Mr. Donvel's House
The dining room air thickened like honey as Morgana placed the final piece of silverware on the mahogany table. The butter knife caught light from the crystal chandelier, throwing fractured rainbows across polished wood. Beyond the walls, heavy footsteps echoed—deliberate, measured, belonging to someone who owned every space they entered.
He was here. She felt it in the electric charge filling the air, the way the atmosphere shifted around his presence.
"I think he's here," Zirelle breathed, pure joy blooming in her voice like flowers opening to sunlight.
Morgana gripped the table edge, knuckles white against dark wood. Zirelle's footsteps retreated toward the sitting room, light and quick as a bird taking flight.
*You've survived worse,* she told herself. *He's just a man. He doesn't bite.*
But her chest was constricted with memories that had never properly healed. Some wounds left scars that ached when the past walked through your front door uninvited.
She straightened her spine and stepped through the archway.
There he was.
Majesty stood like a figure carved from midnight and moonlight—stillness and power wrapped in expensive clothes and practiced composure. A predator at rest, beautiful and dangerous. Five years had sharpened him into something more formidable than memory preserved. His midnight hair swept back in loose waves, more deliberate now, weaponized. The strong line of his jaw was carved with precision that spoke of commanding rooms with presence alone.
Those golden eyes found hers with the inevitability of gravity.
"Hello, Anna," he said, voice deeper now, richer—aged whiskey poured over broken glass.
The name hit like a physical blow, splintering her composure. She hadn't heard it in years. She'd buried it alongside the girl who believed in moonlit promises.
"Hello. It's good to see you again." The lie tasted like copper.
Before she could process what was happening, he moved. Three strides ate up the distance, and he pulled her into his arms.
Every instinct screamed. Her body went rigid as his warmth pressed against hers—too close, too real after years of existing only in nightmares. His scent enveloped her: cedar and winter air, leather and something that bypassed her mind and went straight to places she'd sealed off.
He held her like he had the right to, like five years meant nothing.
"I missed you," he murmured against her ear, words ghosting across skin like memory's touch.
She pressed palms against his chest, but he was an immovable mountain. His grip tightened—not harsh enough to hurt, but firm enough to make clear she'd be released when he decided.
"You must've missed her terribly," Amara's voice floated over, bright and oblivious. "You were always so fond of her."
Morgana finally stepped back, face flushed with humiliation and anger. "Yes. I missed you too."
*Lie. Lie. Lie.*
"Come, dinner is served," Amara announced.
Zirelle materialized beside Majesty like sunshine, slipping her arm through his, chattering about the meal as she pulled him toward the dining room.
Morgana followed at a careful distance, mind a minefield of buried memories and warning bells. She should have run the moment she saw him. Instead, she walked sedately to dinner while the ghost of her past settled at their table like he'd never left.
---
The dining room felt smaller with Majesty in it, as if his presence consumed oxygen. He sat like a king without a crown—aloof, unreadable, coiled with quiet intensity that made conversation feel like walking on thin ice.
His attention was fixed on Morgana with hawk-like focus. She sat wrapped in stillness like armor, auburn hair catching candlelight, studying her plate with intense concentration. But he could read the tension in her shoulders, the careful way she held her breath.
"So, how was life back in Eldardor?" Mr. Donvel asked.
"It was fine. Peaceful," Majesty replied, the word feeling like ash. There had been no peace in three years of exile, carrying questions without answers and wounds that refused to heal.
He didn't look at Mr. Donvel. His eyes remained fixed on Morgana, cataloging every micro-expression.
"Have you thought about staying permanently?"
"No." The single word dropped like a stone into still water, sending ripples of discomfort around the table.
Amara swept in diplomatically. "Let him settle in first. He grew up with Thane and Eli—adjusting without friends must be difficult."
"Speaking of them," Zirelle rallied, "why aren't they here yet?"
"They're arriving tomorrow."
"Then I'll show you around the village! So much has changed—"
"Not today," he cut her off flatly.
Uncomfortable silence followed, filled only by silverware against china.
"Tomorrow, then!" Zirelle's optimism remained bulletproof.
His mother's fingers slipped between his beneath the table—warm, soft, carrying an unmistakable warning wrapped in tenderness. A reminder of promises made, roles expected.
"Tomorrow sounds perfect," he said, silk stretched over broken glass.
Kaia beamed. But Majesty had already dismissed her, watching Morgana shift uncomfortably. Her silence was deafening, screaming truths she refused to speak.
She was hiding something. He could feel it like static electricity, raising hair on his arms. She pretended not to notice his scrutiny, but he caught the way her fingers trembled around her fork, the hitched breath when their eyes met before she looked away.
She could lie to the others with smiles and polite responses. But she couldn't lie to him. He knew her too well.
The meal continued—a careful dance of normalcy that felt increasingly fragile. Through it all, Majesty waited with predator patience, watching for the moment her composure would crack.
---
That night, Morgana retreated to her bedroom like a wounded animal, wrapping herself in the illusion that distance and locked doors could provide protection. She sat at her desk pretending to read, when every nerve remained attuned to his presence somewhere below.
*He's not staying forever. This is temporary.*
But the reassurance felt hollow.
A whisper of sound made her freeze.
"Thinking about me?"
The voice slid through darkness like smoke. Morgana spun around, heart launching against her ribs.
There he was—silhouetted against her open window like a dark angel. Moonlight outlined sharp angles of his face and predatory grace. A cigarette dangled between his fingers, ember glowing like a fallen star.
"H-How did you get in here?!"
He lifted the cigarette toward the window. "Window." His voice carried familiar amusement.
Fury sparked through her veins. "Get out."
His mouth curved into that devastating smirk. "Your heartbeat says otherwise. Are you scared of me, Morgana?"
"You wish."
He dropped from the ledge with liquid grace, each movement controlled. "Or maybe your heart races because you still love me."
The words stole her breath, memories crashing over her—moonlit kisses, whispered promises, the way he'd once looked at her like she was everything.
"In your dreams," she managed weakly.
His fingers brushed her cheek, tucking hair behind her ear with devastating gentleness. The touch sent electricity racing across her skin, awakening nerve endings she'd thought dead.
"I missed you, Anna."
Her heart threatened to crack open and spill guarded secrets. She shoved him hard. "Let me go!"
He barely moved, chuckling low and confidently. He leaned closer until his breath ghosted across her ear. "Then tell me—were you avoiding me?"
"No!" The denial erupted too fast, too desperately.
He studied her with focused intensity, golden eyes memorizing every feature.
Then, without warning, his lips crashed onto hers with storm-breaking force. It wasn't gentle—it was brutal, explosive, three years of unspoken words. His mouth moved with devastating skill, hunger palpable and consuming.
Morgana froze, overwhelmed. She could taste cigarette smoke, feel his heat surrounding her, and hear her thundering heartbeat. For a moment, she was seventeen again, drowning in sensation and certainty that this man could unmake her with a touch.
Then reality crashed back with fury.
Pure rage surged through her veins like lightning. Her hand found a crystal vase—heavy, sharp-edged, perfect. With all her buried fury and swallowed pain, she hurled it at his head.
The vase connected with his temple, crystal exploding against bone in glittering fragments. Blood bloomed across his skin in a thin crimson line. But he didn't cry out or rage. He simply dabbed at the wound, examining the blood as if it were mildly interesting.
Through it all, that damnable smirk never left his lips—as if her desperate defiance was mere entertainment.
Looking at him standing there bleeding and smiling like some beautiful demon, Morgana realized with crystalline clarity that the boy she'd once loved was truly dead.
And the man who had replaced him was far more dangerous than she'd ever imagined.