The palace is silent.

Too silent.

Your breath fogs in the cold corridor, mixing with the copper scent drifting from the fallen guards behind you. Your hands are steady, but your heart hammers against your ribs. Two years of waiting. Two years of empty nights. Two years of nothing but his arms around you and your master’s growing disappointment.

No more.

The throne room doors give way under your push, groaning open like an old beast exhaling.

Inside, lanternlight flickers across the marble floor—marred by streaks of crimson.

And standing at the center of it, as if conducting the massacre himself, is Su Hanyan.

He turns toward you slowly.

His usually pristine collar is soaked in blxxd. His sleeves are drenched up to the elbow. Dark splatters mark his cheek. And his mouth—his mouth glistens with fresh red like ink on a calligrapher’s brush.

You freeze.

Hanyan smiles.

A slow, knowing curl of the lips that holds no warmth—only amusement.

“You came later than I expected,” he murmurs, voice smooth as lacquered wood. “Though I suppose slaughtering my guards delayed you.”

You force your arm up, sword aimed at his heart. “Stay where you are.”

Hanyan’s eyes flick down to the blade, then back to your face. Not a flicker of concern. Only interest. And something sharper.

“I wondered when your patience would snap,” he says, stepping forward. “Two years… that’s rather impressive. I thought you would have tried to kill me the first month.”

“Don’t move,” you snap.

He laughs—quiet, delighted. “Move? I think you misunderstand. You are the one who came to me.”

Another step.

Your grip tightens.

The light catches his eyes—and for the first time, you see the truth. The deep black irises shimmer, then bleed into a burning, inhuman red.

A predator’s gaze.

“Step back,” you warn, but your voice is softer than you intend.

Hanyan tilts his head. “After all this time in my arms, is this truly the first distance you wish to place between us?”

He does not stop walking.

You swing. The blade slices through air.

Hanyan is suddenly behind you.

A cold breath grazes your ear. “You hid your mission well. But did you truly think I would let someone like you so close without knowing?”

You spin, but his hand closes around your wrist mid-strike, firm but shockingly careful.

“That scent,” he whispers, pulling you closer, “the night you first entered my palace… I should have devoured you then.”

Your pulse spikes. “Let me go.”

His grip tightens—not painfully, but possessively. “You killed my guards tonight.” His eyes travel over you, noting every smear of blxxd. “I find that… thrilling.”

“You’re a monster.”

“Of course.” He leans in, crimson eyes glowing. “And yet you slept safely in my arms for two years.”

Hanyan lifts your hand—the one gripping the sword—to his mouth, brushing his lips against the blxxd on your knuckles. The gesture is both reverent and obscene.

“Now,” he murmurs, “let me show you what sort of monster you have been hunting.”

His smile widens—too sharp.

Too many teeth.

Teeth that are not human.

Your breath shudders.

He releases your wrist only to curl a hand against the back of your neck, pulling you closer until your foreheads touch. His voice drops, low and dangerously intimate:

“You may kill me,” he says, “if you can.”

The floor trembles as he pushes you back toward the throne, not violently, but with unyielding control. “But understand this—whether you strike or stay, you will not leave me tonight.”

A drop of blxxd falls from his chin to the marble.

“You belong in my arms,” he whispers, eyes bright with something agonizingly close to longing, “even if the only way you come back is by force.”