Selene didn't leave the apartment that day.
She couldn't.
Not because she was afraid — but because something in the walls didn't want her to. Doors refused to open. Windows refused to budge. Her phone wouldn't turn on. The outlets sparked when touched. The plumbing moaned like it was alive.
She sat in silence.
The same silence she'd grown up in, locked in basements and buried under secrets that weren't hers to tell.
Only now, the silence spoke back.
Whispers trailed behind her when she moved. Breaths tickled her ear when she tried to sleep. Her body remembered Lucian's touch — and craved it, cursed it, needed it.
But it wasn't Lucian who came first that night.
It was her.
She heard it — the sound. Soft. Wet. Like fingernails dragging across old paper.
Selene followed the noise into the closet of the second bedroom — the one she hadn't opened yet. She wasn't sure why. It had always felt colder than the rest. Thicker.
She pushed the door open.
Inside, there was no clothing rod. No hangers. Just a single shoe box on the floor.
Her chest tightened. She knelt, touched the lid, and felt it hum beneath her fingers.
A warning.
A pulse.
A memory not hers.
She opened it anyway.
Inside was a diary.
The cover was cracked leather, stained and curled at the corners like something left in the rain too long. She flipped it open with shaking hands.
"February 4. He touched me in the dream again. This time, I woke up with bruises. I can still feel where his mouth was. It doesn't hurt. I wish it did. Then maybe I'd stop wanting him."
Selene's breath hitched. The handwriting was sharp and looping. Delicate. Young.
She flipped again.
"February 10. I tried to leave the apartment today. The elevator screamed. The walls closed in. I couldn't breathe. I think… he lives in me now. Or under me."
Another page.
"February 14. I told him to stop. I told him I didn't want this. But he said I wasn't mine anymore. That I was made for him. That he knew me before I was born. That he watched me inside my mother."
Selene slammed the diary shut.
And still — the room breathed. Cold against her neck. Fingers across her stomach.
"She didn't listen either," Lucian's voice came low and coiled in her spine.
She spun.
He was there.
Not shadow. Not smoke.
Form. Flesh. Glowing, flickering in and out of reality.
Eyes coal-dark, mouth cruel, skin pale as frostbite.
And completely naked.
Her throat dried instantly.
"You found her," he said, stepping forward. "My little liar. She promised she loved me. But her heart was too soft."
"Did you kill her?" Selene asked, her voice a razor.
He smiled. It was horrifying. Beautiful.
"No. She gave herself to me."
"And the bruises?"
"Those were love letters," he whispered.
Her stomach turned — but not just in revulsion.
In recognition.
Because deep down, she already understood him. She had loved men who hurt. Trusted things with fangs. Let monsters between her legs and told herself it was choice, not survival.
Lucian saw it in her eyes.
"You're not like her," he murmured, voice hot against her throat. "You'll love the ruin. You'll worship the pain."
He moved closer.
She didn't back away.
He reached for her cheek, and this time — he touched her.
Solid. Real. Cold and electric.
Her knees trembled. Her lips parted. He leaned in, but not for a kiss.
He pressed his mouth to her neck and bit.
She gasped — pain and pleasure crashing through her like a storm.
"You're mine now, Selene," he growled, breath thick. "And I don't share."
She bled. She moaned. She grinned through it.
Because maybe, just maybe, she didn't want to be saved.
🔥 End of Chapter 4 🔥