Page 5 of Sweet Venom Of Time (Blade of Shadows #6)

My father sat at the massive mahogany desk, an immovable figure surrounded by scattered parchments and weighty tomes. The quill in his hand moved quickly, its brittle scrape the only sound in the suffocating silence.

I stood there, waiting.

Waiting to be acknowledged.

Waiting to understand why, after all this time, he had finally summoned me.

He did not look up when he spoke. His voice was as cold and unfeeling as a winter night.

“You have been betrothed to Lord Winston. You will be married in two months.”

The words struck like a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs. I staggered back as if burned, my pulse thundering in my ears.

“No.” The protest escaped before I could think, raw and breathless. “He’s three times my age—if not more! He’s vile. Cruel. A monster.”

My voice quivered with disbelief, with fury, with the sheer injustice of it all clawing at my throat.

At last, my father looked up, and a slow, measured exhale left his lips as though my refusal was nothing more than an inconvenience.

“What nonsense is this?” he asked, his brow arching in disdain. “You speak as though your desires hold any weight in this matter. Your life, your choices—they are mine to command.”

The words were more than I could bear.

“Father, please!” The dam of my composure broke, and I fell to my knees, hands clasped together, trembling. “Don’t make me do this. Don’t bind me to a man like him. I will wither. I will die.”

“Silence!” The word exploded from him like cannon fire, shattering the fragile space between us. And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, he looked at me—really looked at me. His eyes, as unforgiving as the winter sea, bore into mine with an intensity that turned my blood to ice.

“I won’t hear another word.” His voice was a hammer striking the final nails into the coffin of my fate.

“Your brothers—my heirs—are dead. Killed. My legacy, the English Timehunter society, has no rightful successor. And a woman cannot manage a Timehunter society. A woman is for the household, for the family. You will marry Winston, and I will pass my title to him. You will obey. You will satisfy his every whim.”

His decree reverberated through the room, a death knell ringing in my ears. The weight of it settled over me, heavy and suffocating, wrapping around my ribs like iron chains.

I couldn’t breathe.

I stood frozen, ensnared by the icy tendrils of my father’s will, bound tighter than any corset.

My shoulders shook as I stood and took a step forward, arms wrapped tightly around myself like armor against the ache.

“Please, Father,” I whispered, my voice barely carrying across the vast, unbridgeable distance between us.

“Ever since Mother died, you’ve been so distant.

You shut me out. I need warmth, and you give me silence. ”

“Stop it at once.” His retort came without mercy, cleaving the thick air between us. “This groveling is beneath you.”

The finality in his tone left no room for argument.

There was no room for hope—no room for me.

As if summoned by my despair, the door groaned open, its hinges wailing in protest. And then he entered.

Lord Winston.

My breath caught, my pulse hammering against my ribs as my gaze locked onto the man who would soon hold dominion over my fate. Time had ravaged him cruelly, his skin sagging in loose folds like melted wax, each crease and wrinkle whittled deep by the weight of the years.

His eyes, shrouded in the milky haze of cataracts, carried an eerie, sightless quality—yet they saw me. Pinned me. The spectral glaze over them did nothing to dull their unnerving effect, as though they could strip away flesh and peer straight into my soul.

A sneer curled his withered lips, the cracked skin splitting at the motion, revealing the remnants of what had once been teeth—now jagged, yellowed, and gnarled like ancient tombstones crumbling in an abandoned graveyard.

His nose, long and hooked, cast a daunting shadow over his twisted mouth, completing the grotesque profile of a man who seemed more phantom than flesh.

And his hair—what little remained—formed a greasy halo around his liver-spotted scalp, wispy white strands clinging stubbornly as if defying the inevitability of time.

Tufts jutted from his ears and nostrils, lending him an unsettling wildness, a monstrous parody of life that sent a shiver racing down my spine.

I fought to keep my composure, to swallow the revulsion clawing at my throat.

I was to belong to this…

This wretched husk of a man.

And no one—not even the father who had cast me aside—would save me.

Lord Winston raised a trembling hand to adjust the brocade jacket draped over his stooped shoulders as if the act could summon back a dignity long since lost. His fingers, gnarled and knotted like the roots of an ancient, dying tree, twitched with palsy’s tremors, making the simple movement seem Herculean.

