The city lights smeared across the windows, turning my bedroom into a watercolor mess. I couldn't sleep. I'd been pacing for hours, bare feet padding softly on the marble. I kept clenching and unclenching my hands, like I could squeeze the frustration right out of my skin.
My cat ,who i finally named darling,was watching me in silence
All this damn silence… it was wearing me down.
Playing the ghost was supposed to give me
control, but it was backfiring. Denying every instinct, every glance, every damn reaction…
It was suffocating. My chest felt tight, my pulse hammering way too fast.
And the bond… always the bond. Thrumming in my veins, a reminder that I wasn't alone. Not even in my own head. It tells me that Dante owns me
I pressed my palms against the glass, staring out at the endless sprawl of the city.
You will not break, I told myself. You will not give him the satisfaction.
Then I felt it.
A shift in the air. Small, but unmistakable. Like someone had walked into the room even before I heard it. My skin prickled.
I turned.
Dante was there.
" Why are you,here?
Standing in the doorway. Just… standing there. He wasn't saying anything, wasn't moving. But his presence… it was a physical weight, pressing down on me.
The silence stretched, tight and unbearable.
My control snapped. I spun around, anger finally boiling over.
"What do you want?" I hissed, my voice rough, barely a whisper with tears in my eyes. "Isn't it enough that you've caged me? Chained me to you with this… this curse?"
My hand trembled as I pressed it to my chest, right where the bond burned.
"You own everything already. Isn't that enough?"
He didn't react. Not at first. Then, slowly, he stepped into the room.
Each movement deliberate, controlled. He didn't need to shout, didn't need to make a grand gesture. He just moved, and the air shifted around him.
I didn't even realize I was retreating until the back of my legs hit the bed. My heart pounded not just with anger. There was something else there. Something darker. More treacherous. A coil of heat low in my gut, threading through the bond.
Dante stopped a single breath away. He didn't touch me.
He didn't need to.
The bond flared heat, want, something I couldn't fight.
"I can feel you," Dante murmured, voice low and steady. "Every heartbeat. Every lie you tell yourself."
" Then why can't you feel my pain,my desperation to leave,whyyyyyyyyy
" I can,my queen trust me I feel all your emotions but I can't let you go because if i do that you will leave me alone and if that happens i can't guarantee you what will happen to the world if that happens "
I swallowed hard, but my throat was dry. My body was betraying me chest rising too fast, pupils blown wide. I hated it.
The hate was still there, sharp and defiant but tangled with a pulse of raw desire that made my skin crawl.
His gaze dropped to my lips. Satisfaction flickered in his eyes. Dangerous. Possessive.
"I hate you," I whispered.
Dante leaned closer, his breath brushing my ear. A shiver shot down my spine.
"You hate me," he said softly, "but your body remembers what your pride denies."
My breath hitched. My knees almost buckled. The room felt smaller, hotter, like the walls themselves were closing in.
"Stop," I rasped but it came out weak, barely audible. My voice cracked under the weight of something unspoken: need, fear, surrender.
"You don't get to take that too."
"I'm not taking," Dante whispered. "I'm claiming what's already mine."
Then he lifted a hand. Not to touch—just hovering, a whisper shy of contact. His thumb traced the air over my bottom lip, so close I could feel the heat radiating off him.
The bond trembled, tightening. A living thread between us, humming with shared breath and tension.
"You've been so good at denying me your mind," Dante continued, voice like dark velvet. "But you cannot deny what you were made for."
The bond surged violent, overwhelming. It drowned everything.
Desire pure,suffocating flooded my veins. It wasn't mine. It was his. Dante's want slamming into me like a storm surge.
I staggered, gripping the sheets for balance. My body trembled, my resistance cracking.
My pride screamed.
But my body hungry for attention leaned into the fire.
For one terrible, perfect moment, our eyes locked. I saw myself reflected in his gaze: furious, breathless… undone.
Then I tore myself away.
"Get out," I hissed, voice raw, shaking with what I refused to name. "Get out before I forget who I am and break your head."
Dante didn't move at first. His eyes softened just slightly almost human.
Then he stepped back, slow and deliberate, retreating toward the door.
But before he left, he spoke again, voice a quiet blade sliding beneath my skin.
"You already have."
Then he was gone.
Leaving the room thick with heat and silence.
I sank onto the edge of the bed, trembling. The bond was still alive inside me, like a second pulse. I pressed my palm to my chest, like I could claw it out.
I need to shower to cool my head
I went to the shower and let it run down on my body,I crawled up to myself my tears mixed up with the shower
But the truth pulsed back in steady rhythm: I wasn't sure where Dante ended and I began anymore.
I closed my eyes, dragging in a shaky breath. I needed control. I needed a plan. I needed to break free.
I opened my eyes, and resolved to harden.
I wouldn't surrender.
I wouldn't break.
I would fight.
Even if it killed me.