Chapter 30 Not Ready #2
We turned down the familiar stretch of gallery, the portraits watching in their gilded frames as we passed. Torin didn’t rush me, nor did he attempt idle conversation to fill the silence. He moved with steady confidence, as though he had a job to do and I was it.
Torin slowed toward the end of the gallery, and I instinctively did the same.
Before us hung a painting large enough to dominate an entire section of the wall.
Its frame carved from blackened wood rather than gold.
There were no rolling fields or tranquil shores here, only a vision that carried weight and something disturbingly real.
The throne was unmistakable.
In fact, it transported me right back to that moment when I’d had my vision of him in my mom’s shop.
The throne was fashioned from what appeared to be bleached bone. The jagged arches curving upward like the ribcage of something colossal and long dead. Upon it sat a figure I would have recognized even if the artist had obscured his face.
Oblivion.
Not in a suit. Not in mortal disguise. But him in his natural domain.
His shoulders were draped in armor that seemed grown rather than forged, dark metal layered over black fabric that fell like shadow around his legs.
At his feet knelt figures whose forms blurred between human and something far more demonic.
The backdrop was not a city skyline or manor courtyard.
It was firelight, molten stone, and a sky fractured by something crimson and burning.
My eyes widened at the sight, because it wasn’t symbolic. It was him, holding court in a realm that did not belong to this one. A sight that reminded me exactly who he was and why I shouldn’t trust the softness he had shown me.
My throat tightened slightly as I took in the details, the way the painter had captured the tilt of his chin, the faint lift of his mouth that suggested both amusement and absolute control. Power radiated from the canvas with unsettling clarity. It didn’t feel like artistic exaggeration.
It felt more… documented.
“Interesting taste in artwork,” I murmured lightly, though my voice did not quite hide the tension beneath it. Torin’s gaze rested on the painting for a moment longer before shifting back to me.
“It’s accurate,” he said, and the simplicity of that answer didn’t help.
“Accurate,” I repeated on a whisper, letting the word settle.
He stepped forward then, closing the remaining distance to the frame. For a second, I thought he meant only to admire it more closely, but instead his hand pressed against a subtle ridge carved into the lower corner. There was a soft, almost imperceptible click before the entire painting shifted.
I felt the movement before I fully processed what was happening. The wall itself released with a quiet mechanical sigh as the massive frame swung inward on hidden hinges. Behind it offered nothing but darkness.
“This is a quicker way into the club,” Torin said calmly, stepping aside and gesturing toward the opening.
I stared at the revealed passage for a heartbeat longer than necessary.
“Erm… it’s a little dark in there,” I said, arching a brow despite the tension curling beneath my ribs.
A faint flicker of amusement returned to his expression before he reached inside and flicked a switch, illuminating the space.
The passage beyond the painting was narrower, though still high-ceilinged enough to avoid feeling cramped.
The walls weren’t paneled like most of the walls in his home were.
They were smooth stone, as though this part of the structure had not been built to impress but to endure.
The air felt cooler and far less lived in.
Torin stepped inside first, and I followed, the painting swinging shut behind us with a muted finality that echoed faintly down the passage.
The lighting here was different as well.
Instead of warm sconces casting golden pools across polished floors, recessed fixtures were embedded low along the walls, their glow more subdued, more functional.
Shadows clung closer. The emerald of my dress seemed darker in this space, less luminous, almost blending into the stone.
I resisted the urge to glance back at the now seamless wall behind us. There was something about stepping through a hidden doorway that certainly had you questioning your life choices, that was for sure.
Torin’s pace remained steady, unhurried but purposeful. I noticed the way the passage curved slightly, not straight but subtly angled, as though guiding us downward without the need for visible stairs. A faint vibration began to hum through the soles of my shoes, barely noticeable at first.
Music.
Which meant only one thing… the club, Veneficus.
The reality of where we were headed settled more firmly into my bones with each step. As now I knew what he meant by my joining him for the night. It wasn’t for dinner or something more private, but something far more open and public. I found myself fidgeting as my nerves doubled.
Torin noticed.
“You need not look as though you are walking toward execution,” he said mildly, and I let out a soft breath that might almost have been a laugh.
“Well, that’s comforting,” I replied dryly, and his gaze softened fractionally. Just enough to suggest he understood the undercurrent of nerves beneath my composure.
“He would not allow harm to come to you,” he added, as if I needed to hear this.
The statement didn’t carry blind loyalty. It carried certainty, and it made me wonder what Oblivion had told him about me. Whether he knew far more than I did, like the reason I was being held captive by his boss. Not that I was brave enough to ask.
Ahead, the passage straightened, and a single dark door came into view at the far end. Its surface was etched faintly with patterns I didn’t recognize. The music beyond it was clearer now, and Torin slowed once more, turning slightly toward me as we reached the threshold.
“You ready?” he asked.
I laughed without humor and said,
“No.”
He smirked at that and changed my answer for me.
“You’re ready.” Then he reached for the handle, not waiting for me to argue.
Instead, my heart pulsed hard against my ribs as the door opened inward without a sound.
The music struck first, not loud or overwhelming, but deeper here.
As if it was threaded through the floor like a pulse.
Heat followed, thicker air carrying the scent of smoke, expensive liquor, and something metallic that had nothing to do with the décor.
The lighting shifted from the cool restraint of the passage to something richer, something darker. A crimson edged with gold.
Torin stepped aside, allowing me to enter first like always, and the reaction from the patrons in the club was immediate.
Conversations didn’t stop entirely, but they softened.
Heads turned, and bodies shifted. The subtle ripple of awareness moved outward in widening circles as though my presence had been announced without words.
I felt it before I saw it, that parting of space, that careful widening of distance.
Like they remembered me.
Not me, perhaps, but what had happened the last time someone had mistaken me for something they could lay their hands on.
The floor of the VIP level gleamed beneath the club lights, and tables curved around the perimeter.
Each was occupied by figures whose silhouettes were too sharp at the edges to be entirely human.
Eyes tracked me as I walked, some curious, some amused, a few assessing in ways that made the fine hairs along my arms rise beneath the gloves.
But then I saw him.
The owner of this club and master of his domain.
And the man I knew I was foolishly…
Falling for.