31. Cain
Cain
Iwalked through the silent Manor, the floorboards absorbing my footsteps like a sponge.
The stones felt incredibly heavy tonight, dense with years of buried secrets and the suffocating scent of lilies that had followed June here from her grandmother’s burial.
The house was holding its breath—a predator lying in wait—and I was the only one who truly understood the disturbing rhythm of its dark heart.
Now that June was living under our roof permanently, the restraint I’d practiced for months was starting to disintegrate. reaction:
I couldn’t stay away from her. Almost every night, I found myself slipping past her bedroom door, moving like a phantom until I was standing right beside her bed.
I had to be careful, moving with a silent, hyper-vigilance to make sure Julian didn’t catch me.
The last thing I needed was him throwing a massive tantrum and ruining the only peace I had.
Reassured by the quiet hallway, I would stay there in the dark for hours, haunting my own home, just watching her sleep.
I had memorised the exact rise and fall of her breathing.
I knew how she sighed when she shifted in the sheets.
I would reach out and trail my fingers through her dark hair, wrapping the silken strands around my knuckles, leaving a lingering trace of my scent on her pillows.
Lately, I’d stepped beyond just watching.
I had started moving small things. It wasn’t enough to terrify her yet, but it was just enough to let her subconscious know that I was already inside her sanctuary.
My hunger didn’t stop at rearranging her room.
I found myself taking pieces of her with me—small, intimate trophies of the girl I intended to break.
I’d steal her underwear from her laundry basket, the fabric still holding the faint, sweet scent of her skin, and tuck it into my pocket like a stolen prayer.
I’d pull the dark strands of hair from her brushes, winding them around my fingers until they bit into my skin.
Every item I took was a claim. Every piece of her I hid away in my own room was a promise that soon, I wouldn’t need to settle for her laundry or her hair.
I was building a shrine to her in the dark, a collection of everything she touched, wore, and shed.
She thought her bedroom door was a barrier, but to me, it was just a veil.
I was already in her space and in her head long before she ever realised she was being hunted from the inside out.
When I reached the living room, the fire had burned down to a low, amber glow, casting long, skeletal shadows across the walls.
June was curled up on the velvet lounge, her chest rising and falling in that deep, hypnotic pattern I knew so perfectly.
In sleep, she looked less like a girl and more like a fragile, consecrated vessel, finally resting within the walls we built to contain her.
Julian was sitting in the vintage chair beside her.
He had a book open in his lap—some forgotten volume of Romantic poetry—but his eyes weren’t on the text.
He was watching her with an expression that made my skin crawl.
It was a pathetic map of everything rotting within our current dynamic: devotion, grief, and a desperate, desire that he was barely holding back.
“Julian,” I said, my voice a sliver of ice cutting through the warm room.
He didn’t startle, but I saw his fingers twitch. His hand was hovering just above June’s dark hair, trembling with the need to touch her before he forced himself to pull back. Julian was a coward and naively unaware that I was already putting my hands on her when he wasn’t watching.
He stood up slowly, the movement stiff, and followed me down the hall.
The heavy door of my office clicked shut. He paced the small perimeter of the rug, his shadow flickering against the bookshelves like a trapped moth. He was unraveling. I could see it in the way his shoulders were hunched, as if the very air of the Manor was becoming too heavy to breathe.
“We need to talk about the timeline,” I said, my voice clinical. “The moon is entering its final phase. The alignment is sixty days out. We need to begin the final steps soon.”
Julian stopped pacing. He ran both hands through his hair, his eyes wild. “I can’t do it, Cain. Not like this. Look at her—she’s finally starting to trust us again. She finally feels safe. I can’t be the one to prove her wrong.”
“You are the one who already proved her wrong, brother,” I said, turning to face him.
I stepped into his space, my height a silent reminder of the hierarchy.
I placed a firm, heavy hand on his shoulder.
“You knew the price of her safety. You buried a man for her. You marked your skin for her. Do not tell me now that you lack the stomach to finish the job.”
“She’s just a girl, Cain!” Julian hissed, his voice cracking. “It’s June. Not a ‘vessel.’ Not a ‘sacrifice.’ How can you look at her and see anything else?”
“Because I am not weak, Julian,” I told him, leaning in until my breath brushed against his cheek. “Every lie, every poem you read her, every sacrifice we’ve made, has led to this moment. You will not let our lineage end because you’ve grown fond of the offering.”
I stepped back, watching him crumble.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said, my tone softening into a manipulative aura. “The soul isn’t destroyed, it’s simply… repositioned. Finding her again in the next cycle will be a task, yes, but she won’t be lost. Think of it as a brief intermission in an endless play.”
Julian spun around, his eyes flashing with a murderous heat. “You speak about her like she’s a pawn on a board. Like she’s a specimen pinned beneath a glass slide.”
“Because in the grand design, she is,” I replied. “What is one mortal life for eternal life? In a thousand years, this girl’s suffering will be the blink of an eye. But our power… that will be forever.”
I turned back to my desk, dismissing him. He would do it. When the moon turned, he would choose me. He always does. They say blood is thicker than water, but I prefer to think of it as a leash.
Once silence had fully reclaimed the office, I reached into the bottom drawer of my desk and pulled out the heavy-bound ledger.
I scanned the diagrams of the blood letting sequences, my mind sharp and focused.
The smallest mistake could cost us everything.
It would reduce June’s death to a complete waste and ensure the final end of our legacy.
I dug deeper into the drawer when my fingers brushed against a spine I hadn’t touched in years—a journal belonging to our father. As I pulled it out, a small, square object slipped from between the pages and fluttered to the floor.
I picked it up. It was a black-and-white Polaroid, the edges curled and yellowed. Three young men stood in front of the Manor’s iron gates. Julian was on the right, a genuine grin on his face. I was in the middle, looking serious even then.
And on the left… Thomas.
Our cousin.
I tucked the photo back into the drawer and slammed it shut, the sound echoing like a gunshot.
“Eternity isn’t for the weak, Thomas,” I whispered to the empty room, my gaze fixing on the door where my brother had just vanished. “And I will not let Julian or myself fail like you.”