Thoughts crashed through Natalia's skull like a derailed subway train, each one slamming into the next. The unfamiliar plushness beneath her body jarred her senses—this wasn't her sagging couch where she'd collapse watching mindless reality shows.
No. Panic seized her lungs mid-breath as her eyes flew open.
Towering stone ceilings loomed above her, cold and ancient, nothing like the water-stained plaster of her apartment ceiling that had threatened to cave in for years.
Natalia's breath caught as the memory of Astaroth's burning brand pressed against her skin resurfaced. She jerked upright, wincing as the movement pulled at raw flesh. '
Unfamiliar stone walls loomed around her, their surfaces dancing with orange light that cast monstrous, shifting shapes across the ceiling. Her fingers clutched at unfamiliar fabric—thick, expensive wool, nothing like her threadbare throw blanket back home.
Fire bloomed across Natalia's chest with each heartbeat, flashing images behind her eyes—violet eyes, searing metal, her own screams. She peeled back the blanket with trembling fingers.
There it was: his mark. Raised welts formed an intricate sigil, the edges glistening with some herbal salve that smelled of mint and something metallic. When she exhaled, the skin pulled tight; when she inhaled, pinpricks of pain shot outward like spider legs.
Her fingertip hovered a breath above the burn, not quite touching. A book snapped shut.
Her head jerked up. In the shadowed corner, Astaroth watched her, one long finger pressed against his bottom lip. The flames in the hearth cast half his face in amber light, the other half in darkness. Natalia's jaw clenched until her teeth ached.
What are you?" The words sliced through the air like a blade, his violet eyes boring into her with such intensity that Natalia felt physically pinned in place. Her heart hammered against her ribs as cold sweat broke across her skin.
Human. She was human—he knew this—yet the question peeled away her certainty like flesh from bone. Her throat closed, choking off any response she might have mustered.
Astaroth surged forward, his massive frame suddenly looming over her. "How do you know the language of the dark ones?" he snarled, slamming his palm against the wall beside her head.
The stone cracked beneath his fingers. His breath scorched her face as he leaned in, close enough that she could see the pulse throbbing in his neck. "Answer me!"
Natalia's mind lurched between fury and bewilderment, her fingers digging into her palms.
Dark ones? She wanted to scream at him, demand answers, yet her tongue felt leaden with doubt. Had she spoken something other than English without realizing?
The burn on her chest throbbed in time with her racing thoughts—was there some part of herself hidden even from her own awareness? She couldn't decide which terrified her more: that he might be lying, or that she might be.
The silk of his robes whispered against the floor as he unfolded from his seat. Three measured steps brought him before her.
He knelt, his knees cracking like distant thunder. Those violet eyes—inches from hers now—narrowed, pupils contracting to pinpoints. Natalia's mouth went desert-dry. Her heart hammered against her ribs as if trying to escape.
The heat from his body reached her in waves, smelling of smoke and clove.
He exhaled through his nose and rose. "Sleep," he grunted, dropping into an armchair across the room. The leather creaked beneath his weight.
Natalia counted her own breaths—one, two, three—while stealing glances at his silhouette.
His fingers drummed against the armrest. Tap-tap-tap. Pause. Tap-tap-tap.
Each time she closed her eyes, they snapped open at the slightest sound: the pop of the fire, the scrape of his boot against the floor, the weight of his stare pressing against her skin.
"I won't ask again unless you prefer when I knock you unconscious." His voice dropped to a dangerous whisper, the air between them cooling by several degrees.
Nat met his gaze before rolling her eyes and tugging the rough wool blanket higher, its weight pressing her into the unfamiliar mattress.
Her fingers found a loose thread and picked at it while her mind circled back to Silvius and her calculating smile. At least she seemed willing to talk.
She pictured Zila's face—that slight softening around the eyes when they'd last spoken. The memory of their stilted conversation replayed as Nat's eyelids grew impossibly heavy.
Her last conscious thought was of questions she needed to ask, but they scattered like autumn leaves gusting through Central Park as exhaustion claimed her, dragging her down into a darkness that offered no answers, only temporary escape.
"Ah, so the rumors are true, Dorian. She is as radiant as any Celestrial." The whispered words slipped through Nat's dreams.
"Hmmm, Astie will not take kindly to the attention she's bound to attract. I can already envision a swarm of Shadreals vying for her affection." This second voice carried the same lilting accent as the first, but softer, like velvet against silk.
Nat's eyelids fluttered but remained closed. Her fingers twitched against the blanket as the conversation continued above her.
A dull ache pulsed behind her temples, and her limbs felt weighted with lead, yet her heart quickened beneath her marked chest, betraying her consciousness to anyone watching closely enough.
Nat's eyes snapped open, adrenaline surging through her veins like wildfire. Two towering figures loomed over her bed, their identical faces carved from marble and cruelty.
Twins. Her heart hammered against her ribs as their predatory gazes dissected her. Though mirror images of each other, both radiated a terrible beauty that made her mouth go dry—skin too perfect, features too symmetrical a reminder of how inhuman.
Dark, serpentine markings writhed across their exposed flesh—not tattoos, but something alive, something that seemed to pulse with each beat of their immortal hearts. The same markings she'd seen on every Shadreal, but never this close, never this vivid.
She forced herself to breathe as she catalogued their differences. The one on the left—taller, with a beauty mark like a drop of blood beneath his right eye and a shock of white slashing through raven hair—stood with shoulders thrown back, power coiled in every muscle.
His twin lurked half a step behind, shoulders hunched as though folding inward, but his eyes burned with a hunger that made Nat's skin crawl.
A creeping sense of unease settled over her, prickling at the back of her mind as she narrowed her eyes at the two.
