying on my stomach while he traces the ridge of my spine. "What does it mean?"
His hand pauses for just a moment. "Family tradition."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I'm going to give you."
I turn my head to look at him. "Why?"
"Because some things are better left buried." He smiles, echoing my mother's words back at me. "Isn't that what you were taught?"
I don't ask again. But I file the non-answer away, adding it to the growing collection of things I don't understand.
The Brotherhood. I found that reference weeks ago, buried in an old society column—"Serpent Brotherhood," the columnist called it, though no concrete evidence of such an organization has ever surfaced. Now I listen for the word in whispered conversations, watch for signs of it in the way the staff move and the doors that stay locked. But no one speaks of it openly, and my careful searches have turned up nothing more.
Whatever the Brotherhood is, it's not something that exists in the public record.
One night, after a particularly intense session that left me boneless and floating, I ask the question I've been avoiding.
"What are we doing?"
Gabriel is lying beside me, one arm thrown over his eyes. He doesn't move.
"I mean it," I press. "This—whatever this is—it can't go on forever. At some point, something has to change. We have to... decide what this is."
