The estate had a way of suffocating the mind. Even the hallways, with their polished floors and painted ceilings, seemed to breathe with a will of their own. Adrian walked them alone, his steps echoing, a metronome for the chaos inside him. He could feel Selene's absence like a weight pressing against his chest, like a constant, unrelenting reminder of what he craved yet could not possess.
He paused at the library door, leaning against the frame, feeling his pulse hammer in his temples. The air smelled of old parchment and candle wax. And there, in the far corner, shadowed by shelves taller than a man, Nyra waited.
Her eyes were pools of midnight, solemn, unreadable, yet alive with something dangerous. She did not speak at first. She merely watched him, and he felt exposed, naked beneath her gaze.
"Adrian," she said at last, her voice low, trembling with a strange urgency. "You must listen. You do not understand what this place… what this house… what we are."
He swallowed. "What do you mean?" His voice was hoarse. He wanted to demand clarity, but he feared the answer more than he feared her.
She stepped closer, hesitated, then let her fingers brush his hand. The touch was light, almost casual, yet it sent a tremor through him that he could not suppress.
"I came here long before you," she continued, her eyes never leaving his. "I loved someone. I thought I could save him. But the estate… it does not allow such things. It consumes, Adrian. It devours desire, and it leaves you… hollow."
Adrian's stomach churned. "Consumes? Devours? Hollow? You speak in riddles. Tell me plainly, Nyra. What has this house done?"
She hesitated again, then lowered her gaze. "He is gone," she whispered. "Taken, lost… or perhaps he allowed himself to vanish into it, as you will if you are not careful. Desire is a chain, Adrian. It binds, it crushes, and it leaves men like shadows."
He felt a cold weight settle on his chest. The taste of fear mingled with something darker—an ache that had nothing to do with his body. "I do not understand… why tell me this now?"
"Because you are already in its grip," she said softly. "Look at yourself. Look at how you tremble, how your blood runs hotter than reason, how you ache for Selene even as your mind screams at you to flee. Do you not see that it is already too late?"
Adrian's fingers curled into fists. He felt the fire inside him, the fever of lust that Selene, Liora, and the others had ignited. He felt its pull, its cruelty, its addictive poison. "I do not care," he muttered, voice breaking. "I will not be afraid. I will take what I desire."
Nyra shook her head slowly. "That is the very mistake. Desire is not to be taken; it is to be survived. And you… you are unarmed."
Her gaze softened suddenly, just for a moment. It was almost tenderness, but he sensed sorrow beneath it. She hesitated, then whispered, almost as if confessing a sin, "I let him hold me once… thinking it would save him, thinking it would give me power. But it only gave him more chains. And I… I have lived with that regret ever since."
Adrian's chest tightened. Her words cut deeper than Selene's mockery, deeper than Liora's dominance. There was truth here, real, painful, raw. She had loved, and she had lost, and now she offered him a warning wrapped in her own agony.
"I…" he began, then stopped. Words failed him. Desire surged, pressing against reason, demanding release, demanding surrender. He wanted to take her in that moment, to feel the warmth of human contact, to grasp at something real amid the illusions of the estate.
But he did not. Instead, he reached for her hand, lightly, with hesitation. "Nyra… then show me. Show me what to avoid. Tell me… teach me how not to vanish."
Her lips curved in a faint, sad smile. She allowed him the touch for a heartbeat, then withdrew. "You cannot be taught, Adrian. Only warned. And sometimes… only one man in ten survives what the house asks of him. Be careful what you covet."
The words left him reeling. He felt the weight of them as if iron had been placed upon his chest. Desire, lust, obsession—they were no longer playful. They were chains, each one tightening around him, binding him to a fate he could neither resist nor fully comprehend.
He stepped back, overwhelmed by a storm of sensation: fear, longing, shame, and the inexorable pull of lust that Selene's absence made unbearable. Nyra's gaze followed him as he retreated, and he felt the trace of her warning like fire along his spine.
When he reached his chamber, Adrian collapsed onto the bed. The moonlight spilled across his skin, illuminating every line of tension, every tremor in his hands. He felt hollow, yet afire, consumed yet alive.
And as the hours passed, he whispered her name, Selene's name, Liora's, Althea's—every woman who had touched his life and left him trembling. Each name was a chain, each desire a link, binding him ever tighter to the estate's cruel gravity.
Adrian realized, at last, with a clarity that terrified him, that he was already lost.
The house had claimed him.