Chapter 2 Chapter 1

Heavy rain shrouded the sky, casting a deep, suffocating gloom over the ancient forest. Sierravalle ran as fast as she could toward the mansion, but her steps faltered and she stopped dead in her tracks, she could feel someone following her. Slowly, she turned around, and her heart hammered wildly against her ribs when she saw a man standing motionless in the mist.

He was half-naked, wearing only dark trousers that clung to his legs from the rain. In his hand rested a sharp, heavy axe, and the upper half of his face was hidden behind a weathered skull mask.

Oddly, Sierravalle felt no fear. No sense of danger pricked at her skin, no alarm blared in her mind. Even so, she knew she had to get away. She turned to run again, but her thigh brushed against a jagged splinter of fallen wood. She glanced down—her white camisole tore open, and fresh, bright blood welled instantly from the deep gash.

The sight of that flowing blood hit her like a blow, dragging her back twenty years to the night she had watched her mother die. A sharp, splitting pain shot through her head, and her strength drained away like water through her fingers.

“Hmmn…” He groaned—a low, guttural sound that echoed through the trees, like a beast held back only by thin chains.

Sierravalle’s vision swam. She caught only a glimpse of the masked man leaning over her, his broad frame blocking out the rain then darkness swallowed her whole.

“Senyorita!”

“Senyorita Valle!”

“Good heavens! Is the Senyorita still alive!?”

Sierravalle woke to the sound of anxious voices swirling around her. She pressed a trembling hand to her pounding head as she sat up in bed, staring around in confusion. She had no memory of how she had gotten back to her room. The last clear image in her mind was collapsing alone in the forest.

Blood. The wound. And the man in the skull mask.

She looked down at her thigh; the gash was already clean and neatly wrapped in soft white bandages.

“Senyorita, would you like a glass of water?” one of her guardians asked gently, hovering by the bedside.

“Why am I here?” she asked, her voice still thick with disorientation. “I was in the forest. I was running through the trees, and there was a man following me.”

“We found you lying unconscious behind the west wing, Senyorita,” another guardian answered solemnly. “You had a deep wound on your thigh. Please do not wander off into the woods again, Senyorita Valle, it is far too dangerous.”

That very forest lay directly behind the mansion walls—the only path she had ever dared to imagine as her way out, should she ever find the courage to truly escape.

Sierravalle pressed both hands to her throbbing temples. A maid stepped quietly into the room and whispered something brief to one of the guardians.

“Senyorita, Doctor La Monte is waiting outside for your scheduled consultation.”

Sierravalle had lived with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ever since that terrible night twenty years ago. The horrors she had witnessed had trapped her within these estate walls, confined by her father’s strict orders that she was never to leave the grounds.

Emanuel Valdemorte, her fifty-nine-year-old father, was a wealthy businessman who spent nearly all his time abroad. To him, status, reputation, and profit were all that mattered; his daughter was little more than a fragile asset to be guarded and kept out of sight. Yet despite his coldness and distance, Sierravalle loved him deeply, still clinging to the quiet hope that one day he might finally see her as his daughter, not just a responsibility.

“Everyone step outside,” she ordered softly. “Send Doctor La Monte in at once.”

The maids and guardians bowed respectfully and withdrew from the room. Moments later, the psychiatrist entered and pulled the chair close beside her bed. Sierravalle sat up straight, smoothing her nightdress as she faced him.

Doctor Rude La Monte was around her own age, sharp-featured and gentle-eyed. He had taken over her case six months prior, after her long-time psychiatrist retired unexpectedly.

“Good afternoon, Miss Valdemorte. I apologize for being slightly late to our session,” he said in a calm, soothing tone. “Now, let us begin. How have you been since we last spoke?”

“The same as always, Doctor,” she replied quietly, her gaze dropping to her hands. “I still see Mama. I still hear her screaming every time I close my eyes.”

“That is because you have not yet allowed yourself to move forward,” he said softly. “As I always tell you: I can guide you, but true healing lies entirely in your own hands. The first step is to let go of the past that haunts you.”

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “How can I let go? My mother’s death was never given justice and the only witness to the crime has no memory of it at all!”

“I am sorry if I upset you, Miss Valdemorte,” he said, bowing his head briefly before meeting her gaze again. “Would you please lie back for me? Let us try to gently unlock those lost memories together.”

Sierravalle blinked away her tears and settled back against the pillows, pulling the quilt up to her waist and closing her eyes.

“Inhale deeply… exhale slowly… focus your mind, Miss Valdemorte. Go back twenty years, to the very last thing you remember seeing.”

She breathed in slow and deep. She breathed out all her tension.

Her eyes shut tight. Her breathing grew steady and deep. Her mind drifted back—but not to that terrible night. Instead, something entirely different unfolded before her, vivid and alive in her thoughts.

She stood again in the dark, rain-soaked forest, facing the man in the skull mask. He was bare-chested as before, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, his stance holding her fast as if she were caught in a spell.

Without thinking, she stepped closer, her fingers tracing the hard, defined lines of his abdomen, the sharp V-line dipping down toward his hips, the wide, solid plane of his chest. She followed the thick veins winding along his forearm, and a strange, forbidden heat flooded her veins, awakening a deep, aching hunger she had never known existed.

“Miss Valdemorte?! Wake up! Miss Valdemorte, please wake up!”