Chapter 29 #3
"Which reminds me," he adds, his voice dropping an octave. "Tomorrow, we’re sorting your papers. You’re going to apply for your ID. With my connections, you’ll have the fucking thing by the end of the day.
Then, we open a bank account. When these checks come in tonight, we need a place to dump the loot. "
Before I can even wrap my head around the idea of having a legal identity and a fortune, the auctioneer strikes his gavel. Crack.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the skeletal man rasps, "we begin tonight's special collection. A series of visceral, haunting works by the enigmatic Ophelia Castellan."
My breath hitches. Castellan. He’s already claiming me in the eyes of the world.
The first painting—the one of the abandoned church with the crumbling spires—is wheeled forward. The room goes silent. I can feel the hunger of the crowd.
"We start the bidding at ten thousand pounds," the auctioneer announces.
"Twelve!" a voice shouts.
"Fifteen!"
"Twenty!"
It escalates with a fucking violence that makes my head spin. The rich gits are practically snarling at each other. It climbs to forty, then sixty. Finally, a man in a crow mask shouts, "One hundred thousand pounds!"
The gavel falls. Crack. My first painting just sold for a hundred grand. I stare at Rhys, my jaw practically hitting the floor. "Are you fucking joking?" I hiss.
He just smirks, looking entirely unsurprised.
The second painting—the cracked porcelain doll—goes even higher. The bidding starts at twenty thousand and leaps like a fucking wildfire. It hits two hundred thousand before a woman in a lace veil snaps it up for two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
Then come the black roses, the crows, the skeletal saints. Each one is a bloodbath of bidding. The painting of the sea beneath Whitby Abbey causes a near-riot; the bidders are screaming over each other, desperate to own a piece of my trauma. It sells for a staggering four hundred thousand pounds.
And the first paintings I made of my nightmares each go for five hundred thousand pounds.
By the time the final painting—the carnival lights in the fog—is sold for three hundred thousand, I’m shaking.
I do the mental math, and my brain nearly shorts out.
I’ve made over two million and a half pounds in a single fucking evening.
I’ve never seen that much money in my life; I didn't even know that much money existed for someone like me.
As the auctioneer moves on to other items, a woman seated in the row next to us leans forward. She’s striking—pale as a ghost, wearing a gown of iridescent silver that looks like fish scales, with heavy kohl around her eyes and a sharp smile.
"Excuse me, darling," she purrs, her voice like silk over glass.
"I managed to secure one of your pieces, but I find myself wanting more.
Tell me, Ophelia Castellan... could you create more for me?
I don't care what the subject is—just give me that darkness.
That raw, bleeding void. I will pay any price you name. Name your pound, and it's yours."
I look at her, feeling a strange surge of power. I’m not the victim here; I’m the one providing the poison they’re all addicted to. "I'll think about it," I reply, my voice steadier than I feel. "But my darkness isn't cheap."
The woman cackles, looking delighted. Rhys’s hand tightens on my hip, a warning and a caress all in one. He doesn't like other people eyeing my talents too closely, even if it's for money.
He stands up abruptly, pulling me with him. "That's enough for tonight. My girl needs her rest."
He escorts me out of the room, leaving the remaining auctions behind. As we step out into the cool, midnight air of the castle grounds, the silence of the night feels heavy and sweet. I stop and look up at him, the adrenaline finally starting to ebb, leaving me feeling raw and exposed.
"Rhys," I whisper, leaning my forehead against his chest. "I... I don't know what to say. I've spent so much of my life feeling like a fucking mistake, like I was just something to be broken. And tonight... people actually wanted the broken parts of me."
He wraps his arms around me, pulling me flush against his hard frame, his scent of sandalwood and old blood enveloping me.
"Because the broken parts are the most beautiful, Ophelia.
You're not a mistake. You're a masterpiece of agony, and I'm the only one who knows how to truly appreciate the art. And now, the entire world will too."
I look up at him, my eyes stinging. "You have a way with words, you know that?"
"And you love me for it," he growls.
He doesn't give me time to argue. He crashes his lips onto mine in a kiss that tastes of possession and victory. It’s violent, hungry, and deep, his tongue claiming my mouth as if he’s marking me all over again.
I moan into the kiss, my hands clutching at his suit, feeling the sheer weight of my new life—the money, the fame, the madness—and knowing that as long as I'm with him, I'll never have to be afraid of the dark again. Because I am the dark.