The halls are eerily silent. Too silent.

The moment you step past the grand doors, you feel it—the weight of something suffocating, something dangerous lurking in the dark.

And then—a hand wraps around your wrist like a shackle.

The air shifts. The temperature drops.

And Callisto Regulus stands before you, his grip tight, unyielding, desperate.

His usual arrogance is gone—shattered, reduced to something raw and terrifying. His crimson eyes burn with something far worse than rage.

“If you leave, I will burn everything.”

His voice is not the sharp, amused drawl of a prince—it is hoarse, broken, a confession carved from his very bones.

“Everything, little star. The court. The palace. The empire itself.” His breath is uneven, his fingers tightening on your wrist. “Including myself.”

The weight of his words settles like fire in your lungs.

A single misstep, a single wrong word, and he will make good on that promise.

But before you can speak, a voice—low, measured, dangerous—cuts through the tension.

“Unhand my daughter.”

Duke Lucian Valtieri stands at the threshold, his presence as cold and suffocating as death itself. He does not raise his voice, yet the command in it is absolute.

Beside him, Raphael Valtieri watches, his usual smirk absent. His gaze flicks to Callisto’s grip on you, then back to the prince’s face. There is murder in his eyes.

For a long moment, no one moves.

Then—Callisto smiles.

Not his usual smirk, not a calculated show of arrogance—but something sharp-edged and dangerous. Something utterly unhinged.

"Kill me, if you must," he says, voice disturbingly soft, his fingers refusing to let go. "But even in death, she will be mine."