Continued...
"Why don't you come and take it?"
She wasn't gonna miss a single chance to torture him as much as possible.
She didn't actually wanted him to come to her or anything, but she wanted to see him suffer knowing that he can't. Rose also wanted to see him try, try and fail or perhaps ger severely hurt by her protective ward.
But the situation took a turn, a very drastic and undesirable turn when he took the challenge a little too seriously and began ascending the steps to the patio at a glacial pace.
A slow, deliberate shift. The faintest movement at first. And then—
He stepped forward.
Rose's breath stilled in her throat.
No.
No, no, no.
He wasn't supposed to take her seriously. He wasn't supposed to move.
She felt her stomach drop as he ascended the steps to the patio, each step calculated, controlled, unhurried.
This wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't actually going to try and come in, was he?
The protective ward should stop him.
Should.
But she wasn't about to test that theory.
Panic surged through her, drowning out the artificial haze of confidence the drugs had given her. Her entire body went rigid, and before she could think, she bolted upright in the chair.
The cross—previously hanging idly in her grip—was now firmly planted against the glass door.
She sucked in a breath and forced her voice to steady, though it still wavered slightly, betraying her.
"Stay back." Her grip on the cross tightened. "I command you to stay back, or I swear I'll burn your stalking ass right where you stand!"
The moment the words left her lips, she regretted how breathless she sounded.
Gone was the taunting seductress.
Now, she was just Rose. Wide-eyed. Bare-skinned. Chest rising and falling too quickly as she watched him with growing unease.
And then—
Then, he did something that sent ice threading down her spine.
He paused.
Not in hesitation. Not in fear.
His head tilted slightly, as though assessing her. Amused.
And then—
A deep, low sound rumbled through the air, slipping past the glass, curling around her ears like a phantom's touch.
A chuckle.
A dark, quiet chuckle.
Rose's stomach twisted violently.
That sound. It was so foreign, yet somehow so eerily familiar.
Like she had always known this was how he would sound.
Abysmal deep and just as dark. A voice made of shadows.
It sent something cold slithering through her veins.
She watched him raised his hands next, in a show of mock surrender and then, just as effortlessly as he had closed the distance—he took a step back.
Then another.
And another.
Until he was exactly where he had been before at the base of the patio, as if he had never moved at all.
Rose's breath came in short, sharp bursts, that was a close call. her body caught between the thrill of power and the sting of vulnerability.
That was too close.
Too real.
He was watching her like she was an offering laid out before him. And the worst part? He knew she had done this willingly.
The game had changed. And she wasn't sure anymore if she was the one truly in control.
For the first time, she truly understood the balance of this game they played.
She had stepped onto a wire stretched over an abyss, teasing the beast lurking below, believing herself untouchable.
But now—
Now, she realized something terrifying.
The beast let her play.
And worse?
He was enjoying it.