A Taste of Shadows

Author's POV

Three days passed.

Three days of quiet restraint, of sidelong glances in the office, of Adam watching Rosaline like she might vanish if he blinked.

She hadn't confronted him.

Not yet.

She played her role of being calm, composed, and impossibly elegant. The perfect assistant. The perfect ghost of the woman he used to know.

And still, the book waited on her shelf like a heartbeat she couldn't silence.

The rain tapped softly against the windows.

Rosaline sat alone on the velvet couch, the book in her lap unopened, but already reciting itself in her mind.

She didn't need to read it again.

She remembered every word.

Every line was etched in red.Every implication is dressed in silence.

⸻

Her fingers traced the edge of the cover, her thumb brushing the faint seal of Devana.

She had been so focused on the final passage—the prophecy—that she'd ignored the rest of it.

But now she turned back.

Page by page.

And there they were.

The seals.

Not physical locks.Emotional ones.

Moments—deeply human, devastatingly intimate—required to unlock a power tied to her soul. She read the script again, this time with eyes wide open:

The First Seal breaks with recognition.

The second cracks with desire unspoken.

The third was with jealousy inflamed.

The Fourth shatters when blood and longing mix.

The Fifth… awaits the betrayal of love.

Her hands trembled.

She remembered the first time Adam said her name like he knew it before she did.

The first time he touched her, the pendant pulsed. The night jealousy burned in his eyes when she walked in with Nathan. The way their lips collided in his office—violence and passion inseparable—until the desk cracked beneath them.

And then…

The Fundraiser. The invitation was signed in crimson. The ballroom. The pendant is reacting.

The Fourth Seal had already broken.

Four of the seven seals have already broken and are his.

The book mentions only five of them. What are the other two?

Her breath came slower now.

Measured.

There were only three left.

And the next one was the one she couldn't control.

Betrayal by the one you love.

She pressed her palm against the page, eyes unfocused.

Not just power. Not just passion.

Adam was the only one who could complete it.

And if he knew…

If he'd always known—

Then everything she felt was not just love.It was leverage.

⸻

She stood.

Not suddenly. Not angrily.

Like someone rising from a grave they hadn't known they were buried in.

She paced once. Twice.

And then—

A knock.

Just after dusk. Just late enough not to feel wrong.

She opened the door without checking, her mind still in the grip of the prophecy.

Lucien Vael stood there.

He came not at midnight, but just after sunset—early enough to feel civilised, late enough to feel wrong.

Rosaline opened the door without checking who it was.

She should've.

Lucien stood there in a charcoal coat that caught the hallway light like shadowed glass. A single white rose rested in his gloved hand, utterly out of place in the modern building.

"I hope I'm not intruding," he said smoothly.

"You are," she replied.

He smiled like she'd said welcome.

They stood like that for a beat, her hand still on the door, he was waiting without invitation.

But curiosity outweighed caution.

She stepped back.

Only slightly.

He entered like smoke.

"I thought I'd bring a gift," he said, handing her the rose. "I didn't know if you preferred wine or poetry, so I went with something that might outlast both."

"I don't like roses," she lied.

"Pity," Lucien said. "You wear the name like it was stitched into your spine."

He didn't sit.

Didn't touch anything.

Just walked slowly toward the window, eyes drinking in the city lights the way most people admired paintings they couldn't afford.

"I've been thinking about you," he said softly.

"That doesn't make you special."

"No," he agreed. "But it makes me honest."

Rosaline crossed her arms.

"What do you want, Lucien?"

He turned back to her, smile thinning.

"You're not human. That much is obvious. But what you are…" His gaze dropped to the faint line where her soul pendant rested against her collarbone. "That's what interests me."

"I'm not a relic."

"No," he said, voice softening. "You're a key."

Her breath caught—just slightly.

He noticed.

"So you do know."

He took a step closer. Not threatening. Not timid.

Predatory.

"But I don't think Adam told you," he added. "That's what makes this interesting."

Rosaline didn't speak.

She couldn't.

Her walls were iron and ice—but Lucien wasn't trying to break them. He was waiting for her to open them herself.

