Chapter 17 - Poppy
I wake to unfamiliar light.
For a moment, I don't know where I am. The sheets are too soft—silk or something close to it—and the mattress is too large, stretching out around me like an ocean. The ceiling above me is high and shadowed, nothing like the cracked plaster of my apartment.
Then I feel the warmth beside me, the weight of an arm draped across my waist, and everything comes rushing back.
The summons. The confrontation. The kiss that shattered every wall I'd built.
The belt around my wrists. His hand in my hair. The things I said—please, yes, I'm yours—words I can't unhear, can't unsay, can't pretend didn't come from my own mouth.
My body aches in places I didn't know could ache. Between my thighs, yes, but also my wrists, my scalp, the curve of my ass where his palm landed again and again. Evidence. Proof that last night wasn't a fever dream.
I wish it had been.
I turn my head slowly, carefully, not wanting to wake him.
Gabriel is lying on his stomach beside me, his face turned toward mine, one arm still possessively anchoring me to the bed.
In sleep, the sharp angles of his face are softened somehow.
His lips are slightly parted, his breathing slow and even.
Dark hair falls across his forehead, making him look younger. Almost innocent.
He's not innocent. He's a murderer, a stalker, a man who systematically destroyed my life to bring me to this exact moment. I watched him kill someone with these same hands that touched me last night—hands that are currently resting against my bare hip, warm and heavy.
I should be disgusted. I should be terrified.
Instead, I'm studying the curve of his mouth and remembering how it felt on my skin.
What is wrong with me?
The question has been echoing in my head for weeks, but now it's louder than ever. More urgent. Because whatever was wrong with me before, last night made it worse. Last night, I stopped fighting. I surrendered to the very thing I should have been running from.
And I liked it.
God help me, I liked it.
I need to leave. I need to get out of this bed, out of this house, away from him before I do something even more reckless. Before I lose whatever shreds of myself I have left.
Slowly, carefully, I lift his arm from my waist and slide toward the edge of the bed. The silk sheets whisper against my skin as I move. My dress is somewhere on the floor—I can see a glimpse of blue fabric in the moonlight still filtering through the windows.
I'm halfway out of bed when his hand closes around my wrist.
"Running away?"
His voice is rough with sleep, but there's an edge of amusement beneath it. I freeze, my heart suddenly pounding.
"I need to go home."
"Do you?"
He tugs sharply, pulling me back toward him. I could resist. I could pull free and gather my clothes and walk out the door. He wouldn't stop me—not physically, anyway.
But I don't resist.
I let him draw me back into the bed, back against his body, back into the warmth of his arms. He rolls me beneath him, settling his weight over me, pinning my wrists above my head with one hand. His eyes are fully alert now, dark and hungry.
"Stay," he says. Not a question. Not quite a command. Something in between.
"Gabriel—"
"Stay."
I stay.
What happens next is like the night before—hard, demanding, edged with darkness.
He doesn't ask permission. He takes what he wants, and my body responds like it was made for this, for him, for the bruising grip of his hands and the relentless drive of his hips.
I hate how easily I shatter beneath him. I hate how much I want it.
I hate that I'm already dreading the moment it ends.
Afterward, we lie tangled together in the ruined sheets, our breathing slowly returning to normal. The light through the windows has shifted from silver to gold—morning now, properly morning. I've been here all night.
"Tell me about your grandmother," he says.
The question startles me. I turn my head to look at him, expecting mockery or manipulation, but his expression is surprisingly open. Curious.
"What?"
"Your grandmother. The one whose grave you visit with dying flowers." He traces a finger along my collarbone, casual and possessive. "Tell me about her."
I shouldn't answer. I should maintain some boundaries, keep some part of myself separate from whatever this is. But the question feels oddly safe compared to everything else, and I find myself speaking anyway.
"Her name was Bertha. My mother's mother." I stare at the ceiling, letting the memories surface. "She practically raised me, the first few years. While my mom was working, trying to keep us afloat. Grandma Bertha was the one who taught me about flowers."
"The dying ones?"
