CHAPTER 5: CHAPTER 5: BURNING STILL.

The room smelled like secrets and scorched perfume. Velvet curtains clung to the windows like bruised lovers; the chandelier above trembled slightly, as if even it knew something unholy was about to happen.

And then he stepped in.

Aiden.

Not dead. Not a ghost. Not quite a man anymore either.

Ash-gray hair, longer than she remembered. It framed his face like smoke around a fire that refused to die. She should’ve gasped. Should’ve screamed. Should’ve run.

Instead, Flora whispered, "John said you were dead."

Soft. Sweet. Laced with something molten.

Aiden smiled the way knives do. "Still breathing. Still standing." He walked toward her like a slow-spilling sin.

Behind him, the maid—small thing, nervous thing—backed away like the air was too hot to breathe. She knew what this man brought. Knew where this was heading. There was always skin. Always sweat. Always sin.

Flora sat up straighter, spine ironed by disbelief. Her eyes flicked up to his face, to the hair—white as regret and just as heavy.

"...it suits you," she said. The words were treason, but her voice was poetry.

Aiden’s hand brushed the ends of his hair. Chin-length. Just the way she liked. He hated it.

Didn’t matter.

He sat beside her. No invitation. No manners. Like the couch was his own battlefield and he already owned the blood on it.

She blinked. Once.

"You grew.... bold," she muttered, trying to hide the tremor in her voice. "You know, if anyone saw this—your disrespect—you’d be hanged. Tortured. Branded a traitor."

He didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch.

"Only if they find out," he said, voice a thread of fire. "Until then..."

He looked at the gap between them. It wasn’t much. Still too much.

"Until then...?" she asked, eyes narrowing. She was intrigued. She hated being intrigued. It made her feel like prey.

"We can..."

"...what?" She leaned closer, confused. Foolish. Curious. Vulnerable.

His hand was already behind her neck. Not rough. Not gentle. Just inevitable.

He pulled.

She fell into his chest with a gasp. Everything in her rebelled—and wanted.

"I said," he whispered against her ear, "we can have times neither of us will. ever. forget."

Flora’s heart punched her ribs. She could smell him. Heat. Sweat. A bit pungent. But there was something more, something that stuck with her, she could not name it but felt it, making her feel..... different.

She sat up too fast, pretending elegance. Pretending control. "You...you ne..." she stammered.

He tilted his head. "...Didn’t hear you."

He moved again. Closer. No gap now. Touching. Her silk brushing his leather. Her breath trying not to hitch.

He inhaled. Her perfume. Jasmine twisted with power and blood money. Made for women born above consequences. Born above poverty, Born above everyone else.

But her scent stung, The hunger hit again—sharp, real. Not for food.

For her...maybe. but he stayed still, not even showing an ounce of his hunger.

"You... you’ve changed," she whispered. No thunder now. Just velvet unraveling.

"....Because of you," he said. Like a confession whispered at the gallows. "And I think... you like me better this way."

His fingers hooked beneath her chin, pulled her gaze up. She didn’t fight it.

She should’ve. But didn’t.

Her eyes locked with his.

Gold. Glinting. Not with charm. Not even with love.

With need...and a bit ... vulnerability?

And it broke her.

She leaned in. So did he. Their lips almost—

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

The sound shattered the spell.

They jerked apart like they’d been caught sinning under God’s watchful eye.

"My Lady! Lady Flora!" The voice was desperate. Gail.

Flora groaned, pinched the bridge of her nose. "It’s not even noon and he’s already fucking singing....."

"How’d he get through?" she asked the maid, who looked two seconds from quitting.

"His lord gave him .....clearance," the maid mumbled.

"ohh....Daaaad." Flora’s voice cracked with the fury of a spoiled goddess denied her chaos.

Aiden clenched his jaw. One. Fucking. Inch. That’s all he’d needed.

