Chapter 140

Chapter 140: Chapter 140

Lysander’s pov

The door slammed shut the second I stepped inside.

At the far end of the room, behind a massive carved desk, sat Darius.

He didn’t stand up. He didn’t even look surprised. He was holding a crystal tumbler of amber liquor, a slight, wicked smirk resting on his lips as his eyes tracked me from the doorway.

"Look at you," Darius purred, his low voice echoing off the high ceiling like velvet sliding over iron. "Soaking wet, covered in mud, and smelling like a stray wolf."

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. It was like I had suddenly gone mute.

My heart was hammering against my ribs so hard my vision blurred around the edges. My wet clothes were heavy, freezing, and clinging to my skin, dripping rain onto his plush Persian rug with a quiet, rhythmic drip, drip, drip.

I kept my hand deep in my jacket pocket, my cold fingers locked around the hilt of the small silver blade.

Darius set his glass down on the desk quietly. He leaned forward, crossing his hands, studying me like a scientist looking at a fascinating specimen under a microscope.

"I have to admit, Lysander, I was skeptical when my operative called," Darius murmured, his smile widening into something predatory.

"I thought Drake would have locked you in a gilded cage by now. Yet here you are. Sneaking past his perimeter guards, running five miles through a mountain storm... just to talk to me."

"My, my..." he smirked, "I must be something special."

"I’m not here to talk," I rasped out. My voice sounded ruined, thin, and pathetic against the quiet luxury of his room. "I want the truth, Darius. That’s the only reason I walked into this house despite what you did to me."

"The truth," Darius repeated softly, tilting his head. "A dangerous commodity, little bird. Especially for someone as fragile as you."

He stood up from his chair in one smooth, fluid motion, stepping around the massive desk.

I held my ground, though my knees were trembling so violently I had to lock my joints to stay upright.

"You said on the phone that Gideon wasn’t dead," I said, my voice rising, the raw, frantic panic I’d been burying for days finally breaking through the surface. "You said he found a way back. Tell me what he did! Tell me if he’s alive!"

Darius stopped five feet away from me. He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, his dark eyes scanned my face—taking in the dark, bruised shadows under my eyes, the pale, clammy skin, the way I couldn’t stop shivering.

I could practically see the gears turning in his head. He was reading me. He was watching the cracks in my sanity, measuring my desperation, calculating exactly how much leverage I’d just handed him on a silver platter.

A soft, dark laugh bubbled up from Darius’s chest.

"You really believe you’re losing your mind, don’t you?" Darius whispered, stepping a inch closer. "Drake looks at you like you’re broken. He checks your pulse, he locks you in his big, pretty house, and he tells you that you’re just having bad dreams."

My throat locked up. A hot prickle of tears burned behind my eyes, but I forced them back, clenching my jaw so hard my teeth ached.

"Drake is trying to protect me," I choked out, though the words sounded hollow even to my own ears.

"Protect you?" Darius chuckled, a dark, mocking sound. "He’s blinding you, Lysander. He can’t fathom a threat he can’t crush with his bare hands or seal behind his precious blood wards. So when you tell him you see a ghost... he assumes your little brain is fracturing under the stress."

Darius took another step, his shadow falling over me. He reached out, his long, pale fingers hovering just inches from my wet jaw. I flinched back, snapping my blade out of my pocket and raising it between us, the silver edge gleaming in the firelight.

He just stared at the small knife, his smirk growing deeper.

"Put the toothpick away, boy," Darius purred softly. "I’m the only person in this territory who isn’t lying to you."

"Then tell me!" I screamed, my composure completely shattering. Tears finally spilled over my lashes, hot against my freezing cheeks. "Is Gideon alive?! Did he come back?!"

Darius lowered his hand, his eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that felt like a physical weight crushing my chest.

"Gideon, my precious boy was monster," Darius said, his voice dropping into a low, conspiratorial purr. "He was obsessed with you. When Drake took you, Gideon went crazy and he died for his impulsiveness. There is only one thing he wants, power and knowing my son, I know he wants ancient, forbidden blood magic, the kind that binds a soul to the physical realm long after the heart stops beating."

My breath hitched violently in my chest. My hands shook so hard the silver blade rattled in my grip. "What... what did he do?"

"He forged a blood pact," Darius said smoothly, his eyes wide and sincere, his voice dripping with false sympathy. "A dark, forbidden anchor. He bound his spirit to your essence, Lysander. As long as you breathe, as long as your heart beats, his soul cannot rest in the void. He was pulled back from the abyss by his own sickness for you."

The room seemed to tilt beneath my boots.

A blood pact.

He bound his soul to my essence.

Every piece of terror, every phantom shadow I had seen over the last week suddenly locked into place with a sickening, horrifying clarity. It wasn’t in my head.

I wasn’t crazy. The cameras didn’t see him because he wasn’t fully physical yet, he was a resurrected nightmare, a leashed phantom anchored straight to my own life force.

"He’s real..." I whispered, the knife slipping from my numb fingers and clattering noisily onto the rug. I covered my face with my hands, a broken, ragged sob tearing from my throat. "He’s really out there..."

Darius stepped closer, placing a heavy, warm hand on my trembling shoulder. He didn’t pull away when I flinched; he held me firm, resting his palm against the back of my neck.

"He’s hunting you, Lysander," Darius purred, his voice dipping into a conspiratorial whisper that made my stomach turn inside out. "And Drake’s blood wards won’t stop him, because Gideon carries a piece of your soul."

I looked up at him through blurred vision, completely blind to the dark smirk spreading across his face. "Darius... please... how do I stop him?"

Darius stared down at me for a long moment, his red-rimmed eyes narrowing as he watched the absolute terror breaking through every seam of my posture. The false warmth in his expression vanished, replaced by a cool, calculating amusement.

"Stop him?" Darius let out a quiet, dry sigh. "Did I say he was physically standing on your terrace, Lysander?"