"All of them. But yes, especially the dying ones." A smile tugs at my lips despite everything. "She used to say that people throw away flowers the moment they start to fade, but that's when they're most interesting. When they're letting go of what they were and becoming something else."
"Morbid," Gabriel observes, but there's no judgment in his tone.
"Maybe. Or maybe she just saw beauty in things other people overlooked.
" I pause. "She had dementia at the end.
Didn't recognize anyone, not even my mom.
But whenever I brought her flowers—even wilted ones, especially wilted ones—she'd smile.
Like she remembered something she couldn't put into words. "
Gabriel is quiet for a moment. His hand has stilled on my collarbone, fingers resting against my pulse.
"Is that why you keep them?" he asks. "The dying flowers in your apartment?"
"You noticed those."
"I notice everything about you."
The words should be creepy. They are creepy—a reminder of the surveillance, the stalking, the systematic invasion of my privacy. But the way he says them, low and intent, makes something flutter in my chest that has nothing to do with fear.
"Yes," I admit. "I keep them because of her. Because she taught me to see beauty in decay."
"And the dahlia? The one I left you?"
I don't answer. I can't answer. Because the truth is too complicated, too shameful—that I kept his flower for the same reason I kept my grandmother's, that some part of me saw beauty in the darkness he offered before I even understood what it was.
He doesn't push. Instead, he shifts, propping himself up on one elbow to look down at me.
"Tell me about the serpent," he says.
"What serpent?"
"The one you drew. Coiled around a dahlia, whispering to it." His eyes search my face. "You drew it before we met. Before you knew what I was. Why?"
I've been avoiding this question since the moment he mentioned the sketch in the ballroom.
The truth is, I don't have a good answer.
I drew it on instinct, my hand moving without conscious direction, producing an image I didn't understand until I saw him standing in that doorway with blood on his hands.
"I don't know," I say honestly. "I just... felt something. When I was at the estate, preparing for the gala. Something watching me. Something—" I struggle for the right word. "Something interested."
"You felt me."
"I suppose I did."
"And you drew a serpent whispering to a flower." He smiles, and it's not the charming public smile or the predatory private one—it's something else, something almost wondering. "Not attacking. Not devouring. Whispering."
"Serpents don't whisper."
"This one does." He lowers his head and presses his lips to my ear, breath warm against my skin. "This one has been whispering to you for weeks, and you've been listening."
I shiver. He's right. He's been calling to something inside me, something I didn't know existed until he dragged it into the light. The darkness that recognizes darkness. The part of me that looked at a monster and felt not just fear, but fascination.
"I should go," I say again, but my voice lacks conviction.
"You should." He doesn't move. "But you won't. Not yet."
He's right about that, too.
We stay in bed for another hour, not touching, just talking. He asks about my work, my art, the biology degree I abandoned when my mother got sick. I ask about the estate, the serpent motifs, how long his family has lived here.
I don't ask about the murder. I don't ask about the Brotherhood. Those questions feel too dangerous, too likely to shatter whatever fragile thing is forming between us.
But I do ask one thing.
"Why me?"
He considers the question, his gaze distant.
"Because you saw me," he says finally. "In that doorway. You saw what I really am, and you didn't scream. You didn't run. You just... looked. Like you were trying to understand."
"I was terrified."
"You were curious." He turns his head to meet my eyes. "Everyone else looks at me and sees what I want them to see. The mask. The performance. You looked at me and saw through it, right from the beginning. Even before you knew what you were seeing."
I don't know what to say to that. The silence stretches between us, comfortable and uncomfortable at once.
"My mother used to tell me I saw too much," I finally offer. "That I noticed things I should leave alone."
"Your mother sounds like a wise woman."
"She's a frightened woman. There's a difference."
"Is there?" He reaches out and traces a finger down my cheek, a gesture that's almost tender. "Fear and wisdom often go hand in hand. The people who don't fear anything are usually the ones too stupid to recognize danger."
"And what do you fear?"
The question slips out before I can stop it. He stills, his hand frozen against my face, and for a moment I think I've pushed too far.
