Page 76 of The Vespertine Treaty

I paced the length of the dark, stone room, the memory of her throat arched back, offering herself to the wax, playing on a loop behind my eyes. I saw the pulse fluttering in her neck—a bird trapped in a cage—and the sudden, dilated darkness of her pupils when she realised she wanted it.

The desire was a poison.

“She is contaminated by your Void.”Rhana's internal snarl was weak. She was curled in the far corner of the room, her massive paws over her eyes, trying to shield herself from the chaotic storm of my emotions.“The sickness will spread. End it.”

"Silence,"I ordered, the word a blade of cold steel in my mind.

I needed the clinical release. I needed to scour the taste of winter air and stubborn Life-Wielder from my senses before I did something that would shatter the Treaty irrevocably. I needed to return to the cold. I needed to be the monster, not the male.

A soft, deferential knock sounded at the heavy iron door—a sound so small against the weight of the stone. "Enter, Silas."

Silas entered, keeping his eyes averted, his posture rigid with the instinct of a prey animal entering a predator's den. "My Lord, the arrangements for Madam Rosette were completed. I am here to inform you that she has arrived.”

"Good. Send her in." I commanded, my voice hollow, scraping against the stone walls.

Lady Rosette didn't burst in; she slinked in.

She was an assault on the carefully curated darkness of the room, looking sinfully cheap and vulgar. Her hair, a shocking purple, fell in synthetic waves to her waist, a garish splash of color in a world of monochrome. The sickeningly sweet, heavy perfume of cinnamon and cheap vanilla preceded her, cloying and thick, coating the back of my throat like syrup.

She knew the protocol. She did not speak immediately. She approached the low, obsidian altar that dominated the centre of the room, her hips swaying with a practiced, performative rhythm that she likely thought was seductive. To me, it looked merely like a mechanism winding up.

I sat on the edge of the altar, watching her with dead eyes. I needed this to be mechanical. I needed it to be a ritual of extraction, nothing more. A bloodletting to lower the fever.

"My Lord," Rosette purred, sinking into a deep, theatrical curtsy before the altar, the silk of her dress pooling on the black stone. "You summoned me?"

"I require your usual services,” I stated, the words stripping the act of any romance, turning her into a medical instrument. "Proceed."

Rosette smiled, a hungry, vapid thing. She rose and stepped closer, her eyes scanning the room with a thrill that disgusted me. She reached out, her fingers brushing the cold stone of the altar until they found the object she was looking for.

The ceremonial dagger.

It was a blade of volcanic glass, razor-sharp and older than my House, used for centuries to draw the pain required to settle a Cenite core. She picked it up, the black blade stark against her pale, trembling hand.

"Your Grace is hungry today," she whispered, her voice trembling with a mix of fear and arousal as she looked at the tension in my jaw. "You look... starving, yet so, so full.”

She hiked up the hem of her dress, revealing an expanse of pale thigh. She didn't hesitate. With a sharp intake of breath, she dragged the obsidian blade across her own skin. It wasn't a deep cut, but it was precise, practiced.

A line of bright crimson welled up, beading against the white skin.

The scent of fresh pain hit the air—sharp, metallic, and pathetic. It was the scent of a minor injury, a shallow cut, laced with her desperate need for validation.

"Feed, My Lord," she gasped, the sting of the wound making her eyes roll back slightly. "Take it from me. Empty yourself into me and forget about the world. Andher.”

I leaned in. This was the transaction. I needed the pain to cool the fever in my blood.

I placed my hand over the cut on her thigh, not to heal, but to siphon. I pulled the sensation of the slice into my own core, drinking the minor agony.

It tasted like stale copper.

It was nothing. It was empty calories. It was a flat, dull note compared to the symphonic, crushing agony I had tasted in Ophelia's kiss. It lacked the depth, the complexity, the sheer, terrifying vitality of the Aenite.

I pulled back, dissatisfied, my core still screaming for sustenance.

Rosette mistook my recoil for restraint. She moved, sliding onto the altar, pushing the dagger aside, the blade clattering against the stone with a harsh ring. She pressed her ample chest into my face, her voice muffled against my shirt. She licked the cold column of my neck, a much too eager action that only intensified my chilling mental distance.

“Let me help you, Your Grace,” she whispered, her voice laced with a raw, almost pathetic eagerness. “I can feel the tension in you. It's vibrating off your skin. Let me break it.”

I tried. I focused on her skin, on the heat of her breath, on the purely physical availability she offered. I commanded my body to respond to the biology of the moment.