His commanding voice echoes through the hallway like a blade. I am freezing. My chest is tightening, and my breath is stuck somewhere high in my throat. I shake my head before I can even think about it, a small automatic denial I can't explain.
I am not ready to face this side of Lucien. Not tonight. Not when my mind is already a mess of Cole's smile and Autumn's guilt-free face. And the cold, suffocating air of this mansion.
Ready or not, Your Highness, Lucien doesn't care.
My palms grow damp, and I rub them against my jeans. My throat is feeling bone-dry, every swallow an effort, but I force myself to talk.
"What...what test are you talking about?"
Lucien steps closer, deliberately. He stops just far enough away to make me wonder if I can back up and close enough for me to know I won't care. Sometimes I doubt he knows what his presence and closeness do to me.
He lifts a hand. A phone dangles from his fingers like a verdict.
"This phone was your test, Anaya." His voice is low but sharp enough to leave a mark. "Autumn was your test. And you failed. Miserably."
The words hit me harder than I expected, but I am standing still, chin slightly tilted in confusion. How on earth did he make me ask to go outside the mansion? I want to ask him, and I didn't like many other hundreds of questions.
Lucien starts to move, slow and deliberate, circling me like a predator sizing up prey. Every step is pulling the air tighter around me. I can feel his gaze on me, heavy as chains.
"Do you really think people who betrayed you would mourn your absence?" he continues. "You think they were waiting for you?"
My pulse is hammering in my ears. I am trying to keep my breathing steady, but freaking images start flickering in my mind. Ethan's mocking smirk, Cole's hand slipping out of me, and Autumn's laugh in a restaurant that should have been mine.
"Now," Lucien says. like finality. "This is your life."
I clench my jaw. For a second, I almost speak, almost tell him he can't just erase my life like that. He tilts his chin up slightly, forcing me to look him in the eyes. "Your life is mine now."
Something about the way he says it, calm and assured, like it is a simple fact, sinks into me deeper than if he had shouted.
My hands itch to push him away, but my feet stay planted. The weight of him in front of me is suffocating, yet a part of me can't look away.
"You think I am cruel?" Lucien asks suddenly, and though I haven't answered, his lips curve faintly, as if he has read my thoughts. "Cruelty keeps people alive in my world. Weakness gets you buried."
My stomach turns.
The urge to resist battles with the knowledge that resistance here comes with a cost I am not ready to pay. I lower my eyes, not in surrender at least; that is what I tell myself, but because I need a moment to breathe.
Lucien stays still for another beat, as if daring me to meet his eyes again, before slipping the damn phone into his pocket and walking past me. His shoulder brushes mine, a touch so slight it feels intentional.
"If you want to survive, you need to learn how to let go of your past."
When Lucien says the word "survive," something snaps inside me.
Heat courses through my veins. I spin around before I can stop myself, words rushing out like I have been holding them back for years.
"What do you know about surviving?" My breath is hitching between syllables. "Sitting at the top, controlling everything. I have been betrayed, Lucien. I couldn't even take what's mine. And now you tell me to forget, just toss away every part of me I have lived for twenty-eight years."
Lucien is standing tall and unshakable, hands clasped loosely behind him. He is not even blinking. Steady, looking into my eyes.
I feel sweat on my palms. Every instinct is telling me to stop, to back down, but my chin lifts instead. I am not going to let him steamroll me without at least trying to stand my ground.
"And send me outside." My voice is tightening now. "And have Autumn bump into me...what kind of torture is that?"
Lucien's brows twitch, barely a reaction, but I see it. He is listening to me.
"I was trying my best to sink into the coldness of this...inhuman mansion. To adapt, it's cruel, but no, you had to drag me back into my past."
He takes a step forward. His presence feels like a shadow swallowing me whole. My pulse spikes, but I am not willing to retreat now.
"And on top of that—" My voice rises a little. "How the hell do you know so much about my life? Since when have you been tracking me? Was it you? Did you plant that seed of betrayal in the people I once called mine?"
For a moment, silence stretches between us. Lucien's jaw flexes. He stays rooted. I don't know; maybe he is measuring how far I'll go before breaking.
My stomach churns, fear clawing at my ribs. I can feel it in the tremble of my fingers, in the quick, shallow breaths I am trying to disguise. But I keep my eyes locked on him.
I don't even know where the courage has come from, maybe desperation, maybe rage, but the words have poured out, raw and jagged. And now that they are out, I feel light. Empty of something I have been choking on since the moment I stepped into this mansion.
I know there'll be consequences. Lucien finally moves, closing the last foot between us. He is so close that for the first time, I can see the faint scar along his left brow. I stop myself from losing myself in his cologne.
"You think survival is about holding onto pieces of your old life? He leans in and whispers in my ear. When his breath touches my earlobe, I can't keep my eyes open. "Survival is knowing which pieces to burn before they burn you."
My throat tightens. I feel him before I hear him, a subtle shift in the air. I tell myself it is just power he is exuding, not anything more. But in that moment, with his voice sinking into my skin, I can't tell if I want to run or to listen.
Heat radiating off my body. His words curl like smoke into my head. I hate that my body is reacting like this, hate that his nearness tangles fear with something sharper, Something I don't want to name.
He waits to let his words sink in, then looks down at me like a ruthless king ready to warn a prisoner.
"Here, questions don't save you. They only cost you."
He walks past me, and I am standing rooted, knowing I have crossed an invisible line I may never find my way back from.