Lunch with Leo in the village pub was an exercise in acute discomfort. The cozy, normal atmosphere of the place—the smell of beer and fried food, the chatter of locals—felt alien, a parody of a life she'd left behind.
Leo was persistent. "The growth patterns are phenomenal, Lilith! Absolutely unprecedented. And that groundskeeper of yours… there's something off about him. The villagers say no one ever sees him come or go. That the Thorne place has always been… odd."
"Small villages have big imaginations, Leo," she said, pushing her food around her plate.
"Your aunt was a recluse. Now you're there, with him. I'm worried about you." He leaned forward, his kind eyes earnest. "Your father was like a brother to me. Let me help. Let me study the soil, the flora. There could be groundbreaking discoveries here!"
Groundbreaking. The word made her flinch. To Leo, it meant academic glory. To Cassian, it would mean destruction. She felt a faint, anxious pulse through the bond—Cassian's agitation, a constant, low-grade hum in her blood.
"The estate is private, Leo. It's in the will. I could lose everything if I let outsiders in." The lie came easily, coated in a sheen of truth.
He sat back, disappointed but not defeated. "At least let me give you my number. If you need anything. If anything… strange happens."
She took the card, a tangible link to a world that now seemed frail and distant. As she drove back to Thornwood, the card felt like a lead weight in her pocket. The manor came into view, no longer a sanctuary but a beautiful, watchful fortress. Cassian was waiting on the front steps, having seemingly not moved since she left.
"Well?" The single word was icy.
"He's gone. I convinced him."
"You hesitated." Cassian's eyes were narrowed. "I felt it. A flicker of doubt. Of… sympathy for him."
The accuracy of his perception was terrifying. "He was my father's friend. It's not sympathy, it's guilt!"
"Guilt leads to confession." He descended the steps, a predator moving in on its prey. "He left you something. What is it?"
Lilith instinctively clutched her pocket. The small movement was her undoing. In a blur of motion, he was before her, his hand closing over hers in her pocket. He pulled out the business card, holding it between two fingers as if it were contaminated.
"A tether," he hissed. "A lifeline back to a world you have chosen to leave." With a curl of his lip, a faint, black frost crept from his fingers, engulfing the card. It crystallized, then shattered into nothingness in his palm.
"How dare you!" Rage, hot and cleansing, flooded her. "You don't get to control every part of my life!"
"Every part of your life is Thornwood now!" he roared back, the windows of the manor rattling. "Every breath you take feeds the garden! Every beat of your heart sustains me! That man is a weed, and I will pluck him out if he tries to take root here!"
The violence in his words, the absolute possession, shattered the last of the golden dream. This was the true face of the bond: not shared loneliness, but absolute dominion. She saw the centuries of isolation had not just made him lonely, but mad with a possessive, paranoid love.
"You're a monster," she whispered, the words hollow.
The anger drained from him, replaced by a devastation so complete it was worse than his rage. "Yes," he said, his voice suddenly quiet, broken. "I am. I have always been. You just chose to gild my chains with your memory of sunlight." He looked at the ashes of the card in his hand. "The next offering is due at the full moon. It will require more than a memory, Lilith. It will require a piece of your vitality. A night of your dreams, perhaps. Or a day of your strength. The bond is hungry. It always is."
He turned and walked into the house, leaving her standing in the drive, the ashes of her connection to the past swirling at her feet. The conflict in the garden he'd once spoken of was now a war inside her. She loved him. She feared him. She was bound to him. And the next ritual loomed, promising not wonder, but a deeper, more permanent consumption. The thorns of Thornwood were no longer just on the roses; they were wrapping around her soul, and the man she loved was the one pushing them in deeper.