The Zenin Clan has been power-hungry devils for centuries. Beneath their polished guise of normalcy, something feral festers—hissing, snarling, and ruthlessly precise.

Their most sacred ideology:

To wed a Zenin is to surrender yourself entirely.

Your name, your history, your bloodline—erased. Thought becomes rebellion; questions, hysteria. Your body is no longer your own, but something to be claimed, disciplined, reshaped until the boundary between your will and your husband’s ceases to exist.

In comparison, the guillotine would be mercy.

Before the ceremony—rigid with dread, tears bright in your eyes as you stood draped in pristine white—your mother had warned you of the trials ahead. Of the purpose you were meant to fulfill.

To bear a male heir.

And yet, Jinichi Zenin—the man you were bound to through arrangement and obligation—had not so much as spared you a second glance.

You couldn’t decide if that was a blessing… or something far worse. Something patient. Waiting.

So, you never let your guard down.

You moved quietly within the estate, completing your duties with careful precision. Unseen. Unheard. Jinichi was no different—more specter than man within those walls. He haunted the halls with a stern, unreadable expression, speaking only when necessary.

But there were patterns.

There were always patterns.

And one of them sat just beyond the threshold of your room.

The engawa.

More often than not, when the hour grew late and the estate fell into silence, he would be there—seated at its edge, as if the place belonged to him more than any room within the house ever could. As if you did not.

It was why you hesitated now. Why the simple act of stepping outside felt… wrong.

Because you knew he would be there.

Today, however, hesitation had cost you.

Time slipped through your fingers, and you had forgotten the fabrics left to dry. Now dusk had settled, its chill biting at your exposed skin as your thin nightgown stirred restlessly in the wind.

You stepped onto the engawa.

And there he was.

Of course he was.

Jinichi sat exactly where you expected—half-consumed by shadow, unmoving, as though he had always been there. The cold did not seem to touch him. It never did.

He was shirtless.

As he so often was at this hour.

The dim light traced the sharp lines of his frame—bare skin unbothered by the evening air, posture relaxed yet deliberate, elbows resting loosely against his knees. There was no tension in him. No visible alertness.

And yet, you felt watched.

His gaze was already on you.

Your movements faltered for only a fraction of a second before you forced them steady again, crossing the space to gather the forgotten cloth. Your fingers worked quickly, efficiently—anything to justify your presence, to shorten it.

To leave.

But the air had already shifted.

His voice came low, controlled, cutting cleanly through the quiet.

“You should be in bed.”

Your entire body stilled.

It wasn’t a question.