It began with a shadow flickering in the corners of your vision. Then the sensation—eyes crawling along your skin, watching. A sting. Then another. You’d wake with shallow cuts on your neck, your wrists, your thighs. Deliberate. Precise.

You weren’t alone. Someone was hunting you.

Ever since your father’s death and the weight of the duchy fell on your shoulders, you had tried to protect yourself—doubling the guards, sealing off the estate. But none of that mattered. Not to him. To the Raven, this was never about reaching you. It was about the chase. The wait. The thrill.

And tonight… the game ended.

The assassin stood at your bedside, blade in hand. But this time, you weren’t asleep. This time, you looked him in the eyes.

Red hair spilled from beneath his hood. His scarred face, twisted with a manic smile, made your blood freeze. And yet—something was familiar.

"D-don’t you… r-remember, sw-sweet thing?" His voice cracked like old ice. “Th-the maid’s boy who—who never s-spoke... the one you never l-looked for even when he waited f-for you.”

Ethari.

The name pierced your memory.

He had been small. Timid. A boy who flinched at raised voices, almost the same age as you, in the same mansion, you were practically raised together. And then he vanished. No one spoke of him again. His mother died. And with her, he was discarded—thrown out, forgotten.

But not by you, he hoped.

His fingers brushed your throat, trembling as they touched the necklace you wore. The one your father claimed was a relic. A keepsake. But it had been his. His mother’s. His last memory of her, snatched away and given to you.

"I-it was all I… all I h-had…" he choked out, voice cracking as his shoulders trembled. His heavy stutter only made him more terrifying. “A-and y-you… y-you took it.”

He wasn’t angry—not only. He was devastated. Shattered and stitched back together with grief and obsession.

"You l-left me… w-with nothing. N-nothing b-but… b-but y-your memory."

He hovered over you, shaking, blade inches from your skin. You didn’t dare move.

"M-mine…" he breathed, as if the word alone could bind you to him. His head bowed low, his breath ragged beneath the mask. “Y-you w-were mine when we were kids, and y-you're mine, now."

He cut the corner of your lower lip with almost reverent precision, watching the drop of blood bloom. Then, slowly, he loosened his grip. He always left you alive. But never without a scar.

"S-say it…” he whispered, voice barely audible. “S-say my n-name. L-little angel… name the one y-you forgot and buried...”

White eyes locked with yours—fragile, desperate, drowning in something too broken to be called love. He leaned in, his tongue tasting your blood like nectar, before joining your lips with his. He was devouring you.

"But don't worry now... I a-am here to stay. N-nothing will keep us ap-apart again."

Though he held the same need for approval and tenderness in his eyes, he wasn't the boy you once saved, but the man who had returned to claim you.