Chapter 141

Chapter 141: Chapter 141

Lysander’s pov

I blinked, wiping a mixture of rain and cold sweat from my forehead, my heart hammering against my ribs. "What?"

"Did I say he was physically standing on your terrace?" Darius picked up his crystal tumbler from the desk, swirling the dark amber liquid.

The ice clinked softly against the glass, a sharp, precise sound in the quiet room. "I said he forged a blood pact. A dark anchor. But a soul without a living vessel is just a phantom, little bird. An echo."

My breath hitched. "An echo...?"

"A manifestation of your own guilt," Darius murmured, taking a slow sip. His red-rimmed eyes locked onto mine over the rim of the glass, cool and analytical.

"You carried the trauma of his death and brought it into Drake’s pristine little house. And now, your mind is taking that residual magic and weaving it into visual hallucinations."

The floor felt like it was tilting under my boots again. My brain reeled, spinning out of control as the ground shifted beneath me for the hundredth time in twenty-four hours.

"No," I choked out, shaking my head violently. "No, you said!"

"I know what I said, so what?"

"Then why am I seeing him?!" I screamed, my voice cracking, raw and pathetic. I grabbed my hair with both hands, my fingernails digging into my scalp as tears finally spilled over my lashes.

"Why did I see him in the store window?! Why was he standing on the stone outside my bedroom?!"

Darius walked over to me, his steps unhurried, his posture relaxed. He stopped right in front of me, towering over my trembling frame.

"Because you are broken," he whispered softly, his voice dropping into an intimate, poison-laced purr. " You are projecting him, Lysander. You stare into the dark, and your shattered brain builds the one thing you fear most."

"You’re lying..." I sobbed, stepping backward, away from him. My heels sank into the heavy pile of the rug. "You’re lying to me!"

"Am I?" Darius tilted his head, his expression painted with a sickening mix of pity and dark amusement. "Ask yourself, boy. What did the security cameras show at the art shop? What did the infrared sensors pick up on Drake’s terrace?"

My chest heaved in short, shallow gasps. Panic, hot and suffocating, slammed into my throat.

He knew. He knew about the cameras. He knew the feeds were empty.

Wait! How did he know all of that?

"Nothing," Darius answered for me, his voice smooth as silk. "Because there was nothing there to see. Drake knows it. The guards know it. They look at you and see a fragile, unhinged little boy who can’t distinguish reality from a nightmare. Drake doesn’t see a mate, Lysander. He sees a patient. A project."

"Stop it," I choked out, backing up another step, my shoulder slamming into the edge of a heavy oak display case. "Stop talking!"

"He’s going to lock you away," Darius continued, his red eyes burning with a cruel, triumphant light as he pressed the advantage. "Once he realizes you’re too unstable to sit at his side, he’ll lock you in a gilded room at the back of the estate. He’ll keep you quiet, keep you medicated, and pity you for the rest of your life."

"No!"

"What’s different from what you had before at home? You are nothing more than a parasite to him."

I turned around, pure survival instinct taking over my limbs. I couldn’t breathe in this room. The air was too thick, the smell of tobacco and blood magic choking me, his words sinking into my chest like iron spikes.

I needed to get out. I needed to run back through the storm, get back to the estate, back to Drake—

I took two frantic strides toward the heavy mahogany doors.

Before my hand could touch the brass handle, a dark blur cut through the air.

Darius was suddenly there.

He moved with the blinding, terrifying speed of a pureblood lord, closing the ten-foot distance in a fraction of a second. His massive frame blocked the exit completely, his broad shoulders cutting off the warm light from the hallway beyond.

I slammed to a halt, nearly crashing straight into his chest.

The soft, faux-sympathetic mask he had been wearing vanished. His face hardened into something cold, dominant, and utterly ruthless.

My instincts screamed at me, my knees buckling under the sheer force of his pureblood pressure.

"Where do you think you’re going, sweet boy?" Darius rasped out, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous growl that rattled the glass panes of the bookcases.

"Let me go," I choked out, my fingers trembling as I reached blindly for the pocket where my knife had been—forgetting I had already dropped it on the floor. "I’m leaving."

"You’re not going anywhere," Darius said calmly. He didn’t raise his hand, he didn’t grab me, but his body blocked the door like a solid wall of steel.

"You walked out of Drake’s fortress on your own feet, Lysander. You came to my domain. Do you really think I’m going to let you run back to him now?"

"Drake will kill you," I rasped, my throat tight, terror cold and sharp in my gut. "When he finds out I’m here—"

"Drake doesn’t know where you are," Darius interrupted, stepping an inch closer, forcing me to tilt my head back just to look him in the eye. "He thinks you’re upstairs sleeping off another one of your psychotic episodes. By the time he realizes you’re gone, you will be miles away from his territory."

"I won’t help you," I choked through my teeth, tears burning my eyes as I tried to hold my ground against his crushing aura. "I won’t let you use me against him!"

"You already have," Darius purred, a slow, lethal smile spreading across his face. "You broke his wards. You abandoned his sanctuary. You came straight to his greatest enemy because your mind is so unraveled you can’t tell what’s real anymore."

He leaned down, his cold breath brushing against my ear.

"Do you think he won’t believe you came to me on your own?" He chuckled till he was laughing manically.

"You’re broken, Lysander. And now, you belong to me."