He took another slow step toward her.

"I don't want to harm you, Rosaline."

"I've heard that before."

"I don't want to use you either."

She narrowed her eyes. "Then what?"

Lucien's voice dropped to a whisper. "I want to see what happens when the key finally turns."

He didn't touch her.

Didn't need to.

He simply smiled, turned, and walked to the door.

But just before leaving, he looked back once.

"When Adam falls short of your trust," he said, "I hope you remember I came without a blade."

And then he was gone.

Rosaline stood in the silence he left behind.

The white rose is still in her hand.

The door swung closed like a breath held too long.

___________

The morning after Lucien's visit, Rosaline arrived at the office five minutes early. It wasn't unusual; she had always been precise, punctual to the second. But today, there was something about her presence that felt unmistakably sharper. Her posture was straighter than usual, her steps more measured, and the look in her eyes held an unsettling calmness that didn't quite belong.

And Adam noticed.

He always noticed.

When she handed him the meeting schedule, she did so without comment. Her fingers brushed his for the briefest moment as the paper changed hands, and though the touch was casual, something beneath it shifted. There was no flare of power. No signature heat between them like before.

Just distance.

A cold, deliberate kind.

She didn't linger in his office afterward. She didn't lean against his desk like she used to, didn't toss a teasing remark over her shoulder, and didn't challenge him on the way he phrased the quarterly projections.

She remained his assistant—impeccable, composed, and professional.

But beneath the surface polish, something vital had changed.

Something was being held back from him.

And Adam felt the loss of it like a splinter beneath his skin—small, silent, but impossible to ignore.

Later that day, in a quiet corridor between back-to-back meetings, Adam paused near the glass elevator bank just as two junior staff members passed by, deep in casual conversation. They spoke in low voices, clearly unaware of who stood nearby.

"Did you see that guy who came to drop something off for Rosaline in the morning?" one asked, curiosity lacing her tone.

"Tall? Pale? Looked like he owned half of Europe?" The other replied with a faint laugh.

"Yeah, that one. Said his name was Lucien."

"He didn't even wait. Just handed her the envelope and left."

Adam's steps halted mid-stride.

His breath caught.

Lucien.

A sharp, cold silence settled in his chest as he stared ahead without seeing.

⸻

He didn't storm back to his office.

He didn't make a scene, didn't shout, and didn't ask for answers he wasn't prepared to hear.

He didn't move at all, just stood there, motionless, jaw clenched so tightly it ached, breath drawn thin and tight, hands curled into fists so sharp he could feel the tension down to his fingertips.

She hadn't told him Lucien had come.

Hadn't even mentioned it.

And somehow, that hurt more than the visit itself.

But worse than the silence was the truth behind it: Rosaline wasn't avoiding him.

She was watching him.

Carefully.

Measured.

Like someone who already suspected a betrayal and was just waiting for proof to fall from his mouth.

When he entered the boardroom for their afternoon strategy session, he found her already seated. She sat across the table with her legs crossed neatly at the ankle, her notebook open, pen gliding across the page in her usual precise strokes. She didn't look up at his arrival, didn't pause in her writing, and didn't flinch at the change in atmosphere.

But she felt it.

He knew she did.

Because she always did.

The meeting unfolded like routine, but it felt like walking through fog, every word muffled, every interaction weighted. She spoke when necessary and contributed efficiently, but the spark that usually existed between them—the subtle edge, the undercurrent of tension and connection—was gone.

When the meeting finally adjourned, she gathered her things and stood before anyone else could rise.

"Good notes," Adam said, forcing a touch of casual warmth into his voice, though it cracked slightly at the edges.

She met his gaze briefly and gave a small, practiced nod. "I've always taken good notes," she replied, her voice calm, nearly emotionless.

And then she walked out of the room, never once looking back.

Adam remained where he was, surrounded by glass and light, the afternoon sun glinting off the silver cuff of his shirt. His own reflection stared back at him from the window—fractured, distant, unfamiliar.

He didn't know what terrified him more:

That she might not trust him anymore.

Or that she finally had a reason not to.