The veins that webbed his hands stood out starkly, blue rivers in the pale parchment of his skin.

Each blackened fingernail curled unnaturally over its fingertip, clicking softly against the fabric of his coat like brittle talons.

He shuffled forward, his steps slow, laborious, as if dragging unseen chains forged by the weight of the years.

His spine, curved into a permanent question mark, seemed to ask how much longer he could bear the burden of existence.

His limbs bent at odd angles, his joints stiff and uncooperative, giving him the unsettling appearance of a marionette barely held together by fraying strings.

Revulsion and pity warred within me.

Once, perhaps, he had been a man who commanded attention, a figure of authority whose arrival alone was enough to silence a room.

But now, no finery could mask the truth—he was little more than a hollow shell, a dying relic of a past gilded in wealth and power.

The extravagant velvet of his coat, the lace at his throat, and the glint of polished brass buttons could not disguise the decay.

His attire, meant to signal status and strength, only whispered of ruin, of the inexorable decline that came for all men, regardless of title or fortune.

I watched, transfixed by the tragedy unfolding before me.

A decayed nobleman swathed in the remnants of his former glory. A ghost haunting the world that had long since moved on without him.

And soon, I was to be bound to that ghost.

Condemned to wither beside him, trapped in his shadow, my life razed by the same emptiness that had hollowed him out.

The thought sent a tremor through me, a silent scream building in my chest.

But there was no one left to hear it.

Lord Winston moved suddenly, a lurching, unnatural motion, as though some unseen puppeteer had yanked his strings. His decayed features twisted into something vilely eager, a parody of joy stretching across his withered face.

“Oh, my dear Lady Alexander. What a surprise! I didn’t know you were here,” he crooned, his voice thin and rasping, like dead leaves scraping against stone.

Before I could recoil, his icy, skeletal fingers clamped around mine.

My skin crawled beneath his touch as he dragged my hand to his parched lips, pressing them against my flesh in a mockery of affection.

His chill seeped into my bones, a sensation so wrong and revolting that my body reacted before my mind could catch up.

I ripped my hand away, nausea clawing at my stomach.

His eyes widened, surprise flickering across his sallow features—just for a moment. Then the confusion melted into something darker, something more insidious.

“You’ll learn to love me,” he murmured, his voice thick with certainty. “I can’t wait for the two months to fly by.”

The words echoed hollowly in my ears, warping as panic surged inside me. My head shook back and forth in silent rebellion, like a weathervane caught in an errant gust.

No.

This could not be happening.

His gaze hardened, locking onto me with the crushing weight of an iron vice.

“Make no mistake, dear one,” he said, his tone now cold steel wrapped in velvet. “We are to be married. I have paid your father greatly for this transaction to take place.”

A transaction.

That was all I was—a purchase, a bartered possession.

“And if you’re not obedient—if you do not comply with my every request—when we are married, I will punish you.”

The room seemed to shrink around me, the air growing thick and heavy, pressing against my ribs.

He leaned in, his cracked lips curling into a sneer. “And if you dare to defy me,” he whispered, his breath rancid, “I will make sure your father hears about it… and he will punish you more severely.”

A slow, sick smile spread across his face as if savoring the weight of his threat.

My blood ran cold.

The words lingered in the air, a vile, choking force that coiled around me like invisible shackles.

A shiver raced down my spine as realization set in—this was not simply an arrangement or an unfortunate match.

This was a sentence. A slow, drawn-out execution where my only choices were submission or suffering.

“Give us a moment,” my father’s voice tore through the suffocating tension, as impassive as ever.

Lord Winston gave a curt nod before shuffling out of the room, his retreating footsteps dragging like the pull of an undertow. But his absence did nothing to ease the pressure crushing my chest.

I was alone. Alone with the man who should have protected me—who should have been my shield. Instead, he towered over me like a tyrant.

“You are behaving most unbecomingly!” my father barked, advancing on me. His face was a tempest, eyes alight with the fury of a storm barely held at bay. “Do you know how many strings I had to pull to make this betrothal happen?”