He’d kill the bastard. Not out of jealousy. Out of principle. But he stayed bound for now.

"Lady Flora..." came the knock again, wet with devotion.

Aiden turned to her. His voice dropped, low and lethal. ".....You want him gone?"

Flora narrowed her eyes. "desperately....why?...You have a plan?"

Aiden’s grin was all wolf.

"ohh.....I have a plan."

He leaned in. Whispered... Each word a sin wrapped in silk and gasoline.

Flora’s eyes slowly widened. Her face flushed. She covered her mouth like she might laugh—or scream.

"...that’s cruel," she whispered. ".....but....but I love it."

He didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.

She pulled out a handkerchief. Pale, elegant, embroidered with roses. She wrote a few lines. Signed it with her lips—red as betrayal.

"Lisa," she said sweetly, "give this to Sir Gail."

The small maid, Lisa—nervous, doe-eyed, and trembling like a candle in a windstorm—stepped forward. Her slippers barely made a sound on the marble, but each step felt like it echoed through a cathedral of sins.

She bowed low, the way she’d been taught: as if touching royalty might turn her to ash. Her fingers reached for the handkerchief with reverence, lifting it like it was a holy relic and not a trap wrapped in lace and lipstick.

Then she turned.

Each step to the door dragged like fate behind her heels.

A pause. A breath. Then the creak of the door opening.

She passed the handkerchief to Knight Gail with all the solemnity of a queen signing a death sentence.

He took it.

Held it like a man clutching salvation.

"Ohhh!!" he gasped, voice cracking with too much hope. "Finally... Oh, the Lord has heard my prayers... yesss!!"

He kissed the cloth. Loud. Sloppy. Reverent.

Then he turned—chest puffed, eyes sparkling, limbs moving like he’d just been knighted by God Himself—and walked away, grinning like a fool blessed by the divine.

Inside, silence. Thick. Humid with held laughter and unspoken cruelty.

Flora leaned back first. Then Aiden. Both wore smiles—wide, slow, and venomous.

Not sweet. Not loving.

Predatory.

Even Lisa, still standing beside the closed door, looked at them with quiet terror.

She had no idea what was coming.

But whatever it was...

...it wouldn’t be kind.

Aiden looked at Flora. She looked at him.

They smiled.

Not sweet smiles. Not kind ones.

The kind of smiles you wear when you’ve buried someone in the garden.

"You’re insane," she whispered.

"You’re worse," he replied.

They leaned in again.

No knock came to save them this time. No voice from behind the door. No interruptions. Just the air between them—charged, hot, and trembling with everything unsaid.

Aiden moved first.

Slow. Certain. Like a man claiming something long denied. His eyes half-lidded, lips parted. His breath ghosted against hers, and for a second—just one intoxicating second—he could taste her in the air. Warm. Floral. Laced with danger.

He leaned in, heart thrumming like war drums in his chest.

And then—nothing.

No lips. No warmth.

Just the soft press of a single finger against his mouth.

He opened his eyes.

Flora was staring at him, smirking like a cat who’d caught the canary and decided to keep it alive just for fun. Her fingertip rested against his lips—light as a whisper, firm as a command.

"Not in the mood right now..." she murmured, voice dipped in honey and wrapped in thorns.

She said it slowly. Elegantly. Like she was tasting every syllable, savoring the way it crushed him.

Aiden paused. Blinked once.

Then leaned back, lips curling into a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Outside, he was calm. Polished. Regal, even.

But inside—inside—his blood was fire.

His heart beat like it was trying to claw its way out.

Every inch of him burned.

Not from rejection.

From restraint.

He wanted her. Not just the kiss. All of her. The war in her veins, the thunder in her tongue, the ruin in her smile.

But he waited.

Because predators know—sometimes, the hunt is better than the kill.

Flora sat like a queen, eyes still on him, lips still curved. She knew what she’d done.

And Aiden?

Aiden smiled right back.

Burning. Still.