Content Warning: This chapter contains graphic sexual content, mature themes, and supernatural horror elements. Intended for adult audiences. Reader discretion is advised.
________________________________
POV: Evelyne / Alaric
Vessant Estate - The Night Before the Dead Rose
EVELYNE
The guards let her pass without a second glance.
She had charmed them weeks ago, a gentle push that made them see her as someone who belonged here. Someone harmless. Some of the guards had already been bought and they looked the other way when Alaric needed to move. But the real imperials, the ones who actually reported to Eleanor, those were the ones she had shaped with small suggestions and gentle nudges until they saw exactly what she wanted them to see.
It had taken weeks of careful work. Worth every moment now.
She climbed the stairs to his private chambers and raised her hand to knock.
He opened the door before her knuckles touched the wood.
She froze. He could not have heard her footsteps through the heavy oak or seen her through the solid door. Yet here he was, standing in the doorway with his shirt half-unlaced and his eyes fixed on her face with an intensity that made her forget whatever clever greeting she had prepared.
"I knew you would come," he said.
She stepped inside. The room smelled different. Musk and something older underneath it, something that reminded her of the deep crypts beneath her family's estate. She told herself it was just the closed windows. Just the heat of his body in a small space.
"How did you know I was coming?" She kept her voice light and teasing.
He closed the door behind her. The lock clicked louder than it should have.
"I felt you." He moved closer. His hand found her waist and pulled her against him. "The moment you entered the estate."
His mouth was on her neck before she could respond. Not gentle but hungry in a way that was nothing like the Alaric she knew. His teeth scraped against her pulse point and she gasped at the sharpness of it.
She should have questioned it, should have asked why his hands gripped her so hard she could feel bruises forming. But she melted into him instead and let herself believe this was what she had always wanted.
ALARIC
He tore at her clothes with hands that shook.
Laces snapped beneath his fingers. Silk ripped as he yanked her gown open. She gasped but did not stop him. Her own hands worked at his shirt, his belt, anything between them.
"Alaric." Her voice was breathless and wondering. "What has gotten into you?"
He could not answer. He had no words for what was driving him. He lifted her off her feet and carried her to the bed, dropping her onto the mattress with graceless urgency.
She was already wet when his fingers found her. Already ready for him in ways she had never been before. Or maybe he had never noticed before. Maybe he had never cared enough to check.
He stripped away the last of her clothes and spread her thighs with rough hands. His cock ached with need he could not explain. A hunger that went deeper than lust. Deeper than anything he had felt before.
"Now," she breathed. "Please. Now."
He lined himself up and shoved into her in one brutal thrust.
EVELYNE
She cried out as he filled her completely.
This was different. Usually she was the one in control, the one who rode him into the mattress while he gripped the sheets and his eyes went distant, the one who demanded he say her name because otherwise he might say someone else's.
Now he was savage.
His hands gripped her hips hard enough to bruise. His cock drove into her with a rhythm that bordered on punishing. Every thrust landed deep enough to make her gasp, deep enough to make her forget her own name.
"Look at me." His voice came out rough and commanding.
She looked.
His eyes locked on hers with focus she had never seen before. Dark and intense and fixed entirely on her. For once she was not offering comfort, was not filling a void. She was exactly who he wanted.
"Harder," she heard herself say. "Fuck me harder."
He gave her what she asked for. Hips snapping against hers until the bed creaked beneath them, until the headboard knocked against the wall with every thrust.
The orgasm crashed through her without warning. Her body clenched tight, her voice breaking on his name. He did not slow down. Did not give her time to recover. Just kept fucking her through the aftershocks until she was shaking beneath him.
"Again," he growled against her ear. "Give me another one."
ALARIC
The restlessness spread through him with every thrust.
Evelyne cried out beneath him. Her body clenched around his cock and the pleasure nearly undid him.
"Do not stop." Her voice came from far away. "Please. Do not stop."
He could not stop if he wanted to.
The hunger drove him, the need, the absolute certainty that he had to finish this. He flipped her onto her stomach without warning. She gasped as he grabbed her hips and pulled her back against him, driving into her from behind with renewed force.
"Mine." The word came out low and possessive. "Say it."
"Yours." She was trembling now, face pressed into the pillow, hands clawing at the sheets. "I am yours. I have always been yours."
His hand slid around to press against her belly, firm and claiming.
"This body is mine."
She shivered at the intensity in his voice, at the weight of his palm against her skin, at the way he fucked her with hunger that never seemed to end.
"Yes," she breathed. "All of me. Everything."
He drove into her one final time and came so hard his vision went white.
EVELYNE
She lost count after the third time.
Her body ached in ways it had never ached before. She was sore and swollen and still clenching around him every time he thrust deep. Her throat was raw from screaming his name.
And still he kept going. Still he kept fucking her until she could not think, could not speak, could only feel and want more.
When he finally stopped, she could not move. Could barely breathe. Her whole body felt wrung out and used and hungry for more even now.
"What happened to you tonight?" she whispered. "Where did that come from?"
He did not answer. She turned her head to look at him. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, his chest still heaving.
"Alaric?"
"I simply stopped pretending." His voice was flat and exhausted. "Go to sleep. I am tired."
She should have pushed, should have demanded answers. But her own exhaustion was too heavy and sleep was pulling her under. She curled against his side and pressed her hand to his chest. Felt his heartbeat slow beneath her palm.
ALARIC
She fell asleep within minutes.
He lay still, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the hunger to return. It always returned. Every time he thought he had satisfied it, the need came back sharper than before.
