November 1, 2025
Hugo Verran, 25
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The studio lights were too bright, too clean, too merciless for a morning this cold. They poured down on me in long white sheets, brushing heat across my face while the rest of the room sat in a gentle autumn chill. The applause rose like a tide breaking at my feet. I smiled because that's what you do when strangers clap for you — you let them believe they're seeing someone intact.
Cynthia leaned toward the camera with that polished enthusiasm morning shows are known for, then swept her hand toward me.
"Everyone, welcome with me… Hugo Verran."
My cue.
The camera slipped to my side of the desk. I nodded. A practiced smile. My throat felt dry, the way it did before stepping onstage, except here there was no darkness to hide in. Only the clarity of LEDs and the thin, synthetic hush of studio perfume drifting from the makeup crew.
"Thank you for this kind welcome," I said, my voice steady in a way my lungs weren't.
Cynthia crossed her legs, her heels clicking softly beneath the desk. "Hugo, we haven't witnessed the progression of you. Truly. It felt like we all went to sleep one evening, and then suddenly — there you were. Stages everywhere. Headlines. Sold-out shows. And when our team tried digging, we only found a single video of you performing on the street. Cards, close-up illusions, simple sleight-of-hand… and then, seemingly overnight, you became what the critics are calling one of Ebonreach's 'most enigmatic performers.'" She laughed softly. "Your whole presence shifted. Not just your tricks. Your personality. Everything. So tell us — how did it actually begin?"
The audience murmured their curiosity. I let the moment breathe before answering, like I'd been taught — leave a touch of silence so your words land heavier.
"Well," I said, "thank you, Cynthia, for this introduction. I started exactly where you said — in the streets. That video you found was just a small piece of it. I used to perform for whoever passed by, really. I had nothing but a deck of cards that barely shuffled right and a cheap speaker that ate batteries like candy. But people stopped. They smiled. And sometimes that was enough."
I shifted slightly. The chair's leather pressed warm through my jacket.
"One thing led to another. A friend helped me get a small gig in a bar. And then someone from there introduced me to another place, and… I just took every opportunity I could. That's all I did, really. I kept saying yes to whatever opened next."
Cynthia tilted her head in that soft, motherly way seasoned hosts do. "But your talent progressed immensely. These illusions you do now… people attending your live shows say there were no alterations at all. No digital projection. No wires. Everything happening in real time. Did you train with anyone? Was someone guiding you?"
A quiet ripple of laughter traveled through the audience — anticipation, curiosity, gossip dressed as admiration.
I leaned back, let myself smile. "There are things I can't say, of course. Every magician has their secrets. If I revealed mine, then everyone would be doing what I do, and then I'd be out of a job." The audience chuckled. I added lightly, "I'm kidding."
My smile softened into something rehearsed yet believable. "Honestly, it's practice. I've been doing this since I was thirteen. It all started because of my cousin, Harry. He gave me my first magic kit — one of those cheap cardboard boxes with trick rings and a plastic wand. I was obsessed the moment I opened it. My hands have been busy ever since."
Cynthia nodded with dramatic sympathy. "So you've been drawn to magic from a very young age. What made you seek it? What were you looking for in it — the illusions, the sleight-of-hand, the tricks?"
Something in her tone made heat creep behind my ribs. The question wasn't cruel, but it peeled something open.
I let myself breathe in slow. Performed the hesitation so naturally it almost wasn't acting.
"I was inspired by someone," I said.
Her eyebrows rose. "Oh? Who?"
"The late Igor Ivanov."
A hush moved across the studio — not silence, but a kind of soft slope in the air, as though everyone leaned forward invisibly.
Cynthia's hand flew lightly to her chest. "My goodness. So his passing… that must have been incredibly difficult for you."
I lowered my gaze just enough. Not too much — grief becomes unbelievable if you play it too loud.
"Yeah," I said quietly. "It was. Igor was the one I looked up to when I was young. I watched his old performances over and over. He made magic feel like something holy." My throat tightened, and I let it — a small tremor, nothing too staged. "I was ecstatic to perform next to him. When we met, I told him he was one of the reasons I pursued magic. I wanted him to know that he mattered to me… that he shaped what I am."
The lights softened across the table, dimmer than before. Someone in the control room did that deliberately. Emotional lighting.
