The velvet pouch sat heavy in my hand.
I kept opening and closing my fingers around it like it might help me think. It didn't.
Villa Dahlia was quiet, but not still.
It breathed around me — groaning softly in the beams, sighing through the walls, like an old thing watching from behind the curtains. Not threatening. Just aware.
Like her.
I padded barefoot down the hall, my shirt hanging open, hair still a mess from the night she'd ruined me. Again.
The sconces lit on their own as I passed, one by one. Candles flared to life. The floor stayed warm under my feet.
The house wanted me to find her.
And part of me wondered if she already knew the choice I was about to make — if she'd plucked it from my mind hours ago while I lay tangled in her limbs, wondering how something that good could also be so damned dangerous.
I turned a corner, past the gallery of crooked portraits, half of them blurred by time, the others looking like they might turn their heads if I stared too long. A few I was sure had changed since the last time I walked by.
"Stop creeping yourself out," I muttered.
But even my voice felt too loud here. Like I was speaking in a cathedral where every sin echoed.
I finally reached the door I'd only seen half-open once — deep mahogany, carved with lilies and something that looked like bones.
It was cracked again.
The warm scent hit me first — cloves, wine, something honeyed underneath. Her scent.
I knocked.
Once.
The door swung open on its own.
Inside, She sat on the windowsill in a floor-length robe of blood-red silk, one leg folded beneath her, the other stretched long like a question mark waiting to be asked. Her curls were pinned up with thin gold combs, though a few had fallen loose. She didn't look surprised to see me.
Of course she didn't.
"Couldn't sleep?" she asked, her voice slow and rich, like melted chocolate poured in the dark.
I stepped in. The door shut behind me with a sound like a heartbeat. Soft. Final.
"No," I said. "I've made my choice."
That earned a raised brow.
She slid off the sill like liquid and stood in front of me, chin tilted. "Let me guess. You're going to take the money and come when called?"
"I'm not a dog," I said, sharper than I meant to.
Her smile didn't fade. "No. You're not."
I met her gaze, my breath tightening.
"I'm staying," I said. "Tiff too. On our terms."
The pause that followed was long. Tense.
Her eyes searched my face, not just reading it — reading through it.
Then, she stepped closer. "You'll sleep in my bed," she said. "Not as a guest."
"I know."
"You'll be mine."
"I already am."
The words came out before I could stop them.
And it was the truth.
Because whatever she was — monster, lover, temptation dressed in silk — she'd already marked me.
With want.
With the way she looked at me like I was hers before I even walked through the gate.
I stepped further in. "It's not charity, right? You said it yourself. You want me here."
"And you like being wanted."
That earned her a shrug from me. "Doesn't hurt."
She laughed — low and velvet-smooth. "So the thief trades his lockpicks for silk sheets."
I gave a half-smile. "Better than bloodstains on the floor and Brack breathing down my neck."
She reached up, fingers brushing my cheek, said, softer this time. "Let me keep you warm."
I leaned in. Just enough.
She didn't kiss me.
Not yet.
But the smile that touched her lips was devastating.
"Welcome home, Cassian."
-----------------------------------------------------
Her hands slid over my ribs like she was trying to memorize the map of me. Slow. Confident. Possessive.
I'd just agreed to stay.
To live here. To bring my sister into the belly of this beast in silk and shadows.
And now?
Now I was being kissed like a promise.
Her mouth met mine — not desperate, not rushed. But deliberate. Like she'd kissed men before but never like this. Like this wasn't about conquest. Or hunger. Or boredom.
Like this was about me.
I sank into it — her mouth, her heat, her skin slipping beneath my hands like warm silk made flesh. My palms fit her hips too well, like they'd been waiting for this shape.
The world outside the villa ceased to exist again.
We moved with too much familiarity for strangers — like her body had already taught mine the choreography. She pressed me back toward the couch, every step a quiet seduction. Firelight licked the room gold, shadows flexing like the house was holding its breath.
She kissed down the edge of my jaw. My fingers tangled in the silk at her waist.
And then I stilled.
Not because I didn't want her.
Because I did.
So much it hurt.
But something in me hesitated — the last tether to who I was before this place. Before her.
"I never asked," I murmured against her skin.
She paused, her lips brushing my throat.
"Asked what?" she said, voice low, like velvet unraveling.
"Your name."
She leaned back just enough to see my face. Her eyes — those deep, wine-red things — blinked once. Slowly. Thoughtfully.
"And now you want it?" she asked.
"I think I need it."
Her head tilted slightly, curls spilling over one bare shoulder. "Most men don't care."
"I'm not most men."
She smiled at that. Not a coy smile. Not teasing. Something warmer. Fainter. Older.
"No," she said softly. "You're not."
She brought her hand to my chest again, resting it over the place where my heart refused to slow.
Her thumb traced the shape of my collarbone. "You're not like the others. You didn't come here for power. Or immortality. You came because you needed something."
I swallowed and she studied me for a moment longer. Then leaned in, lips brushing mine — but not kissing me yet. Not quite.
"My name," she said, "is Seraphine."
She said it like the name mattered.
Like it was a key and a warning and an invitation all at once.
I breathed it in. Said it out loud. "Seraphine."
She shivered against me. Closed her eyes, just for a heartbeat. Like hearing her name in someone else's mouth still did something to her after all these years.
I cupped her jaw and said it again, slower this time.
"Seraphine."
And this time, I kissed her.
Because now I knew.
And I'd never forget it.
Her name was the sound that would burn in my blood long after she left my bed.
If she ever let me leave.