She felt exposed, vulnerable, her skin warming under their gaze even as her instincts screamed danger. Were they here to help or harm?
The atmosphere around them seemed almost palpable, thick with possibilities she couldn't name.
Part of her wanted to call out for Astaroth—absurd, seeking protection from her captor—while another part wondered if these intruders might offer escape from him.
"Brother, I'll have her heart before sunrise." The whisper carried across the room, meant for her to hear.
The twin with the beauty mark swept forward, one eyebrow arched as he pressed his palm to his chest, fingers splayed against embroidered silk. His bow dipped just low enough to be proper, not low enough to be sincere.
"Kieran Baudelaire of Erivis." His burgundy eyes locked with hers, the corner of his mouth lifting. His tongue darted across his lower lip before he added, "And this shadow behind me is Dorian."
Nat paused, her heart stuttering between fear and something else—something dangerous. Kieran's smile curled at the corners of his mouth, feline and inviting, and she caught herself leaning forward before jerking back.
His eyes tracked the movement to where her dress gaped, revealing the the burned sigil on her chest.
The playfulness in his expression curdled into something unreadable—disgust? Concern? Recognition?—before his face settled into careful blankness, one finger tapping against his thigh in an uneven rhythm.
"Commander Baudelaire, try to take what's mine and I'll rip your fucking arm off and feed it to the draugr." Frost crystallized on the windowpanes as Astaroth erupted from the shadows, each footfall shattering the stone floor into spider-web fractures that raced toward the twins.
The violet markings on his skin ignited like hellfire, veins of power that pulsed beneath his flesh and shadows pulsed around human. The magic so thick in the air she could taste it on her tongue.
Nat's insides twisted into knots, bile rising in her throat—not just from his savage claim of ownership—but from the crushing weight of power that slammed into her like a physical blow.
This wasn't the elegant, controlled being who had toyed with her before—this was primordial terror made flesh. His beauty shattered into something ancient and monstrous, a creature that had stalked mankind's nightmares long before they had words to name their fear.
This was what lurked beneath the surface of civility—a Shadreal in its true form, unleashed.
Kieran's spine arched like a man being electrocuted, fingers contorting into black talons that could render flesh from bone.
The tendon in his jaw bulged as he retreated—not in submission but in calculation. His eyes flooded crimson, pupils narrowing to slits as they locked onto Nat with such instinctual, ravenous hunger that her lungs seized.
His lips peeled back in a predator's smile, exposing not just the edge but the full gleaming length of a canine. Between the three Shadreals, the air didn't just crackle—it screamed with tension.
Dorian slid between his brother and Astaroth, palms raised, his shoulders relaxing from their battle-ready tension. The violet markings on Astaroth's skin dimmed from blazing to smoldering as his jaw unclenched.
"My lord," Dorian murmured, bowing his head just enough to expose the vulnerable nape of his neck. Astaroth's nostrils flared once before he pivoted, placing himself between the twins and Nat's trembling form on the sofa. His wings acting as a shield from there prying eyes.
"Why are you here?" Each syllable dropped like ice from Astaroth's lips.
Kieran's fingers trembled, black talons receding millimeter by agonizing millimeter into human-shaped nails.
His chest rose and fell in measured counts—in for four, hold for seven, out for eight—nostrils flaring with each exhale.
A single bead of sweat traced the sharp line of his jaw. His eyes, still unnaturally bright, darted to Natalia's face then quickly away, as though ashamed she'd witnessed whatever primal thing had momentarily possessed him.
"We come bearing news of whispers from our spies in the Carthlon region," Dorian hissed through clenched teeth, his pupils contracting to pinpricks as the words escaped him like poison.
Astaroth's wings exploded outward with a thunderous crack that shook dust from the ceiling, each midnight feather bristling like a blade as they stretched to block the entire doorway.
The massive appendages vibrated with barely contained rage, casting jagged shadows that seemed to writhe across the walls.
Kieran dropped to one knee, a thin trickle of blood running from his nose as the crushing weight of Astaroth's power forced his forehead to the stone floor.
Nat's mind swirled with confusion, the foreign names bouncing around her consciousness like echoes in a cavern.
Carthlon—what kind of place was that? The mention of spies sparked a flicker of dread in her chest, but also a shameful thrill.
The mention of spies sent contradictory impulses racing through her—a cold dread that made her want to curl inward, yet simultaneously, a flare of desperate curiosity.
She found herself leaning forward despite herself, even as her instincts screamed to retreat.
Her pulse stuttered between terror and a treacherous thrill.
These power plays might crush her like an insect—or offer the leverage she needed to escape.
She caught herself wondering what secrets she might extract from this brewing conflict, then immediately recoiled at her own calculating thoughts. When had she become someone who thought this way?
Just as the whirlpool of thoughts threatened to pull her under, cool fingers pressed into her shoulder. Nat flinched, then looked up to find Zila standing over her, jaw clenched tight enough that a muscle twitched beneath her left cheekbone.
The servant's pupils had contracted to pinpricks, and her knuckles whitened as she gripped a folded cloth in her other hand. Nat's stomach knotted tighter.
"Master demands you be scrubbed and polished. Court presentation in one hour." Zila's voice cut like glass.
Nat's head snapped up—the men had vanished, leaving only the scent of ash and clove—Astaroth. The walls seemed to press inward, suffocating her with possibilities.
Court. Her pulse quickened, half dread and half something she refused to name. She pictured Shadreals with their predatory grace, how they might look at her with the same hunger Kieran had shown—terrifying, yes, but also...
She swallowed hard, disgusted by the thrill that raced through her veins. One wrong word, one trembling hand could mean her throat torn open before she could scream.
Or it could mean finding allies, leverage, a way out—or was that just another self-deception to mask her growing fascination with these beautiful monsters?