"And when he passed," I continued, "I… locked myself in my room. I replayed the moments we shared onstage. He was an amazing person. Even in the short time I was around him… he encouraged me a lot. More than he realized."
My fingers brushed the edge of the table — slow, absent-minded — a gesture I knew the camera would catch.
"So yes," I said, letting the words settle low in my chest, "it was truly tragic. And I'll always be grateful that I got to stand beside him, even once."
The studio seemed to breathe with me. A warm quiet pooled in the space between the camera lens and my face, and for a moment I felt as though everyone in the room could see it — the hollowness stitched under my ribs, the truth I wasn't saying.
The truth that Igor didn't die the way they believed.
That the death of your idol feels different when the devil in your life uses him as a stepping stone.
Cynthia leaned in, tender and fascinated.
"Hugo… Thank you for sharing that."
I smiled gently.
It was a lie, but the kind that sounded beautiful. The kind people wanted to believe.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Corvian, 3181.
-----------------------------------------
I stood behind the curtain, listening to Hugo speak as though grief lived naturally on his tongue. His voice moved through the studio with practiced warmth, shaped into something tender enough that an unsuspecting mortal might mistake it for sincerity. They clapped for him, breathed with him, believed him. They didn't know he was naming the dead with a reverence their lives never earned.
Harry. Igor. Even Riley lingered in the soft edges of his tone.
They don't know that everything he's saying is woven from threads soaked in blood. Harry. Igor. Even Riley's ghost sits somewhere in the shadows of his tone. Yet he names them with tenderness he never gave them in life, shaping their memory into a gentleness that borders on worship.
He brought each of them into the light as if he had been incapable of harming any of them, and I found myself thinking: what a creature. He could turn ruin into devotion, tragedy into affection. If I hadn't known the truth, I would have believed every word he said. Any other devil might have, too.
Hugo performed better for strangers than he ever did for me.
I stayed in the shadows, watching the rise and fall of his cadence, the precise way he let silence form between his sentences. Humans marveled at his empathy, unaware that they were witnessing something closer to mimicry. They saw gentleness. I saw craft.
And the longer I studied him, the more I realized something quietly astonishing:
He was the best kind of being I could have claimed.
Not the most powerful or cunning, but the most loyal. Loyalty had never meant anything to my kind — we rebelled at the first scent of pride — but humans were forged differently. They clung to what they loved. Animals did too. Everything originally made without stain tried to stay. Tried to belong. God had shaped delicate, faithful creatures, and Hugo was one of them.
And I had the privilege of enjoying him.
He spoke on that stage with a softness that unsettled me, all those little touches he added to make his stories sound as though they carried the weight of devotion. When he said Igor's name, a faint tremor threaded the sound. It wasn't real grief, but it was convincing enough that the air in the room shifted around him.
I felt something move inside me as I listened — not admiration, not pride, but something colder and more possessive. A pressure building behind my ribs every time he gave these strangers pieces of himself he never offered willingly to anyone else.
I wanted more of him.
Desire was too small a word for it, and too cheap. We burned through desire the way humans burned through matches. This was different. A knot pulled tighter every time he smiled for someone other than me.
The marking should have satisfied that. It should have ended any need I had. His breath followed my rhythm now. His pulse echoed mine. The bond had already assured me that when he died — and all mortals did — he wouldn't slip beyond my reach.
Yet somehow, that permanence was no longer enough.
I watched him laugh gently into the camera, watched him shape lies that made him appear softened by sorrow, and something inside me sharpened. Not anger. Not jealousy. Something older. Something closer to hunger for ownership.
I didn't want him walking freely anymore. The thought emerged without restraint. Once it existed, it grew. He should have been kept near, somewhere I could reach him at will. His loyalty was too rare. His devotion is too pure. It wasn't meant to be shared with the world. I wanted it turned entirely toward me.
He belonged to me —that had always been true— but now the belonging felt incomplete. Not because of the mark or the pact or the bond. But because he was still allowed to wander. Still allowed to be adored by others. Still speaking with that softness while the world looked at him like he was theirs to admire.
I wanted him closer than the mark allowed. Closer than breath. Closer than thought.
Onstage, he finished his story with a delicate pause that made the audience sigh. Applause rose like a tide. He smiled and let their affection wash over him, and something in me tightened.
