Chapter Eleven
CLARA
Ishould’ve hated him.
Every instinct screamed that I should despise this place. Despise him. I should have wanted to carve out the mark on my throat that burned like ownership.
But when the library door shut behind him and I was left alone, the silence didn’t feel like victory. It felt like an absence, like the weight of his presence had imprinted itself into the very walls—and on me.
I couldn’t shake the unease of his absence no matter how much air I dragged into my lungs. I pressed my hand flatter to the bookcase, grounding myself in the ridges of books lining the shelf and their cracked leather.
My body still trembled, though not from fear alone. Heat pulsed low. I knew it was shameful and wrong, but I couldn’t stop replaying the way his eyes had burned into me when he said I was what he’d been waiting for.
Centuries. Ivan said he’d been waiting for me for hundreds of years. So long that loneliness had nearly driven him to the brink of madness.
I wanted to leave. I wanted to. I thought of my family.
The ache of missing them was stronger than it had ever been.
I could hear my mother’s soft voice on the phone and silently laughed at the memory of my father’s terrible jokes.
I even yearned to hear my grandparents reminiscing of their time long ago in a faraway land.
God, I could almost hear them, smell the fresh lemon and garlic in the kitchen, and feel the warmth of home.
And here? Stone walls and shadows. Darkness and solitude. I was trapped with a man who wasn’t a man at all. Not anymore.
He was a monster, a myth, and he claimed me like I was fate itself.
And when I squeezed my eyes, I hated that a part of me believed him.
The castle breathed around me, a living entity that was vast and watchful. I felt time surround me, years and decades of time, trying to consume it. I pushed off the bookcase, left the library, and wandered the curling corridors until I found another room made of glass walls.
Light filtered in the solarium, and the stained glass stretched high, letting streaks of color inside that painted the floor with rainbows. I looked out the windows, searching the forest beyond.
Freedom was right there. If I could only slip out, vanish past those endless trees, maybe—just maybe—I could make it back to the village. To people. To safety.
My chest rose and fell in a frantic rhythm at the thought. Hope was wild and dangerous, but it was mine.
“You’re thinking of leaving again.”
His voice froze me.
I turned, pulse hammering. Ivan emerged from the shadows as if he’d been part of them all along. His shirt clung to the carved lines of his body; his dark eyes glowed faintly, catching the pale light. He was monstrously beautiful.
He looked every inch the predator I knew he was, and yet his steps were patient, measured. Careful.
“I miss my family,” I snapped, though the crack in my voice betrayed me. “I don’t belong here.”
He closed the distance between us with unhurried certainty until his presence pressed against me like another wall. “You belong here more than anywhere else.”
His hand rose, knuckles grazing the line of my jaw with such unbearable gentleness that I flinched anyway.
“And your family—” His gaze dropped to my mouth. “They could never give you what I will. I’m your family.”
He reached out, his touch searing me, and my body betrayed me, arching, leaning toward the very thing I swore I didn’t want.
“I don’t want you.” The words burst out, brittle, desperate but lacking any heat.
A cruel laugh came from him, the kind that said he knew too much. He bent until his lips hovered at my ear and whispered, “Then why does your heart beat so fast for me, sweet girl?”
Heat rushed through me, a pulse I couldn’t disguise. My thighs clenched, my breath hitched.
Ivan inhaled, growling low and satisfied, like he was drinking in the scent of my arousal.
“Your mind doesn’t remember me, but your body does.
” His hand drifted lower, hovering just above my pussy, never quite touching.
“I’d worship you in ways no mortal man ever could.
You feel it, don’t you? This bond that neither of us can deny. ”
I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood, that coppery flavor that hit my taste buds unpleasantly. I held on to the sharp sting, something solid to cling to.
Ivan was so close that when he leaned in, I felt awe, trapped between the hard expanse of his body and the window behind me.
I was frozen in place, my muscles tight when I felt his lips brush the barest whisper over my throat, skimming the mark where he’d bitten me days ago. But then reality crashed into me, and I gasped, my hands flattening against his chest. I didn’t push him away, even though I should have.
The air thickened between us, charged and electric. I wanted to scream. I wanted to shove him. I wanted to sink into him until I forgot every reason I should run.
His mouth hovered there, not quite touching, but his hunger was tangible. “Say you don’t want me again,” he murmured. “Lie to me and yourself.”
I glanced down slightly to see his hands curled into tight fists, his knuckles white, his forearms tensed so much his muscles stood out.
I should have cursed him, told him to fuck off. God, I should have. But the words snagged in my throat, tangled in the heat pooling between my thighs.
Ivan pulled back just enough for me to see the dark hunger carved into every line of his face. His pupils glowed an eerie white, burning with possession. Obsession.
For me.
“I’ve been alone so long I forget how terrifying the truth can be,” he said, his voice hard as stone.
“I forgot how to be a gentleman and to take things slowly. But I’ve been waiting for you for such a long time, Clara.
The idea of you. The promise of you. And now that you are here, I find it hard to control even my base urges. ”
The vow settled into me, heavy and final. I trembled with something I didn’t want to name. When Ivan stepped back then, I didn’t feel relief, and I sure as hell didn’t dig deeper to find out what exactly I was feeling.
His gaze caught on my lips, my throat, and finally on the trembling of my hands. “So sweet,” he murmured. “So pretty.” He left me with that, his shadow dissolving into the darkness of the corridor until the silence pressed back in.
Why was my body still burning, my mind still conjuring the feel of his mouth on my skin and picturing the rough whisper of his voice promising forever?
And why the hell was I trembling with need instead of fear?