Page 27 of Black Castle

His voice, a slur. The way he touches her arm. The way he runs his fingers down her spine.

She tries to leave. And he follows. She tries to scream, and he muffles it with his palm that smells like cigarettes.

She cries, bucks, and pleads for him to stop. But he ignores her. He forces himself onto her anyway. And he keeps saying she deserves it. He says she deserves being raped. That she should be thankful to him and not be an ingrate.

Her hands tremble, and the knife slips from her grip, clattering against the counter, then the floor. The sharp sound echoes through the kitchen, a jagged crack in the silence.

He is dead. Long buried, but she can still feel him pressing against her back, his voice uttering malicious words against her ear.

Her chest tightens, the weight unbearable and crushing.

She stumbles back, barely registering her own movements as she bolts out of the kitchen, down the hall and into her room.

The door slams behind her. But it isn’t enough. Finding a corner in the room, she curls up in a ball, her arms wrapped around her knees, her forehead pressing against her arm.

The sob tears from her throat before she can stop it, raw and aching.

Ian is gone.

Isadora’s boyfriend is dead, but the scars he left behind aren’t. And so are the scars left behind from nine years ago, back at the alleyway in Rue Augustin Boulevard , and the ones left every other day by Isadora. All the scars are there, an accusation against her skin, a punishment for a crime she didn’t commit.

And Kenji isn’t here either.

She is alone. Like she will eventually be one day.

Her fingers dig into her arm, her nails pressing against her skin as she tries to hold herself together. But she is already unraveling.

And then her phone rings, cutting through her sobs, the sharp vibration against the wooden floor making her jolt.

She slowly lifts her head, blinking through the blur of tears. She glances at her screen.

Snow white.

Chapter Nine

Vivienne

A low hum of chatter settles in the room, the smell of roasted coffee and freshly baked buns drifting through the air, awakening an appetite Vivienne didn’t have some minutes ago.

Lucan is back in town, apparently. And he wants to make up for how things ended the last time they were together. That coffee date they weren’t able to go on, they decided to do it today.

He had picked her right from the front of her porch. All she did was give him an address, and a few minutes later, the screech of tires echoed off asphalt, the engine of the car killed right in her driveway.

They drove around the city for a while in search of a nice place to go. Vivienne was clueless, and so was he. She suggested Fitz’s Lit and Brew and for some reason, he rejected the idea. He said he wanted a new scenery.

They later ended up at Maison du Café, a little outside of town. It opened a few months ago. Was the talk of the town for a while. The atmosphere is rich, the aesthetics exquisite, and the chairs are too comfortable compared to the worn out and torn leathers of most coffee shops she knows.

“So, um, how—how have you been?” Vivienne asks. They settled down about some minutes ago, just quietly absorbing the welcoming and quaint scenery.

“I’ve been good.” His reply is curt, his eyes drifting away from the window to her, the brilliant golden orbs regarding her with warmth.

“Are you sure?” Vivienne prods, not out of nosiness, but of concern. The last time they were together, he suffered another panic attack. And that episode was quite scary. She hadn’t heard from him since then. And frankly speaking, his call was the last thing she expected to receive today.

“Yes.” He nods, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose, his finger brushing over the tiny birthmark under his left eye. According to myth, that’s probably where his past lover kissed him, leaving behind a mark that time couldn’t erase.

“Sorry, I’m just really concerned,” she exhales, fiddling with the hem of her arm warmer. “You didn’t seem too good the other day. It all just happened, and I was so confused. I was literally haunted for days. And I was quite worried, especially when I couldn’t, you know, call to check up on you or something. You had been pretty specific when you told me not to call or text.”

Something flickers in the depth of his fiery eyes—brief, unreadable. But there is a subtle way his easy composure suddenly stiffens, a faint tick in his jaw.

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