The heavy velvet curtains of Lord Harrington's master suite swallowed the moonlight, leaving only the guttering candles to paint the room in flickering gold and shadow. The air was thick with the scent of expensive cologne, spent lust, and the faint metallic tang of old magic.
Lila Voss stood at the foot of the four-poster bed, legs slightly parted, feeling the slow, warm trickle of Harrington's release slide down the inside of her thigh. It glistened in the low light—evidence of the ritual just completed. Her sheer black babydoll clung damply to her curves, the lace edging darkened where it pressed against sweat-slick skin. The choker at her throat pulsed once, faintly, as if drinking in the aftermath.
Behind her, Lord Harrington lay sprawled across silk sheets like a broken marionette. Naked, chest heaving in shallow, uneven breaths, eyes rolled back beneath fluttering lids. Passed out cold. The man's vitality had poured into her with his climax—raw, greedy life-force funneled straight through the stolen amulet now warm against her sternum. She felt it already: the subtle sharpening of her senses, the electric hum beneath her skin. Strength. The first real step upward.
She didn't waste time on sentiment. The ritual was done; sentiment was for mortals.
Lila reached down with gloved fingers and wiped a thick bead of cum from her inner thigh, bringing it to her lips for a slow, deliberate taste. Salty. Power-tinged. A small, wicked smile curved her mouth. Then she turned away from the bed, hips swaying with deliberate grace, the sticky warmth still leaking from her swollen pussy with every step. Let it drip. Let it mark the carpet of this arrogant prick's domain. A tiny signature.
The gothic bedroom was a treasure trove disguised as excess. Ornate dressers, gilded mirrors reflecting infinite versions of her disheveled beauty, a massive wardrobe that probably cost more than most men's lifetimes. But she knew exactly what she sought.
Harrington had bragged about it during foreplay—half-drunk on wine and her mouth—while she straddled his lap and teased him to the edge again and again.
"The Bloodstone Tear," he'd slurred, hands groping her breasts through the thin lace. "Tiny thing. Ruby droplet on a platinum chain. Cursed, they say. Brings fortune to whoever wears it... until it doesn't."
Lila had smiled against his throat then, already planning how it would look nestled between her own breasts once its power belonged to her.
She moved to the bedside commode first—most men hid their prized toys close when paranoia set in. Drawers slid open silently on oiled tracks. Cufflinks, monogrammed handkerchiefs, a half-empty vial of something suspiciously like laudanum. Nothing.
Next, the tall armoire. She opened it wide, fan snapping open in her free hand out of habit. The black lace fluttered, stirring the air just enough to mask any small sounds. Inside hung tailored coats, starched shirts, and—there, on a velvet-lined shelf behind a false panel she pried open with a gloved fingernail—a small lacquered box.
Her pulse quickened. The box was warm to the touch, as though it remembered the hands that had last held it.
She lifted the lid.
There it lay: the Bloodstone Tear. No larger than her thumbnail, a perfect crimson teardrop suspended on delicate platinum links. Even in the dim candlelight it seemed to drink the shadows, glowing faintly from within like a trapped heartbeat.
Lila's breath caught. She could already feel its hunger answering hers.
She lifted it free, chain pooling cool against her palm. Without hesitation she unclasped her own choker—the plain velvet one she'd worn as camouflage—and replaced it with the Bloodstone. The moment the gem settled between her breasts, heat bloomed outward: sharp, intoxicating, racing through veins like liquid fire.
Her vision sharpened. Colors deepened. She heard the distant tick of a grandfather clock three floors below, the shallow rasp of Harrington's unconscious breathing, even the soft drip-drip of his seed hitting the Aubusson rug beneath her feet.
And deeper still—whispers. Not voices, exactly. Intentions. The stone was old. It remembered blood spilled to claim it. It approved of her method.
Lila exhaled slowly, a soft, throaty sound that was half moan, half laugh.
She glanced back at the bed. Harrington hadn't moved. Would probably wake in the morning with a pounding head, vague memories of the most incredible fuck of his life, and the nagging sense that something vital had been... taken.
He'd never know the half of it.
She closed the box, slid the panel shut, smoothed her babydoll back into place as best she could over still-flushed skin. The cum had mostly dried now, leaving faint, sticky trails she didn't bother to clean. Let the maids who came after her wonder.
Lila crossed to the tall window, pushed it open. Cold night air rushed in, carrying the fog of London and the distant chime of bells. She stepped onto the narrow balcony ledge—impossibly balanced, impossibly graceful now that the first fragment of power thrummed inside her.
One hand on the stone at her throat, the other snapping her fan shut like a promise.
"First blood," she whispered to the night.
Then she dropped silently into the shadows below, already plotting the next mark.
The ascent had begun.