The Gala & The Monster (Part 2)
White swallowed sound. For a moment I thought the explosion had deafened me, but the silence was too deliberate. The light wasn't from the chandeliers—those had already shattered. It came from me.
I saw it in the reflection on a fallen champagne bottle — light bleeding through my dress, through my hands, veins glowing silver-white like molten wires. My pulse became the rhythm of something ancient waking inside my skin.
The shadow recoiled from the glow, hissing, its edges breaking apart.
Damian's voice cut through the haze: "Aria! Don't move!"
But I couldn't listen. My body had decided what it wanted before I had words for it. The light moved with my heartbeat — every thud sent ripples across the marble, cracking it like thin ice. The air felt heavy, alive, the world bending around me like a lens. I smelled metal and ozone. Power — mine.
The woman on the balcony tilted her head, intrigued. "Oh, so the bloodline still sings," she murmured. "How deliciously unexpected."
Damian lunged toward her, his movements too fast for human eyes. He wasn't just a man; I'd known that since the alley. He hit her like a storm — but she dissolved into shadow before he could strike. A mocking echo followed: "We'll meet again, husband and wife of borrowed power."
The shadow creature shrieked and melted away with her, sucked into a vortex that closed with a sound like a breath being held.
And then the light inside me died.
I collapsed. My hands hit the floor hard enough to sting. The marble was cracked in a spiderweb pattern around me, champagne pooling in the fractures. The room smelled of smoke and fear. Guests screamed, cried, filmed. Security shouted uselessly.
And above it all, Damian's voice: calm, commanding, dangerous. "No one leaves until my men clear the exits."
He crouched beside me, his hand hovering inches from my shoulder, like he was afraid touching me would set me on fire again. "Can you move?"
"I—what happened?" My voice came out hoarse.
"You happened," he said. "You triggered."
I blinked at him. "Triggered what?"
He looked around the wrecked ballroom — the broken glass, the singed air, the terrified crowd — then back at me. "Your inheritance."
My head spun. "I don't—"
"Don't try to stand yet," he said. "The first time always—"
"The first time?"
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. For a man who could stare down billion-dollar boards without blinking, he suddenly looked… human. Tired. "You have a choice. You can panic now, or you can let me get you out of here."
I chose the only option that made sense. "Get me out."
He stood, pulled me to my feet, and led me through the chaos. Guests parted around us like water, eyes wide. The whispers chased us like ghosts.
> "Who is she?"
"She's glowing—did you see that?"
"Vale's got himself another experiment."
Each word landed like grit under my skin. I kept my head down, following Damian toward a service corridor behind the catering area. Two of his security guards — real ones, not the decorative kind — fell in beside us. They looked shaken. One was bleeding.
"Sir," the taller one said. "The creature's gone, but half the footage—"
"Wipe it," Damian ordered. "All of it. Every phone, every camera. Anyone who asks will be paid for silence."
The guard nodded, already on his earpiece.
I stumbled, my heels slipping on broken glass. Damian caught me — an automatic reflex, one arm around my waist. The contact sent a shock through both of us. His jaw clenched. "Careful."
I wanted to pull away, but my legs didn't trust me. "You knew this could happen," I said, breathless. "You brought me here knowing they'd come."
"Yes."
The honesty hit harder than a lie. "Why?"
"Because they would have found you anywhere else," he said. "At least here, I could control the battlefield."
"Control?" My voice cracked. "People could've died—"
"They didn't," he said sharply. "Because of you."
We reached a door marked Private Access. He swiped his keycard — not the black one he'd given me earlier, but something darker, marked with the same crescent emblem. The lock clicked.
Inside, the noise of the gala vanished. The door shut behind us, sealing the chaos out.
The hallway beyond was narrow, industrial, humming with the low vibration of hidden machinery. He led me down it, pace fast, controlled. I tried to match him, but my legs were still trembling.
"You said inheritance," I managed. "What does that mean?"
He slowed, only slightly. "It means your mother wasn't just running from danger. She was running from herself — and from what she passed down to you."
"My mother was human, Damian."
He gave me a sideways look. "So was I. Once."
That stopped me cold. "Once?"
We reached an elevator. He pressed his thumb to a scanner; the doors slid open without a sound. He motioned me in, but didn't follow.
"You're not coming?"
"I'll join you in a moment," he said. "There's something I need to handle first."
"No," I said. "You're not leaving me after that."
He smiled — not kindly, not cruelly, but like someone who'd just been reminded of what defiance looked like. "You think you can stop me?"
"No," I said. "But you said the next time the light hits me, it could kill me. So if you want your investment alive, maybe don't let her ride an elevator alone."
For the first time tonight, he laughed — low, rough, almost human. "You're learning." He stepped in beside me. "Hold on."
The elevator moved. But not down. Up — far higher than the hotel's top floor should allow. The display flickered through numbers I didn't recognize.
"Where are we going?"
"Home," he said.
The doors opened onto silence and light.
I blinked. We weren't in the hotel anymore. We weren't anywhere normal.
A wide marble hall stretched ahead, lit by torches that burned with silver-blue flames. The walls were lined with symbols I didn't understand. At the far end, a massive window looked out over the city — only, the skyline was wrong. Older. Wilder.
"This isn't real," I whispered.
"It's as real as you are," Damian said. "Welcome to the upper veil."
He walked ahead. I followed, every nerve alive. The air tasted like storm and electricity. In the distance, faint echoes — like whispers layered on top of each other.
"Where are we?" I asked again, softer.
"This is where our kind meets when the world above grows too loud," he said. "Where your mother made her first deal. Where she swore to never let them find you."
I stopped. "My mother was here?"
He turned to face me. "Seventeen years ago. She was one of us — the dynasty-blooded. Half human, half… something older."
"No," I said, shaking my head. "You're lying."
He reached out — not to touch me, but to brush his fingertips near my ring. The metal pulsed, responding to him.
"Your light answered mine," he said quietly. "That's not human, Aria."
I stepped back. "Then what am I?"
His eyes softened, and that was somehow worse than anger. "You're the last living heir of the Silver Dynasty. The bloodline your mother tried to erase. And tonight, they realized you're still alive."
The room seemed to tilt. "The letter—she said the bond wasn't free. That what's inside you will try to claim me."
He nodded once. "She was right. But she didn't understand the rest."
"What rest?"
"That you're not the only one bound," he said, voice low. "When I saved you that night, I didn't just sign a contract. I sealed a curse. The bond links us — life for life. If they take you, they take me."
The weight of it hit me all at once — the alley, the marriage, the mark, the gala, the light. None of it random. None of it luck.
"You didn't marry me to protect me," I said. "You did it to protect yourself."
His jaw tightened, but he didn't deny it. "It started that way," he said. "It isn't anymore."
Before I could respond, the torches flickered. The air went cold.
Damian's head snapped up. "They found us."
"Here? You said this place was safe!"
"It was," he said grimly. "Until you lit it up like a beacon."
He grabbed my wrist, pulling me behind him. The mark on my skin was burning again, brighter than ever. The hallway trembled — dust falling from the high vaulted ceiling.
A crack split down the marble wall, glowing from within. From the fissure, smoke poured out — whispering shapes, eyes, laughter.
"Back!" Damian shouted, pushing me behind him. "Don't let it touch you!"
The light around me flared again, instinctive, protective. The smoke recoiled. Damian turned, caught my gaze, and for once there was no command, no control — only urgency.
"Listen to me, Aria," he said, voice hoarse. "Whatever happens next—remember who you are."
"Who am I?" I shouted over the rising roar.
He smiled faintly. "The only one who can end this."
And then the floor split open.