The corridor's marble floor leached cold through Luna's slippers as she marched toward the guest wing. Thorn Manor's shadows stretched like grasping fingers, the grandfather clock's pendulum slicing time into jagged fragments. Behind the oak door, muffled laughter slithered out—Hua Rong's saccharine trill punctuated by Caleb's low rumble.
Luna's fist struck wood. Boom. Boom. Boom.
"Open this door!"
Silence. Then the click of heels. Hua Rong emerged swathed in steam and a towel, damp hair clinging to collarbones still flushed from the shower. "Lost your way, maid?"
Luna's gaze swept the empty room. "Where is he?"
"Gone to fetch champagne." Hua Rong's smile dripped venom. "Care to join? You can serve us."
The towel slipped. Luna reacted without thought—fingers tangling in Hua Rong's hair, silk terrycloth pooling at their feet. The director's shriek summoned servants like moths to flame, their gasps painting the scene: Hua Rong exposed, Luna's knuckles whitening around raven locks.
"Enough."
Caleb's voice froze the tableau. Mr. Grayson scurried to cloak Hua Rong, but Caleb's attention remained fixed on Luna—chest heaving, veil askew, eyes blazing through the lace.
"She attacked me!" Hua Rong's tearful accusation rang hollow against stone.
Caleb stepped closer, midnight wool brushing Luna's trembling arm. "Explain."
"She requested condoms." Luna's voice cut glass-sharp. "I require specifications."
Hua Rong's gasp curdled into silence.
The study swallowed them whole—Caleb's domain of leather-bound ledgers and unsmiling ancestors. Luna's back met the mahogany desk, his palms caging her hips.
"You think I'd touch her?" His breath warmed her veil. "After tasting fire?"
Luna's gloves found his collar, twisting. "You brought her here. Let her breathe on you."
"To watch you burn." His thumb breached the veil, tracing her jaw. "Jealousy becomes you, Mrs. Thorn."
She recoiled. "This isn't—"
"Isn't what?" He captured her wrist, pressing it to his chest. "Not love? Not obsession?" His heartbeat thundered against her palm. "Then name this sickness."
The veil fell.
Moonlight through stained glass baptized her face—flushed cheeks, bitten lips, eyes like fractured emeralds. Caleb's restraint snapped.
The kiss was conquest and surrender. His fingers speared her hair, dislodging pins that clattered like fallen armor. Luna's nails scored his neck, drawing blood she licked from her thumb.
"Monster," she breathed.
"Yours." He nipped her earlobe. "Always."
Dawn found them entwined on Persian carpets, Hua Rong's condom boxes crumpled beneath discarded waistcoats. Luna traced the scar above his heart—a relic from their first clash.
"Why the games?" Her whisper stirred his chest hair.
Caleb's laugh vibrated against her temple. "You'd have fled a straightforward courtship."
"And now?"
His lips brushed her forehead, lighter than moth wings. "Now we war properly."
Beyond leaded windows, frost etched filigree across the gardens. Somewhere, a nightingale sang—its melody weaving through Thorn Manor's cracks, stitching wounds old and new.
Moonlight pooled on the study floor, liquid silver outlining the tremble in Luna's hands. Caleb's confession hung between them, a bridge built on shattered pretenses. Her veil fluttered with each ragged breath, betraying the pulse at her throat.
"You… mean this?" The words escaped like caged birds freed after years.
Caleb's smile held no mockery now—only the quiet certainty of a man who'd mapped his own ruin. "Shall I carve it into the manor's foundation? Paint it with starlight? Or—" His thumb grazed the lace shielding her lips, "—prove it here, where your doubt festers?"
Luna's laugh fractured. "Men don't carry virginity certificates."
"For you?" He stepped closer, his shadow swallowing hers. "I'd let surgeons document every untouched inch."
Heat flooded her cheeks. She kicked his shin, the gesture half-hearted, already disarmed. Caleb caught her ankle, tugging until her back met the bookshelf. First editions rained around them—Neruda, Rumi, Sappho—their pages fanning open to verses of conquest.
"Be mine," he murmured against her jaw, "not because I ask, but because you choose to burn with me."
Her resolve crumbled. The armor she'd welded from betrayal and frost dissolved, leaving raw, trembling truth. "If you stray—"
"You'll flay me alive." His teeth found her earlobe, gentle. "I've seen your claws, little phoenix. I welcome them."
Hua Rong's perfume choked the corridor—cloying gardenias masking decay. She lunged as Caleb exited, talons extended. "That peasant attacked your guest! You'll discard me for her?"
He sidestepped, her momentum carrying her into a Ming vase. Porcelain shards bit her palms. "You mistook a crown jewel for glass." His dismissal slithered cold. "Leave before dawn. The board already knows your embezzlement trail."
Her wail curdled into silence as servants materialized, their gloved hands ushering her into night's embrace.
The master bedroom's air hummed with unspent electricity. Caleb reclined against linen pillows, navy silk clinging to the hard planes of his chest. Luna hovered at the threshold, towel-damp hair dripping onto the qipao borrowed from Eleanor's youth.
"Afraid I'll bite?" His smirk softened as she inched closer. "Or that you might enjoy it?"
She slid beneath the duvet, spine rigid. Caleb's arm encircled her waist, pulling until her head rested on his scarred pectoral—a map of battles she'd yet to hear.
Xavier's call shattered the truce. Caleb's finger hovered over the screen, knuckle whitening.
"Mine to handle," Luna whispered, claiming the phone. Her thumb silenced it, the gesture final. "Not your war."
"Isn't it?" His palm spanned her ribcage, possessive. "You wear my name."
"And wield it as both sword and shield." She turned, nose brushing his. "Respect my edge, Caleb Thorn, or bleed upon it."
The veil slipped.
He stilled, breath catching. Moonlight sculpted her face—not the delicate beauty he'd imagined, but something fiercer. A warrior-poet's symmetry, cheekbones sharp enough to draw blood, eyes holding galaxies yet uncharted.
"Christ," he breathed, reverence and hunger entwined. "You've been hiding this?"
Her smile cut deeper than any blade. "You've only earned glimpses."
The kiss that followed was no gentle claiming, but a pact written in teeth and whispered oaths. When dawn crept through damask drapes, they lay entwined—not conqueror and conquered, but twin flames scripting their own annihilation.