The scent of perfume and expensive wine clung to the air like smoke. Velvet curtains, crystal chandeliers, and the hush of wealth gave the Marrow estate's ballroom its familiar, suffocating charm. Guests moved like drifting ghosts through the haze of small talk and strategic smiles.
Tonight was the annual Marrow Foundation Gala, an event that served as both a vanity affair and a playground for the city's elite. Celeste stood near the refreshment table, poised and distant, wearing an emerald gown that matched the cold light in her eyes. She wasn't looking for Alaric—but she noticed when he entered.
He wore the same plain suit he'd always owned. No tie. No affectation. Just calm eyes and shoulders that refused to bow, even when the room seemed to demand it.
People noticed. And people whispered.
Alaric didn't care.
As he moved through the crowd, the quiet scorn followed him like a tailwind—murmurs about how Celeste had married beneath her station, about the Marrow family's fall from discretion. But there was one voice, one man, who chose to speak his disrespect aloud.
Mason Sterling.
He was everything Alaric was not: polished, loud, radiating the smugness of inherited power. His family ran half the logistics and tech under the city's infrastructure, and his confidence bloomed from unearned wealth.
He cornered Celeste near the inner staircase, a glass of golden liquor in hand, the curl of a predator's grin on his lips.
"You're wasted in this marriage," Mason said, lowering his voice, eyes scanning her with unhidden interest. "We both know you deserve more. Not some forgotten errand boy pretending he belongs at your side."
Celeste blinked. She didn't recoil—but her eyes hardened.
"Is that so?" she asked flatly.
Mason leaned in. "I'm not like the others. I can give you everything your little husband never could—power, influence, real protection."
"I don't need protection," came a voice behind him.
Mason turned.
Alaric stood at the foot of the staircase, calm, hands in his pockets, his presence cutting through the noise like ice on fire.
The nearby conversations hushed. Everyone felt it—even those who didn't know why.
"I wasn't talking to you, Vane," Mason said, forcing a chuckle. "Go back to whatever little task the Marrows dragged you in here for."
Alaric stepped forward, slow and unshaken.
"No," he said simply. "You're talking about my wife. In front of me. With arrogance you haven't earned."
Mason's brows rose. "You think you can threaten me here?"
"I don't need to threaten you," Alaric replied. "I need only remind you that not everyone who moves quietly is weak. And not every man with a loud voice is worth hearing."
The crowd parted slightly, their curiosity sharpening.
Mason's smug grin faltered—but he pressed on.
"I could crush you, Vane. Do you know who my father is?"
"I do," Alaric said. "I know what he's built. I know what you've inherited."
He stepped even closer, voice lowering to a level only Mason and Celeste could hear.
"And I know exactly how to dismantle it, piece by piece, without you even realizing I was there."
Mason's face blanched for the briefest moment. Something in Alaric's tone wasn't bravado. It wasn't even anger.
It was certainty.
And it rattled him.
Celeste, watching silently, felt a strange, unfamiliar chill. Not fear—but something deeper. Something that shook the foundation of what she thought she knew about her husband.
Mason finally scoffed and backed off, raising both hands.
"Fine. Have your moment. But this isn't over."
He retreated into the crowd like a snake slipping beneath silk.
Alaric exhaled and turned to Celeste. "Are you alright?"
She nodded, her expression unreadable. "You didn't have to do that."
"I know," Alaric said. "But I did."
They stood in silence for a moment, the world around them too quiet, too attentive.
Then, softly, Celeste asked, "What's happening to you?"
He looked at her.
"Nothing," he said. "Everything."
Before she could respond, Garron Marrow's voice boomed from the dais, calling for a toast. The moment passed, swallowed by social niceties and clinking glasses.
But the damage—and the shift—was already done.
That night, in the dark hallway just outside the estate's wine cellar, Celeste found herself pausing before returning upstairs. Her heart was beating a little too fast.
She wasn't sure who Alaric was becoming.
But for the first time… she wasn't sure she disliked it.