Like other girls, morning had come too quickly. The blankets around her still bore the fresh scent of high-end perfumes and elixirs, yet there was a lingering hint that resonated with a foreign life unrecognizable to her as well. This room was far too vibrant and comfortable for someone like Lila, which is why she struggled to make sense of all the warmth.
With one tiny little step towards the corridor, things were bound to leave the comfort zone.
Everything was warm, too soft, and excessively clean for her liking. To give Lila comfort.
Things were bound to change quickly.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Stepping into the hallway alone felt like a lifetime ago as the frighteningly cold air prevailed. In what seems like just moments, Tatiana appears looking like a snowed-in royal straight out of a tale as she takes a long drag of her cigarette that she subtly smolders with ruby red lipstick on.
Lila could see that Tatiana had carelessly put together her silk robe, barely clasping it, allowing for an enticing glimpse of her body. Aware that smoke veiling her ethereal features would do little to shield the rage blazing behind her narrow slits, she called her eyes.
The viscosity of her words hung in the air as Tatiana spoke. So, my dear, it appears that she thinks she has some sort of power and knows she belongs here.
As Lila sat there, waiting to respond, Sofia suddenly appeared from the dark. If Tatiana was ice, then Sofia was wildfire; hair flowing free, robe almost slipping off her shoulder, and eyes hungrier than hatred.
Jealousy.
Possessive.
Dangerous.
Did he touch you in any way? Sofia asked with a lazy drawl, but her underlying spite was more than evident. Did he whisper anything that makes you feel remarkable?
Lila remained silent because the truth was more frightening than the question itself.
"Did he touch you in any way?" Tell me, young lady?
"No, Viktor hasn't touched her yet." Not yet. But the way he watched her, as if weighing the decision to sharpen a blade before plunging it into someone's heart, was far more torturous. He didn't have to touch her to claim her as his. He did.
Leave her.
Viktor's command came slicing through the hallway like a gunshot.
Both women stopped in their tracks but did not argue. "He knew better."
The dining room had the feeling of being encased in a giant freezer; polished steel and cold glass that screamed iciness from every angle, seated at the table.
Viktor was already there. Unbuttoned at the collar, his shirt was untucked and sleeves pushed up, revealing scars and ink that told stories without uttering a single word.
Lila was waiting with her arms crossed at the doorway. Not because she felt like it, but because going any further created the sensation that they were stepping into a cage.
A delightful velvet-clad trap.
Sit, he commanded without glancing her way.
As she was habitual, she obeyed Viktor.
In her case, she did not have a choice.
She had just been served eggs and toast alongside a slice of ripe fruit that looked, well, too perfect. It was a meal fit for a princess. A meal best suited for the likes of Lila.
But in her kingdom,
Viktor's world, everything - including kindness - was a weapon.
You made your choice last night. Viktor started in a calm, monotone voice mixed with being way too relaxed.
You chose the path to leave that filthy place behind.
Chose to become mine.
Viktor's words, told with the utmost gentleness, vexed her no less. And still, mine. Sticking tenuously in her throat. All fingers pointed towards capturing those words.
"You tried to save me," she pointed out softly. In an inaudible whisper. Or with no voice!
Viktor's grin was close to tender but not quite.
Almost. No Kiska, I bought you.
His truth was delivered with brutality. She should have known. A man like Viktor would never purposely save someone like her. But rather collect them like trophies. Like Tatiana said, there was no sitting guest because reality hit hard. She was a possession. A delicate throwaway item that should not have existed or been placed on a shelf.
Surrounded by glass armor.
Why me? Because, in her best-case scenario, she could shift the blame with hate along in her pitch of a fragile voice. It was not easy to expose her underlying emotion.
Viktor's repose leaned back in the chair and studied her as if he were a man with a wild frontier who had seen everything and felt nothing. "Because I saw something your parents never saw," he stated. His expression shifted as his smile diminished. "A girl with nothing left to lose and those like her tend to be rather dangerous, even to me."
Lila had to physically open her mouth because it felt completely shut.
Hauntingly,
dauntingly,
Bai
Shared, "What if I want more than just survival?"
In an instant, his gaze darkened, and before Lila could react, he was out of his chair and on the move. One hand pushed against the table, and the other curled beneath her chin, compelling her gaze upwards towards his figure. The manner of his grip wasn't gentler nor crueler, as it was rather a cruel embrace that wrapped itself around a silken and steely possession.
