The next time Selene opened her eyes, she was alone.
But not empty.
The bed was soaked — not just from sex, sweat, or blood. Something else. The mattress felt cold, like it had been pulled from a river. Her hair clung to her forehead, and her entire body pulsed as if her skin had been peeled open and stitched back together wrong.
She sat up slowly.
The air was different.
Thicker.
She wasn't sure if it was morning or night — the light had vanished entirely from this apartment. The windows looked out into nothing now. Just black. No sky. No city. No escape.
And then…
Tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
It came from inside the walls.
Selene froze.
It wasn't Lucian.
His presence was always heavier — intoxicating, brutal. But this? This was fragile. Human. Begging.
She got up, feet bare, body aching, and followed the sound through the hallway, past the bloodstained mirror, into the laundry room she'd never touched.
It was dark. Unlit.
She flicked the switch.
Nothing.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
It was behind the dryer.
Selene knelt and pushed the machine aside. Dust exploded. Cobwebs clung to her knees. And beneath the machine, almost hidden behind a loosened panel, was a crack in the wall — small, tight, but breathing cold air.
She pressed her ear to it.
"He doesn't love you," a girl's voice whispered. "He loved us all. Until we screamed."
Selene yanked back.
The voice wasn't a ghost. It was alive. Not spirit. Not Lucian's twisted energy. This was raw humanity, rotting behind a wall of secrets.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"I was like you," the voice rasped. "I thought I could handle the pain. I thought the bruises meant love. I thought surrendering meant power."
A pause.
"But Lucian doesn't want a woman. He wants a relic. Something he can lock away when he's done playing."
Selene swallowed hard.
"Then why are you still here?"
A soft laugh. Broken. Hollow.
"Because he buried me in the walls."
The drywall cracked outward, just a little. A single fingernail poked through — bloodied and sharp.
Selene didn't flinch.
She stared into the slit in the wall like it was a confession booth.
"You want me to run," she said.
"No," the girl whispered. "I want you to kill him."
The air went ice cold. The lights flickered once, then burst. The mirror in the hallway shattered with a scream — not glass, but soul-deep agony.
Lucian had heard them.
Selene stood slowly, spine straightening, eyes sharper than they'd been in years.
He appeared behind her. Not in smoke. Not in silence. In fury.
"You touched her," he growled, grabbing her wrist. "You listened."
She didn't pull away.
"She was alive," Selene said, voice steel. "You put her in the f**king walls."
Lucian's grip tightened — painful, perfect.
"She lied. She loved me until she tried to change me. I made her part of this house because that's what she wanted — to stay. Forever."
"You murdered her."
"I worshipped her," he hissed, slamming her back against the door. "The same way I worship you. But worship turns rotten when they stop bleeding for me."
Selene stared up at him, unafraid.
"Then maybe you should find a god that bleeds too."
And that's when she did something none of the other girls did.
She bit him.
Hard. Right on his throat. Until his skin split and something black spilled from him — not blood. Shadow. Hate. Fire.
Lucian screamed.
And for the first time since moving in, he disappeared in fear.
🔥 End of Chapter 6 🔥