Page 6 of Stalked & Bred by the BRATVA (Bred by the BRATVA #6)

She was kneeling in the garden the day I took the photo.

The sun had barely cleared the east wall, spilling light across her hair so it gleamed like gold.

She wasn’t wearing her braids that morning, just a loose tail down her back, strands falling forward when she bent to pull weeds from the herb bed.

Her hands were dirty, nails rimmed with soil.

She didn’t care. She never cares about the way she looks when she’s working.

That’s what I like.

She’s unguarded in those moments. She forgets the weight she carries in her shoulders, forgets to keep her chin tucked and her eyes down. She is simply a girl in the sun, touching the earth like it’s a friend.

I’d been leaning against the wall by the greenhouse, half hidden by the climbing roses. The camera was already in my hand. I could have taken a dozen shots. I only needed one.

The frame had to be right. Close enough to feel her breath if I reached out, far enough that she wouldn’t hear the click.

She didn’t.

When I looked at the picture afterward, I knew it was the one. The smudge of dirt on her cheek. The curl of her fingers in the mint leaves. The softness in her eyes as she studied the plants, unaware that anyone was watching. It was her. Completely.

I kept it for three days before deciding to give it to her. Not because I doubted myself, but because I wanted the timing to be right.

The gifts so far have been gentle. The nightgown. The flower. The things that could be mistaken for kindness. This is different. This is truth.

This tells her: I see you.

I entered her room while she worked in the dining room, setting out glasses for tonight’s dinner.

I didn’t rush. I know her schedule, know exactly how long I have before she returns.

I drew the curtains. I wanted her to feel the change as soon as she stepped inside, to know the air had been different in her absence.

I set the photograph on her pillow, angled so it would be the first thing her eyes found.

And then I left.

Now, I sit in the study, watching the feed from the camera tucked high in the corner of her room. I see her pause in the doorway. I see the stiffness in her spine, the way her fingers flex at her sides. She notices the curtains. Then the photograph.

Her face changes.

Fear.

Not sharp and screaming. This is the slow kind. The kind that takes root in the mind and grows in the dark. She picks up the picture, studies it, searching for meaning in the lines of her own face.

I lean forward, my eyes on the screen.

She looks around the room, like she expects to find me there. She won’t. But I like that she’s checking. I like that she knows someone was here, that someone has been close enough to capture her like this.

She shoves the photo into a drawer and slams it shut. Her breathing changes. She presses her back to the wall beside the door, head tilted, listening.

She hears nothing.

She will start to notice the silences now. The way the air feels heavier sometimes. The faint scent of a mild aftershave that lingers too long. She’ll start wondering when I’m near, and she’ll be right more often than she realises.

Because I am always near.

I don’t need her to love me yet. I don’t need her to understand. I need her to feel me in every step she takes, in every quiet moment she thinks she’s alone.

Fear is attention, and her attention is all I want.

She will not throw it away. I know this. She will keep it, even if she hides it. The same way she kept the nightgown. The same way she pressed the flower between the pages of her book instead of letting it rot in the trash.

She doesn’t understand yet, but every time she hides something I give her, she’s claiming it. She’s claiming me.

It’s only a matter of time before she starts to connect the pieces. The perfume. The nightgown. The flower. Now the photograph. They will begin to stack in her mind until she can’t pretend it’s coincidence anymore.

That’s when she’ll start to look for me.

I imagine her lying in bed tonight, her eyes wide in the dark, her fingers resting on that drawer where the picture is hidden.

She’ll try to remember every face she’s seen in the house, every man tall enough, broad enough, still enough to stand in that hallway and hold her gaze.

She’ll wonder if I was one of the men she’s passed in the kitchen, the garden, the corridors.

She will think about me before she sleeps. She will think about me when she wakes.

And soon, she will see me again.

But not too soon. The space between sightings matters. It lets the mind breathe and then crave the weight again.

I turn from the monitor to the desk drawer beside me.

Inside are more photographs. Not just of her face, but of her hands polishing silver, of her hair slipping free from its tie, of her in the garden at sunrise, steam rising from the damp soil around her.

I have dozens. I take them for me, not for her.

For now.

One day, I’ll show her every one. I’ll make her sit on my lap while I flip through them, telling her exactly what I thought each time I pressed the shutter. She’ll blush, and she’ll squirm. But finally she’ll understand.

I run my thumb over the edge of the latest print still on my desk, identical to the one in her drawer.

The paper is smooth under my skin, but the memory is sharper than any blade I’ve ever held.

The way her lips parted slightly as she breathed in the scent of the mint.

The sunlight warming her neck. The small crease between her brows as she worked.

She was mine before she ever knew I existed.

And soon, she will know.

I close the drawer and lean back in the chair, letting the thought settle in my chest like a slow, steady drumbeat.

The gifts are only the beginning.