Drusilla
I’m in one of the manor’s hidden rooms, tucked behind a door only visible in certain light, when I hear a crash from downstairs.
It echoes like a war drum through the walls of this place Rapha built for me, and for a heartbeat, I don’t move.
This room has become my sanctuary since he left—a small, golden-lit nook lined with puzzle boxes, cracked leather-bound books, and a velvet chaise I now consider mine.
I’ve spent entire afternoons here, coaxing a thousand fractured pieces into something whole, while the silence stretched too long between heartbeats.
The last few weeks have been a blur of ache and waiting. But not complete isolation.
When it all became too heavy, when I couldn’t stop seeing the monster Rapha was becoming or dreaming of my father’s cold voice, I told someone.
ToldAlice , who didn’t blink. ToldGordy, who offered tea stronger than sin and a comforting silence that felt like safety.
I even confessed toVerityandGideon, their concern quiet but real. Verity wanted to curse Lucifer herself.
She also made me come to her baby shower.
At first, I said no. The idea of smiling through cake and ribbon games while my insides were knotted with grief seemed impossible. But Verity—glowing and fiercely kind—handed me a handwritten invitation sealed with gold wax and said, “I want you there, Drusilla. You’re one of us now.”
And so I went.
There were enchanted cupcakes and spellbound onesies and far too many stories about gorgon pregnancies that made me nearly faint. But there was also laughter. Real laughter. The kind that bubbled up unexpectedly and left my cheeks aching.
Somehow, their friendship has taken root in the spaces Rapha has left behind. And I’ve clung to it gratefully, fiercely. But even now, even with their comfort, my chest still aches with the not-knowing.
“Rapha?” I call, hope ringing in my voice as I hear movement again.
No answer.
I rise from the floor, brushing puzzle dust from my lap, my heart beating harder now. “Rapha?” I say again, voice sharper.
He’s back. He has to be.
I step into the hall, the manor stretching around me in shadowed silence, and peer down the staircase.
That’s when I see him.
The figure climbing the stairs is a tall, wrapped in ancient armor stitched together with magic and rot. It’s not Rapha.
My heart stutters.
My blood goes cold.
It’s him .
He moves like a phantom wrapped in a creeping black mist that coils around his decaying form. His skin is gray and cracked like old marble. And his eyes—oh, Gods—are the eyes I’ve tried to forget.
“Father.”
He stops, lips curling into a sneer. “You will come with me, daughter.” His voice is wrong, like something dead speaking through dry leaves. “You were always weak. But I will restore your purpose. You are a stain, but I will cleanse our bloodline of your sin.”
Terror clutches my spine like a claw.
I turn and run, not only from him, but from what he used to make me feel. The shame. The silence. The belief that I was broken for wanting freedom.
The manor’s magic stirs under my feet.
Rapha said the house was built from old stone, warded with shadow spells and protection runes. I sensed the energy but never called on it. Until now.
As I flee through the hall, I whisper to the house, to whatever magic guards its doors. Help me.
A corridor shifts. A door appears where there wasn’t one before. I duck inside just as my father’s monstrous hand swipes at my back.
The room shifts into a dense jungle, another pocket of magic buried in the manor’s twisted design. My bare feet pound across sticks and moss as I duck beneath vines and branches, heart hammering.
Another door emerges ahead. I take it, slamming into the kitchen next. I grab the first weapon I see, a long boning knife, and keep moving.
Passing through a Japanese garden, I dive behind a pagoda, sucking in shallow breaths. I press my hand to the stone, trying to quiet the sob rising in my throat.
Rapha… I scream for him in my mind, calling across whatever bond still connects us.
I feel the tether quiver, but something blocks it. Something dark.
I can’t reach him.
Working on some unknown instinct, I gather what magic I can from the shadows, pressing my hands to the ground, whispering in the Old Tongue I don’t remember learning. It answers. I feel it, ancient and electric, twining through my fingers like silk.
But I don’t know how to wield it. Not yet.
A noise. The rustle of a bush. He’s close.
Then everything happens at once.
His hand, cold and dry, closes around my throat, yanking me from hiding.
“Found you,” he hisses. “You think this place can protect you? I built stronger prisons than this for rebellious daughters.”
My scream is raw and desperate… and the magic erupts .
A blast of blue-white lightning explodes from my hand, flinging him backward into a stone wall.
Rapha bursts through a shimmer in the air the moment my father hits the ground.
He looks terrified. Furious.
“Drusilla!”
He reaches for me as Cassian rises, his bones cracking as magic pulses around him like a second skin.
“You filthy demon,” Cassian snarls, launching at Rapha.
They collide, a blur of violence and rage. Cassian’s hands close around Rapha’s throat, but Rapha tears free, slamming a fist into Cassian’s jaw with a thud like stone on stone.
I raise my hands again, summoning that same electricity, this time choosing it. I release it in a wave. Cassian stumbles. Rapha kicks him into the stone wall, and I hear the unmistakable snap of bone.
But even broken, my father grins grotesquely. “You will never be free of me. I will return. Lucifer has promised it. Your soul is mine by blood, and blood can be bound. ”
A portal opens behind him, and he vanishes.
My legs give out, and I collapse.
Rapha is beside me in an instant, holding me, whispering my name.
“He still has control,” I whisper. “Not with chains or spells, but with fear. I froze when I saw him. I became that terrified girl again. But I can’t be her anymore. I won’t be.”
Rapha cups my face, brushing hair from my cheek. “You won’t be. Lucifer’s games have gone too far this time.”
But something in his voice falters.
And I know he’s not sure Lucifer can be reasoned with anymore.