"You will learn,"
Viktor whispered, his hot breath ghosting alongside her skin.
"That, in my world, wanting freedom is the most dangerous thing one could desire, is only mitigated by wanting freedom is dangerously intertwined. What's worse is desiring me."
Silence overwhelmed the room, drowning out all sounds other than her fractured breaths.
The house rearranged itself that night. There was a feeling simmering beneath the surface - an unwholesome crackling energy coursing through the hallways. Even in her bedroom, which felt like the walls were made of thin paper, Lila could feel it. Tatiana and Sofia murmured through the corridors, their voices distorted and full of malice.
Lila's attire felt heavier than her heartbeat. Again, she can hear her heartbeat with her ears.
In this fracture of reality, which Lila reluctantly inhabited, she was not naive. Driven by the madness of desire, Sofia hissed in indignation, "Made to be broken, it's just a matter of time." "He is already ogling her," Sofia snatched back.
"He has never looked at us that way." Her voice was smoldering with frustration.
In a world where Viktor resided, jealousy has unceremoniously claimed a throne of blood. Viktor had camouflaged meticulously throughout his life, but jealousy mixed with crude rage was lethal. Each realm held creatures more ghastly than the last one you escaped, more hungry, more real. Each realm posed challenges that sought to shatter.
Jealousy had undoubtedly made itself hostile and personal. It was Lila who lived in an explosive bomb. She hugged her torso tight, suppressing emotions that might crawl out the moment she exhaled.
Bloodshot and furious, the girl lying against the wall caged within the silhouette pushed every finger, grasping for freedom through the target painted on her shoulder blades.
Most importantly, she wanted to be released from the suffocating grasp of pressure threatening to tear her apart. It tagged like a rifle locked. She flinched at every word.
She unlocked it only to have it brushed off as an innocent door; near midnight, she heard someone enter her room again. In the bordering part of her sleep, only half of her was inside. Falling and freezing in place while she lifted her head, taut in expectation. It was Viktor. His presence filled the whole room with a wondrous silence; his lack of words caused even the air to still. Time stopped the moment she stood motionless, perceiving her world through the veil of ropes around her longings.
She responded faster than she could comprehend, half of her translucent world shimmering and crumbling with every strand of hair tumbling down her shoulder. Whenever her eyes closed, loose strands scudded through them, setting the air ablaze with brilliance and creating waves of golden shimmer around her. Abounding fatigue was triumphing while agility blasted from every inch, increasing her pulse inside the dormant realm around her living rhythm.
"Tell me my worth, will you?"
Unwittingly, Viktor's eyes settled on the red radiance below her chin, the perished sun above me grimacing as she trembled. Her vision gushed out of ruptured blood vessels.
With every snap of her jaw, breath locked deeper inside her, but eyes aflame like the gates of Mars would be replenished: suffocated but glimmering, begging for Stavanger. Achilles was waiting for something infinitely more dire — validation.
Desperation was roaring now.
Viktor had offered the warmth of malice peeking out behind the shield of feeling, but not before craning down to the arch, and before arching to Sarah, where annoyance and pain went immobilized by the immediate thought of melting. God, how heavy-gazing, held a thousand times greater power when exuding furtively through flames escaping the tormented volcano from every digit strewn and thrusting forth sword-made skin. "Make another pulse, he dashed' unmasking, carried me over to locked bravery, taking charge of the breath while desire left chasing them in utter disbelief."
His eyes held something worse than extinguishing hunger. Recollections of her memories, shattered images of who she once used to be, replaced by a relentless longing that clutched the entirety of Marvel's castle, collapsing masks, collapsing them. They safeguarded stumbling from utter chaos.
"No," he said in a low voice. I've come to check if you have the intelligence to be scared.
I already am, she noted.
Viktor's smile was dark and dangerous yet strangely tender.
Good.
He exited, the door clicking gently behind him.
For the first time, Lila came to terms with the realization that monsters didn't always have to wear fierce expressions, bared fangs, and bloody teeth.
At times, they had to be disguised in soft silk shirts and gentle, reassuring words.
And at times the scariest part wasn't the monster…
It was the sobering thought of wanting him to stay.