But now it sat quietly in his chest. Satisfied. Patient. Waiting.
His cock was soft for the first time in hours. His body ached from the force of what they had done. He had fucked her until neither of them could move, until she was sobbing his name into the pillow, until his own voice broke on sounds that were not quite words.
He did not understand what was happening to him or why his body no longer felt familiar. His thoughts kept drifting to places they had never gone before. The restlessness beneath his skin felt like it belonged to someone else entirely.
He pushed the questions away. They did not matter.
All that mattered was the plan. The curse spreading through the palace. The chaos that would follow. The revenge he had been denied for so long.
Evelyne shifted beside him, murmuring something in her sleep. Her hand slid across his chest and came to rest over his heart.
He felt nothing.
He should feel something. Affection. Satisfaction. The warmth of another body pressed against his own. But there was only the quiet certainty that she was useful and that she would serve her purpose. When she stopped being useful, he would discard her without hesitation.
The thought did not disturb him. Maybe nothing would again.
EVELYNE
She woke to the sound of him moving around the room.
Her body screamed when she tried to sit up. Every muscle ached. She throbbed between her thighs from how hard he had used her. Her throat was raw from crying out his name.
He had taken her four times. Maybe five. She had lost count somewhere after the third, when exhaustion and pleasure had blurred into something she could no longer separate.
"We need to discuss Seraphina."
She blinked at him. He stood by the window, already dressed, his back to her. His voice held none of the desperate hunger from hours before. Cold now and controlled. The Alaric she recognized.
"Now?"
"The curse is spreading through the palace." He did not turn around. "The servants have already started falling. By tomorrow, the dead will rise."
"And no one will suspect us."
"No one will suspect me." He finally looked at her over his shoulder. "I have been under house arrest since the divorce. Imperial guards watch every door. The Empress herself ordered my confinement. I could not possibly have been responsible."
She pushed herself up on her elbows, ignoring the protest of muscles she had not known she possessed. Her hair fell around her face in tangled waves.
"The plan is proceeding exactly as we designed."
"Yes." Something flickered across his face. Not quite affection. Not quite anything she could name. "You did well. Getting the artifact to the intermediary without being detected. The rest was out of our hands."
"I always do well." She forced a smile. "You will remember that when we take our places beside the throne."
He did not answer. His attention had shifted to something beyond the window. Something she could not see.
The silence stretched between them.
"Alaric? Are you all right?"
He turned to face her fully. His expression was blank and pleasant. The mask he wore for court functions and tedious negotiations.
"I am better than I have been in months."
The words should have reassured her but they made her skin crawl.
ALARIC
The itch between his shoulder blades had returned, faint and barely noticeable but persistent in a way that demanded attention.
He reached back to scratch it and found nothing. Just smooth skin, slightly cool to the touch.
"What is it?" Evelyne asked. She had risen from the bed, wrapping the sheet around her body. The fabric did nothing to hide the marks he had left on her. Teeth and fingers and bruises covering her skin.
"Nothing. A passing irritation."
She moved toward him. Her steps were unsteady. He had used her thoroughly tonight. Perhaps too thoroughly.
He felt no guilt about that.
"Let me help." She pressed herself against his back. Her arms wrapped around his chest from behind.
Her fingers found his spine and traced down the length of it with delicate pressure.
He closed his eyes and let her touch him.
EVELYNE
His skin was cold.
Not everywhere. Just a patch between his shoulder blades, right where she had seen him reaching. Cold and smooth and wrong in a way she could not explain.
She pressed her palm flat against the spot and felt him shiver.
"Does that hurt?"
"No." His voice came out strange and distant. "It feels like nothing at all."
Her fingers traced the edges of the cold patch. It was roughly the size of her hand, centered over his spine. The skin looked normal. No marks, no discoloration, nothing to explain the absence of warmth.
"You should have a healer look at this."
"It is nothing." He turned to face her and caught her wrists in his hands. "Just stress. Just the weight of everything we have set in motion."
She wanted to argue, wanted to press the issue. But his grip on her wrists was firm. Not painful. Just certain. The hold of a man who was finished discussing the subject.
"Tomorrow," she said instead. "After the palace falls. We can discuss it then."
"Yes. Tomorrow."
She dressed in silence. Her body protested every movement, aching from the violence of their coupling. She would have bruises for days. Would carry the evidence of this night on her skin.
She should have been happy, should have been celebrating the fulfillment of every fantasy she had harbored since the first time she saw him.
But she felt cold. Cold in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.
At the door, she paused and looked back at him. He stood by the window with his back to her, outlined by the moonlight.
"Alaric?"
"Yes?"
"I love you."
She had never said it before. Had been saving it for the right moment, the right leverage, the right strategic advantage.
Now it came out before she could stop it.
He did not turn around. Did not move at all.
"I know," he said.
She left without another word.
ALARIC
The door closed behind her.
He stood at the window and watched the moons rise over the estate. His reflection stared back at him from the glass, looking like him but also like a stranger.
Something was different. He could feel it somewhere deep inside him. A presence that had not been there before. A hunger he could not name.
The itch between his shoulder blades faded to nothing. He ignored it and focused on the plans he needed to make. The moves he needed to anticipate. The chaos that would consume the palace by morning.
In the glass, his reflection smiled.
He had not meant to smile.
He turned away from the window and crossed to the bed. The sheets still smelled of her, of sweat and sex and the sounds she had made when he pushed her past her limits.
Tomorrow, the empire would begin to burn.
He lay down and closed his eyes.
And did not dream.