Chapter 5
764words
"I don't know!" Emma finally broke. "But it's not this! Not now! I can't… I can't keep pretending everything's normal!"
Liam stared at her like she was a stranger. The passion in his eyes died, replaced by cold disappointment.
"I get it." He stepped back, voice heavy with exhaustion. "I planned everything for you… and you don't even know what you want, but you sure as hell don't want me."
Without another word, he shook his head and walked away into the darkness.
Emma stood alone, shaking. Liam's silhouette vanished around the corner, taking with it the last shred of "normalcy" in her life. She slumped against the cold brick wall, feeling utterly empty.
She lost track of time until the biting wind cut through her thin jacket.
She moved robotically toward the entrance. The lobby's motion sensor light was dead, and a "Maintenance" sign hung on the elevator.
Third floor.
Stairs it was.
The stairwell echoed with deathly silence, broken only by her footsteps bouncing off bare concrete. Each step felt heavier than the last. The air hung thick with dust and… something else—a strange, cold scent like ozone.
Emma's heart raced without reason.
She reached the third floor. The hallway loomed darker than usual. Even the light by her apartment door had died.
Pitch black.
She hated darkness. She groped along the wall toward her door, other hand desperately fishing for keys in her bag.
"Emma Vance."
A voice.
A man's voice—calm, deep, with an otherworldly resonance. Not from any apartment, but from the shadows behind her, at the stairwell's end.
Emma froze, every hair standing on end.
She turned slowly.
A figure stood there—half-concealed in shadow, half-outlined by faint moonlight filtering through the corridor's end window.
Tall, wearing an impeccably tailored dark coat. He hadn't "walked" there—he simply existed, as if the shadows themselves had taken form.
"Who are you?" Emma's voice shook as she backed against her door. "How do you know my name?"
The man stepped forward from the darkness.
He was handsome—with an almost inhuman, classical beauty. Skin pale as marble, black hair immaculately styled. But his eyes—in the near-darkness, they glowed with an eerie, cold amber light.
He ignored her questions. His gaze "examined" her like an object—from her hair, across her pale cheeks, finally settling on her throat.
Emma felt primal fear wash over her. This wasn't human anger like Liam's. This was… a predator's assessment.
"Back off," she fought to steady her voice, one hand clutching the doorknob, "or I'm calling the cops."
"Cops?" The man seemed amused by the word, tilting his head slightly. His movements were fluid and elegant, utterly inhuman. "On what grounds? An uninvited visitor?"
"You're trespassing."
"Technically, I'm in a public hallway." He moved closer.
Emma caught his scent—not cologne, but something… cold and clean, like the air before a blizzard.
"Who the hell are you? What do you want?" Her fingers finally closed around her keys.
"What do I want?" He stopped three feet away—close enough to touch, far enough to trap. "An explanation."
"For what?"
"You've been selling something that isn't yours to sell, Emma."
Emma's heart nearly stopped.
Her mind went blank. Sanguine Solutions… had they tracked her down? Had she violated their agreement?
"I… I don't know what you're talking about." She fumbled with the key, hands trembling violently.
His voice dropped to a whisper—patient yet commanding, like velvet over steel. "Don't play dumb…" Each word precise, deliberate. "It's beneath you."
Before his words faded, he moved—a blur of motion. Emma couldn't even gasp before he was there, his body heat surrounding her, trapping her in his shadow. He didn't touch her, just planted one hand on the doorframe beside her ear, creating an inescapable cage.
He leaned down, warm breath ghosting over her ear.
Emma froze, acutely aware of his cool body temperature—so alien against her warmth—and his breath carrying that strange, intoxicating scent. The contrast of cold and heat sent shivers racing across her skin.
"Your blood…" he murmured, his voice bypassing her ears to resonate directly in her veins, making her knees buckle.
"It doesn't belong to Sanguine Solutions," he continued, golden eyes burning in the darkness, locking onto hers like a predator with cornered prey, "nor does it belong to you."
He paused deliberately, savoring her involuntary trembling, then in a slow, magnetic tone that declared absolute ownership, he branded his final words into her soul:
"It belongs to me."
