The first thing Aria felt was fire.
It wasn't the scorching heat of hell, which was where she expected to be after dying in that freezing, rat-infested asylum. No, this fire was internal. It licked at her veins, turning her blood into molten lead and making her breath hitch in short, desperate gasps.
Aria's eyes snapped open.
Above her hung a crystal chandelier, slightly dusty, spinning lazily in her vision. The smell of cheap lavender air freshener assaulted her nose.
'Where am I?'
She tried to sit up, but her limbs felt like jelly. A wave of nausea rolled over her, followed by a terrifying, familiar heat pooling in her lower belly. She knew this heat. She had cursed this heat every single day for five years.
"No..." she rasped, her voice sounding young, unscarred by years of screaming.
She clawed at the bedsheets, dragging herself to the edge of the mattress. Her hand brushed against a heavy glass ashtray on the nightstand. Without hesitation, she grabbed it and smashed it against the wooden table.
CRASH.
The sound was like a gunshot in the silent room. Aria picked up a jagged shard of glass and drove it into her palm.
"Fuck!"
The sharp, stinging pain cleared the fog in her brain instantly. She looked down at her hand. Blood—bright red and warm—welled up, dripping onto the carpet.
She wasn't dead.
She scrambled off the bed, her legs trembling, and stumbled toward the mirror. The girl staring back at her wasn't the gaunt, grey-skinned corpse she had become. This girl had rose-gold hair that tumbled in soft waves around a flushed, porcelain face. Her emerald eyes were wide with panic, but beneath the fear, something cold and ancient was waking up.
She checked the date on the digital clock by the bed.
August 10, 2024.
It was the night of Lucas's birthday party. The night Bella had spiked her champagne. The night she was supposed to stumble into Room 1204, where three paid gigolos and a dozen photographers were waiting to ruin her life.
Aria let out a low, humorless laugh that sounded more like a sob. "I'm back. I'm actually fucking back."
She gripped the shard of glass tighter, letting the pain anchor her. In her past life, she had been a naive idiot. She had run out of this room crying for Lucas, right into the arms of the paparazzi.
"Not this time," she hissed.
She grabbed her purse, ignoring the dizziness that made the floor tilt. She needed to leave. Now. But the elevator would be rigged. The stairwell would be watched. Bella was thorough; that bitch didn't leave loose ends.
Aria opened the door and peered into the hallway. It was empty, but she could hear the faint ding of the elevator down the hall. Voices. Low, excited whispers.
"Is she out yet?"
"Camera ready. Flash on."
Panic surged, cold and sharp. She couldn't go down. If she went down, she was dead.
She looked up.
At the end of the hallway, there was a heavy, unmarked mahogany door. It didn't have a room number. It was the service entrance to the private staircase leading to the Penthouse Suite.
In her past life, rumors said the Penthouse belonged to a demon. A man so terrifying that even the hotel staff weren't allowed to make eye contact with him.
'The Devil is better than a pack of dogs,' Aria thought.
She bolted toward the door. Her vision was blurring again, the drug working faster now that her heart rate was up. She threw her weight against the heavy wood. Locked. Of course.
"Damn it!" She kicked the door, sweat dripping down her neck.
From down the hall, a voice shouted. "Hey! There she is! Room 1202!"
The paparazzi.
Aria didn't think. She pulled a slender, silver hairpin from her hair—a habit she had kept even in this life, though she had never used it as a tool before. Her hands, shaking from the drug, suddenly steadied. Muscle memory from five years of hell took over.
She jammed the pin into the lock, twisted it with a savage jerk, and felt the mechanism click.
She threw the door open, slipped inside, and slammed it shut just as the flash of a camera illuminated the hallway behind her.
Click. The lock engaged.
Silence.
Aria leaned against the door, sliding down until she hit the floor. She gasped for air, her chest heaving. It was pitch black in here. Freezing cold. The air conditioning was cranked down to a temperature that felt like a morgue.
"Safe," she whispered, wiping sweat from her forehead. "I'm safe."
'Are you?'
The thought came too late.
A low, guttural growl vibrated through the darkness. It didn't sound human. It sounded like a wounded animal backed into a corner.
Aria froze. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. Her enhanced senses, honed by years of living with a blind, crazy master, screamed at her.
'Danger. Lethal danger. Move.'
Before she could stand, a shadow detached itself from the darkness.
It was massive.
A hand, large and freezing cold, clamped around her throat.
"Hrk—!"
She was hauled off the floor like a ragdoll and slammed against the wall. The impact knocked the wind out of her. The hand tightened, cutting off her air completely.
"Who sent you?"
The voice was a jagged whisper, raw with agony and violence.
Aria clawed at the hand, her legs kicking uselessly. She couldn't see his face, only the outline of broad shoulders and... eyes.
Glowing, molten gold eyes burning in the dark.
He wasn't looking at her. His eyes were unfocused, dilated, frantic. He was in the middle of an episode.
'Sensory Overload,' Aria's medical brain supplied instantly. 'Dilated pupils. Excessive body heat. Tremors.'
He was in pain. Blinding, maddening pain.
"Die," he snarled, his thumb pressing down on her windpipe.
Aria's vision spotted black. She was going to die. She had been reborn just to be strangled by a maniac in the dark.
'No.'
She reached into her pocket. She didn't have her needle kit. She only had the shard of glass she had dropped... no, she had the hairpin.
She didn't stab him.
Instead, she forced her hand to stop fighting. She reached up, her fingers trembling, and found the spot behind his ear. The Anmian point. The "Peaceful Sleep" point.
But for a man this size, in this much manic rage, a normal press wouldn't work.
She curled her thumb and drove her nail deep into the nerve, twisting slightly.
The effect was instantaneous.
The man stiffened. A shudder wrecked his massive frame. The crushing grip on her throat faltered.
"You..." he gasped, the word ending in a groan.
Aria didn't let go. She pressed harder, finding the secondary point at the base of his skull with her other hand.
"Breathe," she choked out, her voice barely a whisper. "Just... breathe."
The monster collapsed.
His weight—solid muscle and heavy bone—crashed down on top of her, pinning her against the wall. His face buried itself in the crook of her neck.
He wasn't dead. He was shaking. Tremors of relief racked his body as the blinding white noise in his head finally, for the first time in years, went silent.
Aria stood there, trapped between the wall and the most dangerous man in the city, gasping for air. Her neck throbbed. Her body was on fire from the drugs. And now, she had a man smelling of winter and expensive scotch clinging to her like a lifeline.
"Don't move," he growled against her skin, his voice dangerous again, but clearer. "If you move... I'll kill you."
Aria rolled her eyes, though her heart was hammering against her ribs.
"If you kill me," she wheezed, "your headache comes back."
Silence.
Then, the man pulled back slightly. In the darkness, those golden eyes narrowed, finally focusing on her face.
"Who the hell are you?"