Page 18

??The Devil’s Houseguest

Ember

The first thing I registered when I woke wasn’t pain or panic. It was beauty.

That pissed me off more than anything else. This place wasn’t a dungeon. It was curated.

Stone walls framed in black trim. Velvet curtains. A roaring fire in a hearth so elegant it could’ve been lifted from a gothic painting.

A clawfoot tub gleamed from the corner, the kind of thing you see in movies where women sip champagne while plotting murder. The bed, massive, wrapped in black silk sheets, looked like it could swallow me whole.

The door?

Reinforced steel.

I got up anyway and tested the handle.

Locked.

Of course it was.

A soft click echoed behind me.

I turned just as the door swung open.

“Trying to escape, podcast girl?” Dorian Vale stood there like sin sculpted in human form, sleeves rolled up, shirt faintly speckled with drying blood, gaze sharp enough to slit throats.

“Call me that again and I’ll break your fucking jaw.”

He smiled like the devil had just found his favorite toy. “Violence already? We’ve barely had a second date.”

I crossed my arms, grounding myself. “This isn’t a date. This is kidnapping.”

“Semantics.”

He stepped in, tray in hand. The smell hit first, garlic, herbs, something savory that made my stomach ache against my will. He set the tray on the nightstand like he was some doting husband, not the man I’d watched slice someone open like a science experiment.

“You know,” I said, moving toward the tray, “for a murderer, you’re really big on hospitality.”

“What can I say?” he replied smoothly. “I like my enemies articulate and well-fed.”

“So now I’m your enemy?”

He stepped closer, eyes scanning me like I was a riddle wrapped in red tape. “You’re a complication.”

“Funny,” I said, leaning back onto the bed. “You don’t seem like a man who minds being complicated.”

“I don’t,” he said, gaze dipping, collarbone, throat, hips. “I just like to be in control of the chaos.”

His presence was overwhelming. He didn’t touch me, but the room tilted around his gravity. The air got tighter. Thicker. Hotter.

“You’re sick,” I whispered.

“And yet,” he murmured, stepping closer, “you haven’t looked away from my mouth since I walked in.”

“Because I’m trying to figure out where I’d need to stab you to shut you up.”

He laughed, low, rich, infuriating.

“You watched me kill a man,” he said. “You should be terrified. Screaming. Running for the door.”

“You locked it.”

“That didn’t stop you from trying.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

He leaned down until our faces were a breath apart.

“No,” he said, voice dragging over me like silk laced with barbed wire. “You’re not. That’s what makes this fun.”

My heart pounded, but I refused to back down. “Get out.”

He didn’t move. “Say please.”

“Burn in hell.”

“I already live there,” he whispered. “I just redecorated.”

He turned to leave, and just before the door closed, he added, “Eat. Rest. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Click .

Gone.

I sat back, breathing like I’d run a marathon. My legs were shaky, my skin hot, my thighs pressing together for reasons I refused to name.

Later that night, he returned.

No knocking this time. Just the sound of the lock turning and the door creaking open.

“Didn’t eat?” he asked.

I said nothing.

He walked in, holding a different tray. This one had soup, bread, and something that looked like it belonged in a Michelin-starred restaurant.

“This is homemade,” he offered.

“Did you bleed someone into it?”

“Not this time.”

I glared. “Chivalry’s dead.”

He smirked. “I buried it myself.”

He sat the tray down on the nightstand with clinical precision. “You’ve been asleep for nearly two days. No poison. No drugs. Just… exhaustion.”

“Probably from being dragged across rooftops like a goddamn corpse.”

“I saved your life.”

“You kidnapped me.”

“Both can be true.”

He stepped closer. My spine stiffened.

“I didn’t hurt you,” he said, quieter this time. “You saw what I am. What I do. I should’ve ended this the moment your eyes met mine.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He didn’t answer. Not directly.

“You’re too curious for your own good,” he murmured. “Dangerous.”

I stood then, slow and deliberate. “You want to know what else is dangerous? Leaving clues.”

His brows lifted.

“Obsidian,” I said. “Smooth. Iridescent. I’ve found them. All tucked somewhere near your work.”

He went still. Not shocked. Not angry.

Just… still.

His jaw flexed, the tiniest twitch betraying something deeper. “You saw them?”

“Saw them. Collected them. Connected the dots.”

“You’ve been collecting trophies?”

“No,” I said, watching him carefully. “I’ve been collecting evidence.”

He didn’t answer right away.

His eyes darkened, not with rage, but wonder. The kind of stunned reverence people have when they see a ghost they thought only they could haunt.

“You shouldn’t be able to see them,” he said quietly, almost to himself.

“What?”

He blinked once, slow. “Those scales… they’re veiled. Warded. Hidden from human perception.” Something in his voice dipped, equal parts curiosity and something colder. “Only those touched by the other side can even sense them, let alone see them.”

A chill danced down my spine.

“You think that makes you brave?” he asked, tone shifting, deeper now, more deliberate.

“No,” I said, pulse stuttering. “But it makes me right.”

His stare turned surgical. “It makes you something else entirely.”

A heavy silence fell between us.

He looked at me like I was something ancient that he couldn’t name. “You’re lucky,” he said finally.

“Am I?”

He stepped close. Too close. “I should kill you.”

I tilted my head up, defiant. “You should kiss me.”

The second those words left my mouth, time snapped.

His pupils dilated. His breath hitched. His lips hovered close enough to tempt hell. “You don’t want that,” he said, voice unsteady for the first time.

“I want answers.”

“Then stop tempting the devil, Ember Carr.”

We were toe-to-toe, fire between our lungs, unspoken things pressing hard against restraint.

“You abducted me,” I whispered.

“I protected you.”

A single, infinite second passed.

Then I sat back down, slowly, deliberately. “Go screw yourself.”

He turned. “Already did,” he said over his shoulder. “Wasn’t nearly as fun.”

The door clicked shut.

And I hated the way I stared at it. Not because I was afraid. But because I wasn’t. And that terrified me more than anything else.