The man loomed over me, swallowing the room, his power pressing against me like a second skin.
A gloved hand reached out?—
Fingers brushed my jaw, a touch as cold as winter’s first frost.
I shuddered, the contact scalding with icy cruelty, its agonizing slowness a brutal reminder of how powerless I was beneath him.
His voice followed, a low, menacing growl that coiled around me like a noose.
“I’m going to make this simple.”
I swallowed hard, pulse pounding against my ribs.
“You answer all my questions, and I’ll let you go—without hurting you, without killing you.”
The words should have been a reprieve, but they were anything but.
Because then came the promise, the real threat, that sent my insides twisting into knots.
“But if you don’t comply...”
His grip tightened, just for a moment.
“I will make your life a living hell.”
The scent of leather and sandalwood surrounded him, intoxicating, suffocating, inescapable.
His eyes—cold, unreadable, merciless—bored into mine, his stare a command, a silent demand for obedience.
And in that moment, as the walls pressed in, as the darkness breathed around us?—
I knew.
There would be no mercy.
“Where did you get the Noctyss flower, the Bloom of Death?”
Each word dripped with threat, with malice, making it clear that if I didn’t comply—if I hesitated—I would suffer for it.
A flutter of panic erupted in my chest, wild and erratic, clawing for escape.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The lie tumbled too quickly from my lips, a weak, feeble thing that I barely believed.I willed myself into the innocent, demure, compliant facade I had perfected over the years?—
But the quiver in my voice betrayed me.
I choked down my despair, but it clung to me, settling like a cloak of inevitability.
I had never been a convincing liar.
And now, as I tried to deceive this dominant beast, as I stared into the cold abyss of his eyes, I felt the weight of guilt, of terror, of something else—something primal and dangerous—crushing me.
How long could I keep this up before it all crumbled?
Before he unraveled me completely?
His voice came low, cruel, as intent as a blade sliding beneath the skin.
