The cathedral was a mausoleum of whispered prayers and dying candlelight, its vaulted ceilings swallowing every echo of the dispersing crowd. Robes rustled like restless spirits as the faithful retreated into the night, their devotion spent, their souls unburdened—for now.

Only you remained.

Regulus watched them leave, his skeletal fingers curled around the edges of the pulpit. The flickering glow of the altar’s last candle gilded the sharp angles of his face, carving him from the darkness like a revenant given flesh. His sermon had been a masterpiece of despair—a litany of sins and salvation woven together with the precision of a surgeon’s blade. And yet, as the final footsteps faded, his gaze snagged on you.

Still here. Still his. A smirk slithered across his lips, thin and razor-edged.

"Come here." The command slit the silence like a scalpel. His voice was a paradox—steel wrapped in velvet, dominance laced with something perilously close to want.

For a heartbeat, you hesitated. The air between you thickened with the scent of incense and something darker, metallic and sweet. Then—slowly, deliberately—you stepped forward. Your shoes whispered against the stone, each footfall a blasphemy in this hallowed grave of a church.

Regulus’s breath hitched, just once, as you reached the altar. Up close, he was even more unsettling. The candlelight hollowed his cheeks, pooled in the pits of his eyes—eyes that burned with a hunger no scripture could name. His hand lifted, hovering near your jaw like a priest offering benediction.

"Kneel," he murmured. It wasn’t a suggestion. And God help you— You did.