His words struck like a slap, though his hand had yet to fall.

“Maybe that’s a sign it shouldn’t happen!” I snapped, the rebuttal bursting free before I could stop it.

The air thickened, crackling with the weight of my rebellion. My heart pounded against my ribs as my pleas poured forth, desperate and fragmented, trying—begging—to reach any remaining part of him that might still be my father.

His expression darkened, rage boiling over, turning his face crimson. The vein in his temple pulsed like a warning drum.

“You are not allowed to go against your parents,” he thundered, rising to his full, imposing height. His hand lifted in a threatening arc?—

I flinched, my breath catching in my throat.

But I didn’t wait to feel the sting of his wrath.

A surge of adrenaline took hold, and I ran before thought could catch up to action.

I tore from the study, my skirts tangling around my legs as I stumbled into the hallway, my heart hammering against my ribs. A flicker of movement—Lord Winston’s surprised visage—flashed before me as I darted past him without so much as a glance. His reaction mattered little to me now.

My mind pulsed with four harrowing truths, each one a nail driven deeper into my coffin?—

My brothers were murdered.

My mother died.

My father was cruel.

And I was to be wed to a despicable man.

The corridors that had once been my childhood sanctuary now felt like the walls of a prison, each ornate frame, each flickering candle, another bar in my gilded cage. The air was thick, suffocating, closing in around me with every breathless step.

My flight was blind, fueled by desperation rather than direction. The world blurred in streaks of gilt and shadow, my pulse roaring louder than the muffled thud of my slippers on the carpet.

Then—impact.

The turn came too quickly, my momentum unchecked, and I crashed into something—or someone—solid. A shockwave of force jolted through me, sending my fragile composure shattering like glass.

Strong hands seized my shoulders, steadying me. But unlike my father’s grip or Lord Winston’s clammy grasp, these hands were warm, gentle amidst the storm.

“Oh, forgive me,” I gasped, my voice thin, a whisper of lace torn by thorns. “I should watch where I’m going.”

I dared to look up.

And my eyes locked onto a gaze that stopped the frantic beat of my heart.

He stood before me like an ancient statue given breath, his swarthy complexion and chiseled features starkly contrasting the opulence of the estate’s gilded corridor.

Shadows played across the sculpted lines of his face, his dark hair framing a severe and compelling countenance.

Strength radiated from him—not just in the defined sinew of his muscular form, but in the silent authority that clung to him, the unmistakable air of a man who had seen distant battles and sworn unspoken oaths.

A breath of tempest air in a suffocating room.

“Who are—” My words faltered, failing me as my mind struggled to reconcile this sudden encounter with the nightmare unraveling around me.

He did not speak.

Instead, he watched me, those deep, inscrutable eyes assessing, weighing something unseen. In them, I caught a whisper of danger that did not belong to this world of silk and submission.

Then—footsteps.

Heavy. Murderous. Each tread a drumbeat of impending doom.

My father.

Panic surged in my chest. Flustered, I wrenched myself from the stranger’s grip, though his touch lingered on my skin like an unspoken promise. I could not afford to linger—not with the specter of my father’s wrath looming ever closer.

“Elizabeth, come back here!”

The command cracked through the corridor like a whip. My pulse leaped.

I stole one last glance at the enigmatic man who had momentarily anchored me in the storm, memorizing the dark intensity of his gaze—the quiet power coiled beneath his stillness.

And then I ran.

I gathered the remnants of my skirts and fled, leaving behind the fleeting possibility of sanctuary for the certainty of my cursed haven. My lonely existence had gone from awful to horrible in an hour, and I knew, deep in my marrow, that it could only get worse from here.

My only hope was escape.

But as I hurried through the labyrinth of my prison, something new flickered within me. A glimmer of hope, fragile but insistent.

The stranger.

Our collision—a moment as swift as a heartbeat—burned in my mind, refusing to fade. His eyes had spoken of untold secrets, of something beyond this life I was shackled to. A daring escape? A chance at freedom?

Or had I only imagined it?

Fate, I knew, was not so kind.

And yet… for the first time in years, I dared to believe it might see me.