Dinner had ended only minutes before.
The Grey had been the first to rise, dabbing his lips with a white napkin.
Naiara followed him in silence, her legs light and heavy at once.
The three blond women had simply nodded, no words were needed to make her obey.
The corridor stretching toward her room was long, muffled, soaked in golden twilight.
Low lights and thick carpets devoured every sound, as if the place itself were designed to erase reality.
When he opened the door to her room, she hesitated.
She didn't want to go inside.
She knew that once she crossed that threshold, something irreversible would happen.
He tilted his head slightly.
"After you, strawberry."
His voice was little more than a whisper, yet it was enough to make her move.
The room smelled of wine and wood. Blue curtains swayed slowly as if they were breathing.
He followed her in and closed the door.
That single click of the lock shot through her spine like an electric jolt.
"You barely ate," he said at last.
"I wasn't hungry."
"Not even for survival?"
She met his gaze, defiant. "I can survive without your dinners."
He smiled slowly, almost tenderly, though nothing about him was tender.
"That's what I like about you. You still bite instead of tremble."
"I don't want you to like me."
"And yet you do please me, strawberry."
He stepped closer. Not violently, but with a slow, deliberate grace, as if savoring every inch before erasing it.
The candlelight slid across his face, turning perfection into something almost sacred.
There was a predatory elegance in him, a beauty that hurt to look at.
"You know the difference between me and the others?"
"The fact that you're a monster."
"No," he murmured, brushing the air near her cheek but not touching. "The difference is that I don't lie."
His voice was calm, disturbingly calm.
"They deceived you. I didn't. I tell you exactly what I want from you."
"And what do you want?"
He leaned in until his lips grazed her hair, his scent filling her lungs: wood smoke, danger, power.
"I want you to look at me the way you did at dinner. With anger. With fear. With fire in your eyes. Nothing excites me more than a woman who still resists."
She tried to move, but her body betrayed her.
Her breath caught; her skin burned under his nearness. Every cell screamed to flee, yet something inside her refused.
He stopped just a breath away.
"You feel it too, don't you?"
She said nothing. Couldn't.
He smiled, tilting his head like someone who had just won a silent battle.
"I won't break you, Naiara. Not yet. You're far more entertaining alive, alert, defiant. That's why you're still here. The others… didn't last as long."
The chill that ran through her veins mixed with something she didn't understand: adrenaline, perhaps, or something darker.
"They'll come for me," she said, clinging to the words like a prayer. "They're already on their way."
He laughed quietly, a velvet knife of a laugh.
"And who might they be, strawberry? Enlighten me."
She lowered her eyes. Her heart knew the names, but her lips didn't dare.
She couldn't say Leo. And the other… she didn't even know who he truly was.
"Oh," the Grey whispered, amusement flickering in his gaze, "you don't even know the name of the man you think you love."
The words sliced through her.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I know everything."
His fingers lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. His eyes, steel grey, endless, held her there.
"You should choose more carefully whom to trust, strawberry. I may be a monster, but at least I'll always be honest with you."
He bent close, his breath brushing her ear.
"Want to know a secret?"
She froze.
"If you'd been docile, you'd already be dead. But you fight back. And I love things that fight before they break."
He let his hand trail just short of touching her face, the promise of a caress more intimate than any touch.
Her skin tingled with shame, fear, and a spark of something she didn't want to name.
"Tomorrow," he whispered, his voice a promise and a threat all at once, "we'll play again."
He smiled faintly, turned, and left the room.
Naiara stood motionless, her heart pounding wildly. She wanted to hate him, God, she should hate him, but beneath the terror there was something else.
Something she couldn't kill. And as the door clicked shut behind him, the air still carried his scent, sweet poison, impossible to forget.