CHAPTER TEN
LUCIEN WESCRAVEN
I stood in the dim light of the art gallery, the weight of silence pressing down on me like a physical thing.
The room was suffocating, filled with the musty smell of decay.
The portraits lining the walls, their frames cracked and curling, felt like a mocking reminder of everything I couldn’t remember.
Faces stared down at me—some noble, some unremarkable—eyes seemingly following my every movement.
Yet none of them held any meaning. None of them felt familiar.
I let out a frustrated breath, though I didn’t truly need to breathe, I still found it relaxing.
My fingers brushed over a canvas that seemed as lifeless as the memories I couldn’t reach.
Who were these people? What had they meant to me?
I wasn’t sure I cared anymore. The more I looked, the more the haze in my mind thickened.
The others in the portraits had some connection, something tying them to this cursed place, but me? I was just… here. Tr apped. And I couldn’t even remember why. My hands clenched at my sides as I turned away from the wall, my feet carrying me aimlessly across the cold marble floor.
What was it Mia had said the night that we met?
The Duke of Ravenspire betrayed a heart…
Not only was I cursed, but turned into a school child’s fairytale. The worst part was that I didn’t even know if it was true. Had I betrayed Serena’s heart? Did I do something so incredibly wicked that the woman wished to torture me for eternity?
Somehow, I doubted it.
This endless cycle of wandering through the dark halls, searching for pieces of a life I couldn’t even remember, was wearing me thin.
Every night it felt like I was reaching for something just out of my grasp—but then there was Mia.
She seemed to be the only one who could pierce through the fog that had surrounded me for what felt like forever.
Though I couldn’t remember my life before this point and time, I was certain I’d never known anyone like her.
And then there was her . The one who had cursed me. Who was she? Serena? The name gnawed at me, familiar but distant, like a half-remembered dream. I needed answers. Something to make sense of all this.
That’s when I heard it .
A faint voice, soft and hesitant, drifted toward me from behind. A chill ran down my spine as I froze. It was as though the world had paused around me, and all I could focus on was that voice.
“Your Grace?” It was her. The maid. Portia.
I turned slowly. Her form was ethereal, translucent, like a shadow clinging to the edges of the room. Her nervousness was palpable. She seemed… afraid. But why?
“I came to tell you something,” she rasped, her ghostly figure shifting uneasily, as though she couldn’t decide whether to stay or flee.
I narrowed my eyes, a mix of curiosity and frustration rising within me.
“Tell me, then,” I said, my voice sharp despite my better judgment.
My patience had worn thin, but the intrigue in her presence kept me grounded.
Whatever she had to say, it might be important, perhaps it was the clue I’d been waiting for.
She hesitated, glancing over her shoulder as if expecting someone—or something—to appear. She was definitely afraid, her form wavering as though the tension in her was too much to bear.
“What is it?” I urged a little gentler, taking a step toward her. “What do you need to say?”
The maid’s voice dropped to barely a whisper, though the words were clear, every syllable laced with urgency. “Townsend. That’s her name.”
My brows furrowed in confusion, the frustration from earlier tightening in my chest. “Is that her surname?”
She took a hesitant step backward, her form flickering violently before she nodded quickly.
I stared at her, my mind racing with so many questions.
“Serena Townsend,” I said slowly. The name tickled the back of my throat and a hazy vision crossed my mind…
one I couldn’t quite grasp. The woman’s face materialized in my mind as if in a dream—blurry, but so real.
I could see her in my study. I could feel the tension as we spoke.
The memory played and I watched until it vanished.
“Portia, can you tell me more? My memory seems to be missing.”
Portia seemed to shrink away at the question, glancing toward the door, eyes wide and filled with dread. “I don’t know,” she muttered softly, almost pleading. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me everything you know,” I said, but she shook her head quickly.
“I can’t. She’s watching. She’ll punish me… she’ll punish her.” Portia said, a pleading tremor in her voice as she turned away. “I must go before she sees me speaking to you. Please… look in the library.”
And then, before I could say another word, she was gone, vanishing into the ether as quickly as she had appeared, leaving me standing there, more lost than ever .
I stood frozen, the weight of her words sinking into me. I needed answers. Desperately.
I blinked, still trying to process Portia’s warning, but my thoughts scattered the moment I heard Mia’s voice.
I turned around, and there she was, standing in the doorway with that sweet grin on her face.
It was like a breath of fresh air sweeping through the gallery, cutting through the tension that had been clinging to me.
“Lucien? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said with a playful twinkle in her green eyes.
I stared at her, caught off guard. It wasn’t the joke that took me by surprise, though.
It was the way she looked, her auburn hair, the curve of her lips, the way her smile lit up the room.
For a second, I just stood there, frozen, forgetting everything else.
She was simple in the best way, beautiful in a way that felt…
dangerous, like I could lose myself in her.
“Perhaps I have,” I muttered, my voice rougher than I intended.
She didn’t seem to notice, her smile widening at her own sarcasm, but the way I was looking at her must have made her hesitate. That light in her eyes dulled for just a moment, then her voice softened and I could hear the genuine concern in it.
“What’s wrong?”
I hesitated for a moment, before the words slipped out. “Portia, the maid. She was here, just now.” I ran a hand through my hair, frustrated. “She told me Serena’s full name. Townsend.”
Mia stepped closer, her eyes narrowing as she processed the information. “Oh?”
I nodded. The name had been like a key in a lock, clicking open something buried deep in my mind, but the puzzle still wasn’t completely clear.
The pieces were slowly revealing themselves to me, each memory a bitter reminder of a past I wished I could forget again.
I didn’t bother telling her this. Not yet.
Mia’s gaze held mine, searching, and she stepped closer. “Did she say anything more? About Serena, I mean?”
I let out a frustrated breath. “No, she didn’t. She’s too afraid of Serena. She wouldn’t say anything more.”
Mia’s brow furrowed, and her lips pressed into a thin line as she took a step back, processing everything. “Afraid of her?” She shook her head slightly, almost as if trying to make sense of the words. “What does Serena have over them?”
The weight of the question sat heavily between us. My mind was a whirl of confusion and frustration. “I don’t know. But it’s clear enough now. She’s the one keeping everyone here, keeping me… trapped.”
Mia looked at me, her expression unreadable for a moment, but then she nodded, a determination settling into her posture. “Then we’ll just have to work harder to figure it out.”
Her words brought an ounce of hope, but it didn’t quite unwind the unease tightening in my chest.
“We’ll get through this,” she said, a strange certainty in her tone. And for reasons I couldn’t explain, her words made me believe her.
She stepped past me, brushing against my side, and I couldn’t help but notice the way she moved. There was an effortless grace to her, something that felt natural, like she belonged in this space, in this moment. The soft, sweet scent of roses caressed my senses and I breathed her in deeply.
Lifting to her tiptoes to look at one of the paintings, the delicate splay of freckles across her nose wrinkled as she studied it. Something stirred in me that I couldn’t quite place, a pulse of something dangerous, something I couldn’t control. Everything about her was magnificent and magnetic.
I ran my eyes the length of her while she was otherwise occupied. The way her dark onyx gown seemed to hug every curve of her body and her bodice dipping enticingly low made my hands ache to touch her.
And for the first time in a long while, I found myself wondering what it would be like to have something real, even if my curse would consume her.