Chapter 8 “In His World,”

“Chapter 8: In His World,”

────── ꕥ ⋅ IVORY ⋅ ꕥ ──────

I woke up in his bed.

Not the guest bedroom. 

His bed. 

The obsidian one with the dark red sheets that I'd been too overwhelmed to really look at the first night. Sunlight was coming through floor-to-ceiling windows that apparently didn't believe in curtains, and for a second I just lay there trying to remember how I'd gotten here.

Then I remembered. The bond locking. His fangs at my throat, marking instead of feeding. The way my entire body had felt like it was being rewritten from the inside out.

I touched my neck. The mark was still there-not healing the way the feeding wounds had healed. This one felt permanent. A small, raised scar shaped almost like a crescent.

"You're awake."

I rolled over. Rage was sitting in a chair by the window, fully dressed, watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Like he'd been there a while. Like he'd been content just watching me sleep, which should have been creepy and somehow wasn't.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Eleven."

"In the morning?"

"Yes." He stood, moved toward the bed, and I became aware that I was wearing one of his shirts and nothing else, which I definitely hadn't put on myself. "You slept for nine hours. The bond locking takes energy. Your body needed to recover."

"Did you dress me?" I asked, mortified.

"I made sure you were comfortable," he said, which wasn't really an answer. "How do you feel?"

I sat up, testing my body. Everything felt different. Sharper. Like someone had turned up the resolution on my senses. I could hear the city outside in a way I hadn't been able to before-individual car horns, conversations from the street seventy-three floors down, the specific hum of electricity running through the walls.

"I feel like I can hear everything," I said.

"That's normal. For what you're becoming." He sat on the edge of the bed, close but not touching. "It'll stabilize. Give it a few days."

"A few days," I repeated. "Like this is just... a thing that's happening to me now."

"It is," he said simply. "I'm sorry I can't make this easier."

I looked at him-really looked at him in the morning light, without the chandeliers or the city glow distorting everything into something dramatic. He looked tired. Not physically tired, since I doubted vampires got tired the way humans did, but tired in some deeper way. Like he'd been carrying something heavy for a very long time and had just set part of it down.

"You don't look like you regret it," I said.

"I don't," he said immediately. "I regret that it's complicated for you. I regret that you didn't get a normal choice. But I don't regret you."

Something warm unfurled in my chest that had nothing to do with the bond.

"So what happens now?" I asked. "Do I just live here? Do I go back to my apartment? Do I-"

"You live here," he said, and there was no room for negotiation in his tone. "The bond requires proximity, especially in the early stages. If you're too far from me, it will cause you pain."

"That sounds like a cage."

"It's not meant to be," he said, and for the first time I heard something like vulnerability in his voice. "I know how it sounds. I know what I am, what this looks like from the outside. A vampire keeping a human in his penthouse, controlling every aspect of her existence."

"Isn't that what it is?"

He was quiet for a long moment.

"I want it to be a home," he said finally. "Not a cage. I want you to have your studio, your art, your independence. I want you to choose to be here every single day, not because you're trapped, but because you want to be."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I got out of bed instead, needing space to think. The penthouse looked different in daylight-less like a fortress and more like an actual living space, even if it was the size of a small city block.

"Show me my studio," I said.

His face lit up in a way that transformed him completely. Gone was the ancient predator from last night. In his place was something that looked almost boyish, eager in a way that felt strange on someone who'd existed for three and a half centuries.

The studio was on the seventh floor, accessible by a private elevator that apparently only went between his penthouse and this one space. When the doors opened, I forgot how to breathe.

It was enormous. Floor-to-ceiling windows facing north, the kind of light every painter dreamed about. Easels already set up, canvases stacked against the walls, every brand of paint I'd ever wanted but couldn't afford organized by color on built-in shelving that took up an entire wall.

"This is too much," I said.

"It's exactly enough," he countered, moving to stand near the windows. "You said your old apartment had bad light. This doesn't have bad light."

I walked through the space, running my fingers over canvases, over brushes that probably cost more than my old rent. There was a couch in the corner, soft and worn-looking despite obviously being new, like he'd had someone artificially age it to feel more comfortable. There was a small kitchen area with a coffee maker and snacks I actually liked, which meant he'd researched my preferences with the same thoroughness he probably used to run his empire.

"Why does this feel like you're trying to buy my forgiveness?" I asked.

"Maybe I am," he said. "Is it working?"

I almost laughed. Almost.

"I don't need you to buy anything," I said. "I need you to be honest with me. About what's happening to me. About the prophecy. About what you actually want from this."

He moved closer, and I let him. The bond hummed between us, content with the proximity, satisfied in a way I could actually feel.

"I want you," he said simply. "Not the prophecy. Not what you represent. You. Your darkness. Your art. The way you didn't run when you found out what I was. I've been alive for 347 years and I've never wanted anything the way I want you to stay."

"That's not an answer about the prophecy."

"The prophecy is real," he said. "And it's terrifying, and it's bigger than both of us, and I don't fully understand it yet. But I need you to know that even if the prophecy didn't exist, even if you were completely human and completely ordinary, I would still want you exactly this much."

I believed him. That was the terrifying part. Twenty-four hours ago he'd been a stranger who bought me at an auction, and now I believed every word coming out of his mouth like it was gospel.

"I want to paint you," I said suddenly.

He blinked, clearly not expecting that.

"What?"

"I want to paint you," I repeated. "Not human-you. The other version. The one I saw at the auction when your eyes changed. I want to capture what you actually are."

"No one's ever asked to do that," he said quietly.

"I'm asking."

He was silent for a long moment, considering. Then something shifted in his expression-surrender, maybe, or trust.

"Okay," he said.

I grabbed a canvas, set up an easel, and watched as he let his guard down completely. His eyes shifted to amber. His fangs descended slightly. The predator underneath the human suit revealed itself fully, standing in my studio with afternoon light streaming around him like he belonged in mythology instead of a penthouse.

I painted for three hours straight. I painted the contrast between danger and vulnerability. Between centuries of loneliness and the way he was looking at me now, like I was the only interesting thing he'd seen in decades.

When I finally stepped back to look at what I'd created, my hands were shaking.

It was the best work I'd ever done.

Rage moved to look at the canvas, and his expression changed completely. Something raw crossed his face-surprise, vulnerability, something that looked dangerously close to being overwhelmed.

"You see me," he said quietly. "Actually see me."

"Is that bad?"

"No," he said, and his voice had dropped lower, rougher. "It's terrifying. No one has ever painted me like I'm worth looking at."

I set down my brush. "You are worth looking at."

He crossed the space between us in two strides, and I barely had time to register the movement before his hands were on my waist, before his mouth was on mine, before the kiss turned into something desperate and overwhelming that had nothing to do with the bond and everything to do with two people who'd both spent too long believing they were unworthy of being seen.

"Stay," he said against my mouth. "Please. Stay with me."

I was already staying. We both knew it.

But before I could answer, my phone buzzed in my pocket-an unknown number, the same kind that had sent me those cryptic texts before the auction.

I pulled back to check it, and felt the blood drain from my face.

The vampire council requests your presence. Formal introduction required within seventy-two hours. Failure to comply will result in immediate consequences for both you and your patron.

Rage read it over my shoulder, and I felt his entire body go rigid against mine.

"They know," he said quietly. "They already know about the bond."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

His amber eyes met mine, and for the first time since I'd met him, I saw something that looked exactly like fear.

"It means we're out of time," he said.

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