Not jealousy. Jealousy was human and small. This was a vow. A selfish one.
When the applause quieted and the door opened, I straightened. Light spilled in around his silhouette as he stepped backstage, still glowing with the remnants of the performance.
He walked toward me — radiant, obedient, deceitful, beautiful — and the truth settled in me with perfect clarity.
The mark would bind him to me for the rest of his mortal life.
But I wanted him bound to me long after that. Beyond the body. Beyond the earth. Beyond anything he could ever escape.
I wanted him forever.
He wrapped up the interview with that gentle, public smile he crafted so well — the one that made mortals lean forward as if they might touch gratitude with their hands. He shook Cynthia's hand, said a few polite things I didn't care enough to hear, then slipped through the curtain.
The moment he stepped backstage, I reached for him.
My hand closed around his arm before he took two steps in. I pulled him away from the corridor lights, pushing him into the narrow strip of shadow behind a row of storage cases. Crew members passed by without noticing us. Television chatter cracked softly in the distance. Here, the air felt different — quieter, heavier, mine.
He blinked up at me, breath catching. "What's wrong? You scared me."
I didn't move back. "Tell me something," I said. "What's the thing you want the most in life right now?"
His eyebrows scrunched, confusion sharp in his expression. "What the hell are you saying, Corrin?"
"Just answer," I said. "Say it."
He swallowed once, eyes darting between mine. "To continue performing. That's what I want."
"That's all?" I asked.
He hesitated, searching for something deeper without knowing why he should. "Uhmm… I want to travel. For once in my life."
An old, tired boredom threaded through me. "Fine," I said. "Whatever."
He stared at me as though trying to read a language I hadn't taught him yet. "Wait," he said slowly, "were you hoping for me to say something else?"
I didn't reply, and silence made him bolder.
"Do you feel hope now, Corvian?"
The word tasted offensive, a flaw mortals carried like a badge.
I clicked my tongue. The small sound echoed in the narrow space, and I stepped closer until our breaths mingled. "Not hope," I said. "Hope is for the damned." Another step. His back hit the wall behind him. "I long."
He blinked, pupils widening with something between curiosity and fear. "What do you mean?"
I lowered my head until my mouth hovered near his ear. His pulse tripped beneath his skin, a frantic rhythm I felt through the mark like a tremor passing through stone. His body stiffened first, then softened — a surrender he didn't realize he gave.
"Do you remember," I whispered, "when I told you I wanted your body?"
He froze. His heartbeat stumbled, then raced. The shiver that climbed his spine brushed through me as well, a borrowed sensation lighting my nerves. He nodded, barely.
"I think," I breathed, "it's time."
I pulled back before he could speak, leaving the imprint of my words pressed against his skin like a shadow that didn't fade. I turned away and walked down the corridor, each step steady and unhurried.
Behind me, I felt his pulse still trembling through the bond.
And I let it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hugo Hollands, 25
-------------------------------------
The ride back felt too quiet. The city slid past the window in long smudges of streetlight and glass, but none of it stayed in my mind. My head was still stuck in that dark hallway backstage, in the breath of his whisper against my ear. I think it's time. The words kept replaying, folding into themselves, changing shape each time I tried to understand them.
Corvian sat beside me in the back seat, relaxed as if nothing unusual had happened. One arm along the window, the other resting on his thigh, posture elegant in that way he carried without effort. The driver kept his eyes ahead, unaware that every second inside this car felt like being suspended over something sharp.
I stared out the window, pretending to watch the passing storefronts. I wasn't. My mind was circling the same terrifying question.
What did he mean by wanting my body?
It couldn't be about suits. He already had one — a near-perfect one. I never saw him behave like he needed more. If anything, he wore that form the way rich men wore tailored clothes: comfortably, confidently, like he had plenty more if he wanted them. And it wasn't hollowing either; I'd heard him speak about empty vessels before, and there was never the smallest indication he wanted mine for that. He liked me speaking, moving, thinking. He liked my voice. My reactions. My mistakes. So that left one conclusion.
He meant sex.
My stomach flipped. The seat belt felt tighter, like it knew I was thinking something dangerous. I shifted slightly, but the pressure in my chest didn't move.
