The air between them grew thin, charged.
"You'll stay," he said quietly, his voice low enough that only she could hear, "because the only other path leads back to Tenebrarum. And we both know what waits for you there."
He tilted his head slightly, his gaze tracing the line of her jaw, the tremble she couldn't suppress.
"I am not your enemy, Aurelia. But I am not your savior, either. I am the door. And doors only open when the time is right."
His hand rose slowly, fingers tracing the delicate curve of her cheekbone, then drifting down to the line of her jaw. He tilted her chin upward, the movement gentle but deliberate, forcing her eyes to stay locked with his.
Aurelia wanted to pull away, to slap his hand aside, to reclaim the space he had stolen—but his eyes held her. They were deep, warm, coffee-brown pools that seemed to pull her in like endless dreams, quiet and hypnotic. For a heartbeat, the den, the wolf, Sorana, the fear—all of it faded into a soft, blurry background.
His thumb brushed the corner of her mouth, the touch startlingly intimate.
"I'm better than Tenebrarum," he whispered, his hand pressing harder against her lips—not painful, but possessive, silencing any protest before it could form.
Something ignited deep within her. A spark of heat, of shame, of unwanted awareness. Her breath caught, trapped between his palm and the sudden racing of her own heart.
Sorana had been staring at the floor, but this—this slow, claiming touch—she could not ignore.
"My lady."
Sorana's voice cut through the haze, sharp and clear, pulling Aurelia back from the edge of whatever spell Calvus was weaving.
Aurelia blinked, shaking her head as if waking from a dream. She stepped back abruptly, breaking contact. Her lips tingled. Her cheeks burned.
"Yes, I should leave," she said, closing her lips tight.
She pushed her face away from his lingering touch and turned slowly toward the door, her movements stiff with forced resolve.
"Remember," Calvus said, his voice low and steady behind her. "Tenebrarum is nothing but a monster. I will help you."
His hand found hers in the dim light—not grasping, not restraining, just touching. A slow, deliberate brush of skin against skin.
Why I'm I feeling this way?
He was captivating. Magnetic. And the only other human in this den of beasts and magic. In a court of masks and shadows, his warmth felt real.
His eyes felt honest, like home.
But something in her whispered: he had an amazing way of keeping her in place, perhaps better than Tenebrarum.
She pulled her hand away, but the ghost of his touch stayed, humming under her skin like a low, dangerous current.
Without another word, she walked out of the wolf den, Sorana close behind her, leaving Calvus and Potens swallowed once more by the dark.
And as she climbed the steps back toward the world of stone and secrets, she couldn't shake the feeling that she hadn't just left a meeting.
She'd walked away from a trap—one lined with velvet, and spoken in a voice that sounded like hope.
Her head still spun — naughty, bad, humming with the ghost of Calvus and the low promise in his voice.
I'm better than Tenebrarum.
The words echoed in her mind, sliding under her skin like a secret. They were dangerous. Arrogant. And yet… they felt true.
Tenebrarum was a storm — cold, violent, unpredictable.
Calvus was… warmth. A steady hand in the dark.
A human voice in a world of growls and whispers.
She closed her eyes, trying to push away the memory of his coffee-brown eyes, the way his thumb had pressed hardly against her lips. Trying to forget how badly, in that moment, she had wanted to believe him.
Was he right, perhaps?
---
Aurelia was back in her room, sitting on the edge of the bed with her head in her hands. The silence felt heavy, thicker than before.
She wondered why Calvus words were so raw, his hand on her lips.
He wasn't even afraid.
"My lady," Sorana's voice came softly from near the door. "I do not wish to hide this from you."
Aurelia looked up. Sorana's silver-lined face was pale, her expression tight with something that looked like guilt—or fear.
"Hide what?" Aurelia asked, her voice dull with exhaustion.
"I do not feel that…" Sorana paused, her voice low but steady in the stillness of the chamber. "Lord Calvus is not to be trusted."
Aurelia turned from the window, her pale hair catching the dull light. "I feel you shouldn't get too involved, Sorana. You should stay in your place."
"My lady," Sorana replied, not backing down, "he had the audacity to touch you as he did. Or perhaps… you loved it."
Aurelia's composure snapped. "You have no right to talk to me like that! I am as confused as you are now, but who am I to trust? The monster who keeps me? The prince who watches? Or the man who says he can set me free?" She took a sharp breath, her violet eyes bright with frustration. "Tell me, if you were me—who would you choose?"
Sorana held her gaze, the silver scars on her cheek faintly gleaming. "I would choose none of them. I would choose myself."
"Myself?" Aurelia's voice trembled, then broke into something raw. "Myself hates Tenebrarum. Myself hates this place. I don't even know who myself is anymore."
"You have to understand your heart…"
"What heart?" Aurelia's words cracked like ice. "You are not in my condition. You don't understand what it means to have the whole of humanity thrown to the wolves. I know you are a dark creature, Sorana. You don't know what it means to lose your home… and then be held captive by the very thing you hate most."
"You're just one of them" Aurelia added.
"No." Sorana's voice was quiet, but it cut through Aurelia's anger like a blade. "You are wrong, my lady. I do know."
Tears gathered in her silver-lined eyes, but they did not fall. "Every day before this court took me in, humans hurt me. Violated my body. Called me monster while they used me like a tool. I had no home. No safety. No name."
She took a step closer, her hands clenched at her sides.
"This court saved me. Gave me shelter. Gave me scars that heal." Her voice dropped to a pained whisper. "All you speak of is a home that left you behind. You should be grateful you are standing on safer ground."
Aurelia stared, the heat of her own fury draining away, leaving only cold, hollow shock.
She had been so wrapped in her own grief, her own loss, that she had never stopped to wonder about the wounds Sorana carried—wounds not from claws or venom, but from the hands of her own kind.
Are humans actually so wicked?
The room grew terribly still.
"I…" Aurelia began, but the words died in her throat.
Sorana looked away, wiping roughly at her eyes. "We are both trapped, my lady. But not all cages look the same."
And for the first time, Aurelia truly saw it—not servant and mistress, not human and dark creature, but two broken women standing in the same gilded prison, each believing the other held the key.
---------------------
To be continued...