Page 79 of Black Castle

Chapter Twenty-five

Vivienne

The heavy slam of a door rattles the bed frame, sending a shudder deep into Vivienne’s bones. Her eyes crack open, only slightly, before she squeezes them shut again. It’s not Lucan. Not really. Something else has taken charge of his body and mind. Something twisted, something extremely wrong.

His presence is a looming shadow stretching towards her, thick with menace. A dark aura wraps around him like a sickly sweet perfume, cloying, suffocating. In all the time his hands have touched her, she feels something being stripped away, something fragile, something innocent.

“Are you awake yet, ladybird?” His voice echoes in the room, rough, sharp, tainted with sin. The sound of liquid pouring fills the room, the smell of whiskey weaving into the air.

“I know you’re awake,” there’s the echo of a body colliding with leather as he sits down. “I can hear your racing heart.”

She has read about people with multiple personalities before, and found their fractured minds fascinating in the safety of a book’s pages. But fiction never warned her of what it would feel like to be trapped inside the story. To live in it. To breathe it. To be at the mercy of a man whose body is a battlefield, where one brother suppresses the other, taking turns wearing his skin.

And right now, the one in control isn’t Lucan.

He hasn’t told her his name yet.

“It might interest you to know,” he muses, voice smooth like the whiskey he’s taking, “that while you passed out, I learned some fascinating things about you. Things my brother doesn’t know.” There’s a slow smirk, a glint of wicked amusement in his golden eyes. “Because he’s that reckless, so fucking careless. He didn’t even bother to run a little background check on you. Because he’s so trusting, he thinks you are too fragile to possibly be a threat to him.”

With that information, Vivienne bolts upright, the sheet slipping from her body, baring her naked breast to the cool air.

“There it is,” his golden eyes gleam of mischief, darkening when they flicker momentarily to her heaving breasts, his lips curling in satisfaction. “I knew that would get your attention.”

Her pulse thrums, fast and erratic. Anxiety coils tight in her stomach as he lifts the glass of whiskey to his lips, savoring a slow sip. The way he watches her—as if peeling her apart layer by layer—makes her breath hitch.

What does he know?

“Do you wanna know what I know?” His lips curl into a sharp, mean grin. A predator’s kind of smile.

She swallows hard, her head bobbing only once.

Leisurely, he swings his legs off the glass table, the leather of the chair groaning as he rises. Another sip of whiskey, a deliberate swallow. Her eyes track the movement of his Adam’s apple, the way his throat works as the amber liquid disappears behind his smirking lips

Then, with excruciating slowness, he sets the glass down on the table. And begin to move towards her.

Every step is unhurried, controlled, deliberate. Yet each one feels like a countdown, a slow descent into something inevitable. The air thickens, charged, suffocating.

On reaching the bed, he doesn’t hesitate as he grips the sheet, yanking it away. Exposing her in one swift motion.

Her nipples harden, her thighs clenched against the ache pulsing between her legs. The need to be touched by his wicked hands. Like he hasn’t already destroyed her.

His weight presses into the bed as he leans over her, lips grazing the corner of her mouth. A breath, a whisper of warmth.

“The more time I spend with you, ladybird,” he murmurs, “the more the pieces fall into place. The more it becomes undeniable.”

His fingers tangle in her head, tilting her head back, his other hand prying apart the thigh she had clenched together.

“You and I…” His breath ghosts along her jawline, teasing, tormenting, his hand wandering deeper between her thighs. “Are bound together in a way even fate can’t dare unravel.”

Her skin prickles, a shudder rolling down her spine.

His lips brush against her ear, voice dropping into something darker, something edged in cruelty.

“What are the odds?” he drawls. “That your father is such a remarkable man whose works I really adored once upon a time?”

The words sink into her like a blade. Her breath stutters.

He knows.

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