I wasn't stupid. I knew I had some kind of attachment to him. A pull. Something tangled and irrational that kept dragging me back no matter how many times I told myself I should be afraid. But physical intimacy was something else entirely. Whenever I kissed him before — that night before the Fall Ball, or the times I pushed close trying to provoke him — it wasn't desire. It was strategy. It was a way of saying See? I'm yours. Now give me more. A way of staking ground, keeping him interested, bending him toward me the same way he bent my life around his fingers.
It was never I want you like that.
The idea of that — of letting someone touch me in a way that could turn vulnerable — made my skin tighten. Every memory I had of men wanting something like that from me had been stained. Ugly. Forced. I had swallowed too many moments I didn't want. Too many hands, too many expectations, too many situations where I didn't get a choice. I learned early how to hide discomfort behind a smile, how to let someone believe I was fine when inside I was pulling away.
I wasn't walking into that again. Not with him. Not with anyone.
But then I remembered the way he whispered it. I wanted your body. The quiet certainty. The closeness. The way my pulse had tripped so hard I knew he felt it. He always felt it. He felt everything in me.
I pressed my fingers to my knee, steadying it. My breath wanted to rush — I made it slow down.
I thought I was being clever kissing him. Turning the tables. Making him react for once. Making him want something so I could use that wanting to get more power, more magic, more favor, more safety. I thought I was the one setting the trap.
Now it felt like I had stepped right into it myself.
He didn't look at me, but somehow he always knew where my thoughts were. His gaze stayed on the street ahead as the car slipped through traffic. I watched his reflection in the window. Calm, unreadable. Almost human if I didn't look too closely.
I swallowed hard, quiet enough that only I heard it. I'm not ready for this. I'm not that person. I can't be that person for him.
But the panic twisting inside me wasn't just fear of him wanting that. It was fear of disappointing him. Of losing whatever strange bond was forming between us. Of not meeting whatever expectation he had silently carved into the space between our breaths.
The car slowed at a red light. Corvian shifted slightly — not toward me, but enough for me to feel his presence more directly.
My heart kicked again. I hated that he could sense every beat of it.
You did this, I told myself. You thought you were using him. Now look.
He didn't speak. He didn't need to. His silence pressed against me harder than words would have. The weight of it told me he remembered the way I froze backstage. The way my breath hitched. The way my pulse tried to run away from me.
The light turned green. The car moved again.
I kept staring out the window, pretending the city outside could anchor me, while inside I was falling into the truth:
I'd played a game I didn't understand, and now I wasn't sure I knew the rules.
And if he really wanted my body… I didn't know how to tell him no. I didn't know if he'd even allow it. I didn't know what would happen to the bond between us — to the safety I'd built from his presence — if I refused.
I didn't know anything except this:
I had set a fire to reel him in.
And now the flames were reaching back for me.
The car rolled past the gates of my compound, tires pressing over familiar pavement, but something was wrong. I saw it before Corvian did—two silhouettes by my building: an unmarked black sedan tucked near the curb and one cruiser parked a little back, its lightbar dark. No officers in sight. Only a low radio hiss leaking through the cruiser's cracked window, that clipped language of codes and breath.
I turned to Corvian slowly. "What…?"
He gave me a look that matched mine — puzzled, head tilting just slightly. Even that measured reaction sank ice into my ribs; if he didn't know, then something unpredictable was moving around us.
The car stopped. My door unlocked. I stepped out, every muscle tight.
The air outside bit cold along my jaw as I walked forward. The cars didn't stir. No doors opened. No officers stepped out. They just sat there, silent and still, like props left behind after a scene.
Corvian stepped out behind me, watching with a predator's caution.
I climbed the short steps to my door, turned the handle. The lock clicked open without resistance. Inside, everything was as I left it— lights off, scent of yesterday's cologne still clinging to the hallway, the stillness untouched.
Corvian's voice came from behind me, smooth and quiet. "They don't seem to be here for you then."
I spun around, heart hammering. "And why would they be here for me?"
He laughed — soft, amused, unhelpful. "For many, many reasons, Hugo."
My stomach twisted.
"Anyway," he added, waving a hand, "let's not let that disturb our evening."
"Wait," I said quickly. "Corvian — wait. Let's talk first."
He closed the door behind him, not harshly but with finality. Then he slipped off his jacket as he walked toward me, letting it fall to the floor without a glance. The move made my pulse jump; the jacket looked abandoned the way a predator abandons a layer before advancing.
