Caelum let out a dark, low chuckle that vibrated through his broad chest.
He didn’t pull the dagger away from Vivienne’s neck, his crimson eyes tracing the small line of red on her skin.
“Let’s see what you’ve got, little thief,” Caelum murmured, his deep baritone carrying a cold, mocking edge.
“We can’t blindly trust a woman who just ran away from her own imperial engagement party.”
Vivienne kept her expression perfectly deadpan.
If it were not for the simple fact that I do not want to die a horrific death, do you truly think I would come to a monster like you? she thought.
She forced her body to remain rigid, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her flinch.
Slowly, Caelum pulled the blade back, sheathing it into the leather lining of his silk robe with a sharp click.
He pointed a large, scarred finger toward the far side of the massive four-poster bed.
“You will sleep on that side of the bed,” Caelum commanded, his voice dropping into a freezing register.
“I will sleep on this side. Don’t you dare try to escape me tonight, Vivienne. If you do, I will hunt you for the rest of your miserable life.”
A sudden, violent shiver ran straight down Vivienne’s spine.
The raw certainty in his voice left no room for doubt; he would track her to the ends of the earth.
She swallowed the dryness in her throat and nodded tightly.
“I wouldn’t dare, Grand Duke.”
Vivienne lay down on the furthest edge of the mattress, keeping her clothes on, her body tense and defensive.
Silence settled over the master bedchamber, broken only by the steady, heavy patter of the northern rain.
Slowly, the exhaustion of her long escape took over, and she drifted into a restless sleep.
In the dead of night, the storm inside the room violently woke.
Caelum thrashed against the cold velvet pillows, his teeth grinding together so hard that the sharp, metallic tang of blood filled his mouth.
The inherited Mana Backflow was no longer a slow, deep burn; it had mutated into a volcanic eruption ripping fiercely through his internal meridians.
The thick purple veins across his chest glowed violently in the dark bedroom, casting a harsh, flickering light against the tall obsidian pillars of the suite. Visit novelping.com for the full chapter.
Two months, his mind screamed through the agonizing static of his breaking core.
The restriction is collapsing early.
I am losing control.
The ambient shadow mana grew dangerously dense, the gravity in the room dropping instantly to a suffocating zero.
Dark tendrils detached themselves from the walls, whipping through the air like wild, blind serpents.
With a sudden, heavy crash, a shadow tendril lashed outward, shattering a porcelain washbasin across the room into a hundred jagged pieces.
He was losing total control.
Within minutes, his core would rupture completely, transforming him into a mindless, bloodthirsty beast.
Suddenly, a slender silhouette crawled toward his side.
Vivienne did not run toward the door to save her own life.
Her face remained completely deadpan in the flickering purple light as she reached out her small, warm hand.
“Caelum,” she hissed, her voice a sharp needle piercing straight through his madness.
“Look at me.”
Her fingers locked violently through his trembling, freezing hand.
The exact moment her warm skin made contact with his freezing flesh, a blinding shockwave of golden and deep purple light erupted from their clasped hands.
The heavy kinetic vibration rippled across the obsidian walls, sending the glass pieces of the lamps raining down onto the dark floorboards.
Vivienne arched her back tightly against the mattress, a sharp gasp escaping her lips as a torrent of raw, aggressive energy violently flooded her system.
The monstrous reservoir of Caelum’s shadow mana rushed directly into her newly awakened abyssal core like a starving beast.
Her internal meridians stretched to their absolute limits, vibrating with a high-frequency resonance that made her eyes swirl erratically into a deep, bottomless black void.
Caelum let out a low, feral growl.
His survival instincts took over completely.
With a brutal, powerful movement, he yanked her forward by her wrist, wrapping his massive arms around her slender waist and dragging her flush against his bare, scarred chest.
Vivienne gasped as she was pinned beneath his dominant physical weight.
He buried his face deeply into the soft crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of her skin as his hot, ragged breath fanned her collarbone.
“Stay right here. Don’t leave.”
Vivienne didn’t fight his iron grip.
She placed her hands flat against his broad chest, her fingers resting precisely over his volatile, pulsing mana core to act as a physical anchor.
I will use this monster to destroy you, Julian, she thought grimly, her teeth clenching as the liquid darkness of her own core systematically stabilized his rolling energy.
When the first faint rays of dawn finally broke through the frosted glass windows, Caelum opened his eyes.
The suffocating fire in his chest was completely gone.
For the first time in three long years, his internal meridians felt completely calm.
He looked down, expecting to find the noble girl dead or broken under his immense physical pressure.
She wasn’t broken.
Vivienne lay curled securely against his broad chest, her head resting over the steady, slow thump of his heart.
Her small hands were still resting flat over his healed collarbone.
A sudden, terrifyingly intense wave of possessiveness slammed into Caelum’s chest.
This woman wasn’t just a strange variable or a clever imperial spy.
She was his life support.
She held the exact key to his survival in her small hands.
He would never let her leave this manor.
Vivienne’s long dark eyelashes fluttered open.
Her sharp eyes locked directly into his crimson gaze, completely devoid of fear.
“The sun is up, Caelum,” Vivienne whispered, her voice raspy but steady.
“And you are still sane.”
Caelum leaned down, his large, calloused fingers wrapping firmly around her chin, lifting her face higher.
“We have a deal, little bird. And today is the Autumn Equinox Banquet at the Imperial Palace.”