"Nothing," he says. But something flickers in his eyes—a shadow, quickly suppressed. "I fear nothing."
He's lying. I don't know how I know, but I do. There's something that frightens Gabriel Ambrose, something he's buried so deep he might not even recognize it himself.
I file the information away for later.
Around noon, I finally manage to leave. He doesn't try to stop me this time—just watches from the bed as I gather my clothes and dress with shaking hands. My body is covered in evidence: a bite mark on my neck, bruises circling my wrists, tender spots I'll feel for days.
"I'll have the car take you home," he says.
"Thank you."
"Poppy."
I pause at the door, looking back at him. He's still in bed, sheets pooled around his waist, looking like something out of a renaissance painting. Dangerous. Beautiful. Mine, some treacherous part of my brain whispers. His, another part corrects.
"This isn't over," he says. "You know that."
I know.
I leave without answering.
The car ride home is silent. The driver doesn't speak, and I'm grateful for the privacy. I stare out the window at the city passing by, watching the grand estates give way to modest neighborhoods, luxury fading into reality.
I think about what I've done. What I've allowed. What I've wanted. The memories play on an endless loop—his hands on my body, his voice in my ear, the way I fell apart again and again under his touch.
I should be making plans to escape. I should be calling the police, calling a lawyer, calling anyone who might help me break free of the web he's spun around me.
Instead, I'm thinking about when I'll see him again.
What is wrong with me?
My apartment, when I finally reach it, feels foreign. Too small, too shabby, too normal after the gothic splendor of his estate. I stand in the doorway for a long moment, trying to remember the woman who lived here before last night.
I can't find her.
The dahlia is still on the counter, dark petals gleaming in the afternoon light. It should have died by now—cut flowers don't last this long, not without special preservation. But it's as perfect as the day he left it, as if it exists outside the normal rules of decay.
Like him. Like us. Like whatever this thing is that we've started.
I walk past it to the bathroom and stand in front of the mirror, forcing myself to look.
The woman who stares back is a stranger.
Wild hair, swollen lips, shadows under her eyes that have nothing to do with lack of sleep.
And the marks—God, the marks. The bite on my neck is vivid, purple and red, impossible to hide.
My wrists are ringed with faint bruises from the belt.
When I lift my shirt, I can see more marks on my ribs, my hips, places where his fingers gripped hard enough to leave proof.
I should be horrified.
Part of me is.
But another part—the dark part, the part I'm only beginning to understand—looks at those marks and feels something else entirely.
Claimed.
I trace the bite mark with my fingers, pressing until it hurts. The pain is grounding, real, a reminder that last night actually happened. That I let a murderer put his hands on me and begged for more.
My phone buzzes. A text from Bea: Still on for dinner tomorrow? I need details about this mystery job of yours.
I stare at the message for a long time. How am I supposed to have dinner with my best friend when I'm covered in evidence of what I've become? How am I supposed to smile and chat and pretend everything is normal when nothing will ever be normal again?
Can't tomorrow, I type back. Busy with work. Rain check?
Another lie. Another distance placed between me and the life I used to have.
My phone buzzes again, but this time it's not Bea.
It's him.
Tonight. 8 pm. A car will collect you.
No question. No request. Just an expectation of obedience.
I should say no. I should reclaim some shred of autonomy, some semblance of the independent woman I used to be.
I type my response: I'll be ready.
Then I set the phone down and look at myself in the mirror again—the marks, the exhaustion, the stranger staring back at me.
I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know what I'm becoming. But as I stand in my shabby bathroom, covered in evidence of a monster's touch, I realize something that frightens me more than anything else.
I don't want to go back to who I was before.
That woman was lonely. That woman was struggling. That woman was invisible to everyone except the people who wanted something from her.
This woman—the one in the mirror, the one with bruises on her wrists and bite marks on her throat—this woman has been seen. Truly seen, in all her darkness and desire.
And maybe that's worth the price of admission.
Maybe the serpent's coils aren't a trap at all.
Maybe they're exactly where I belong.