Page 37 of Her Soul to Own

I intercept it before anyone else can lay eyes on it. Before protocol kicks in and before the housekeeper can scan it into the estate system like it’s just another wine order or imported clock.

My gloves are on before I even realize it—a habit, ritual, and a damn necessity. The blade I carry slices the tape with a satisfying whisper, as if even the box knows to be quiet. I open it carefully. Who knows, the contents might be rigged to explode.

Inside, I find photographs. They’re faded. Some are black and white, others nearly sepia with time, the edges curled like they’re trying to protect themselves.

Lyra’s mother. I know it instantly. Even before I unfold the note tucked neatly inside, even before the scent of old paper and ink hits me like a forgotten perfume.

There’s one in particular that punches the breath right out of me.

She’s barefoot and sitting on a rooftop. Her long hair tumbles over her shoulder in waves. Her mouth is wide openwith laughter, her head thrown back. Carefree, wild, and fucking radiant.

Her eyes… those eyes. Lyra’s eyes.

The same fire, same defiance, same fuck-you sparkle that dares the world to try and tame her.

I freeze.

The memories hit hard, viciously, and fast. They don’t come in full scenes. No neatly packaged conversations or faces. Just flashes, sensations. A rooftop beneath my back. A laugh carried off by the wind. Fingers curled tightly around mine, and a kiss that tasted like a promise. Maybe more than that.Maybe everything.

These aren’t the kinds of memories that whisper quietly from the corners of your mind. Theyscream.

And as the fog clears, I know exactly who the package is from.

Serena.

Lyra’s estranged aunt. The woman she’s never spoken to. Not in all these years. But the gifts still come, always unannounced but always significant. Never flashy or branded. And yet, they mean more to Lyra than any designer handbag ever could.

I knew it the moment I saw the way she clutched Isola’s journal that day in the treehouse. It was like it was sacred.

Whatever’s in this package, it matters. Because Serena never sends anything that doesn’t.

I shove them down. I always do.

Half the photos go straight into the incinerator. Flames curl around the edges like eager mouths. The past turning to ash, frame by frame. Some ghosts don’t deserve a resurrection.

But that rooftop one? That one I keep.

I slide it into the hidden compartment behind my bookshelf. My private quarters. A place even Lyra hasn’t tried to breach. Yet.

“She never even knew what was missing,” I whisper, and my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.

Time slips. It might be minutes or hours. I don’t track it. I just sit, staring and breathing. Drowning in memories.

Eventually, I leave the room before I lose my mind.

The estate stretches out before me like a museum of sins, polished floors, expensive furniture, and curated shadows. I walk through the main hall and toward the living room.

The living room is the crown jewel of the estate. It’s all clean lines and curated wealth. Two charcoal gray couches, massive and angled just so, sit beneath towering windows that spill sterile daylight into the space. Blood-red pillows break the monochrome, a punch of color like fresh wounds. A glass-and-steel coffee table anchors the room, sleek and lonesome. The fireplace, ornate and unused, looms on the far wall beneath an abstract painting that probably cost more than my entire armory. It’s modern and clinical. Impossibly perfect.

And there she is.

Lyra.

She’s curled like sin incarnate on one of the couches, a robe draped carelessly around her frame. One shoulder is bare, catching the light like a dare. Her legs are folded beneath her, her smooth skin disappearing beneath the hem of the robe. Her hair is messy in a way that makes it worse, like she just rolled out of a man’s bed, and the bed was mine in another life.

A leatherbound book rests in her hands, probably untouched for decades until she decided it matched her aesthetic. Her eyes skim the page, but I can tell she’s not reading.

She’s waiting. For me.

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