"Talk about what?" he asked, voice low and unhurried. "We talked a lot already. I think it's enough."
I stepped back instinctively. "What do you mean by — by wanting my body first… and— and…"
He kept walking.
"Corvian, just— wait—"
My heel caught on the edge of the rug. The room tilted for a moment —my balance faltering— and before I could fall, his hand shot out, gripping my arm so tightly it stung.
My breath rushed out in a single, helpless sound.
His fingers held me in place, firm, absolute. Too strong. Too certain.
For a heartbeat, fear cracked through me, raw and instinctive. "You won't force me," I whispered. "Will you?"
His brows pulled together, confusion shadowing his expression. "What are you talking about? I thought you wanted it too. The tension was there."
My mouth opened, but the words tangled in my throat. "Right— right, but not right now. I'm tired. I just— I just need a second."
He scoffed, breath sharp. "Cut that shit."
"I swear I'm not— I'm not lying," I said, voice shaking harder than I wanted.
"Yes, you are."
The words dropped between us like a door shut tight.
My pulse thrashed in my wrists. The floor felt too close, as though gravity wanted to pull me down. His hand hadn't loosened; he was still holding me exactly where he wanted me, like my body was something he already considered his.
And my fear — the cold, rising kind — was that maybe he wasn't wrong.
My breath trembled. My throat tightened. I stared at him, trying to read the line between intention and inevitability, terrified I wouldn't see it in time.
His grip was still locked around my arm when the sound hit the door.
A single knock — loud enough to rattle the wood, sharp enough to slice straight through both our breaths.
Then a voice followed, deep, official, amplified by a radio clipped too close to someone's shoulder.
"Hugo Hollands, open the door. This is the Ebonreach Central Police."
My blood went cold.
Corvian's head turned toward the entryway with the slow precision of a creature deciding what kind of violence would be appropriate. His fingers tightened around my arm for a heartbeat before releasing me, not gently— more like he had to convince himself to let go.
I staggered back a step, breath shaking as if my ribs didn't know how to hold it anymore. The room felt smaller, walls leaning inward, shadows thickening around the corners of the ceiling.
Another knock— harder, deliberate, as though they wanted me to know they could break the door if they wished.
"Mr. Hollands, you are requested to come out immediately."
My pulse hammered so loudly I swore they could hear it from outside. I looked at Corvian, expecting him to smile, or laugh, or mock the situation— but he looked at the door with an expression I had only seen once before:
Recognition.
Something about their tone. Something about their timing. Something about the calm in their voice.
He knew what this was.
And I didn't.
"Corvian," I whispered, voice cracking. "Why are they here? Why are they—"
He raised a finger without looking at me.
Silent.
Commanding.
My throat closed around the next word.
The voice outside repeated, slower now, almost patient.
"Hugo Hollands. Open the door."
Every muscle in my legs felt hollow. My palms dampened. A tremor traveled down my spine, so sudden I reached for the wall just to steady myself.
"Corvian," I said again, softer, desperate. "Tell me they're not here for—"
He cut his eyes toward me— a flash of cold warning.
Not anger. Not annoyance.
A warning.
As if speaking the wrong thought aloud might drag something even worse to my doorstep.
The air pressed against my ears. The silence inside the house felt too tight. I could hear my breath quivering. My heartbeat drowning everything else.
The knock came a third time— a pounding strike that made the frame shudder.
My lungs seized.
Corvian stepped closer, positioning himself between me and the door, as though shielding me from something he didn't feel like explaining.
His voice dropped low— low enough that only I heard it.
"Hugo," he murmured, "you need to calm down."
Calm down. When the police were at my door. When black cars were lined outside my building. When Corvian, of all beings, looked like he wasn't sure which direction this night was about to go.
I swallowed hard, shaking my head.
"I can't," I whispered. "Corvian… what did I do? What—"
But my sentence was cut off by the most dangerous silence I'd ever heard:
Corvian thinking.
And whatever conclusion he reached made the air around him feel colder.
He took one step toward the door.
Not to open it.
To listen.
I stood behind him, terrified of breathing too loudly.
"Mr. Hollands, this is your last warning."
My vision blurred at the edges.
I realized then— this wasn't a threat.
It was a summons.