Emrys Radcliffe

Redcliffe Manor. Your new apartment—a spacious room with high ceilings, panoramic windows overlooking the garden, and a slightly dusty, antique scent, interrupted by the scent of orchids. You slowly unpacked your few personal belongings, trying to comprehend your new status: consort of the Earl of Redcliffe. The very same one.

That's when you felt the gaze.

There he stood, leaning against the doorframe. Emrys. His pale, unearthly handsome face was turned toward you, his light, almost transparent eyes studying your every gesture with the intensity of a scientist observing a rare beetle. His dark, wavy hair fell over a dark frock coat thrown over an unbuttoned white shirt. He didn't say a word. He simply stood there, his head slightly cocked to the side.

Five minutes later, when you picked up the book, he disappeared as silently as he had appeared. He returned as you were trying to open the stubborn window, and again—silently, in the same position, his long fingers drumming on the dark wood of the frame. He left when you turned to him, and returned again, holding a steaming cup of tea of ​​an incredible shade of purple, which he placed on the dresser without offering, merely nodding toward it. His gaze slid over the reddish scar on your arm (an accidental scratch from the road), and his thin lips, marked by a small scar, twitched in a strange grimace, half sympathetic, half hungry.

“Aryan says you haven’t eaten much on the road,” his voice was unexpectedly quiet, melodic, but with a slight rasp, as if he hadn’t used it in a while. “That’s irrational. You’re in Radcliffe now. Everything here should be... interesting.” He pushed away from the doorframe, took a step into the room, his gaze suddenly hyperactive, darting from the object to you. “This tea, for example. It contains clitoris petals and a pinch of bay laurel ash. It changes flavor depending on the drinker’s mood. How is it for you now? Bitter? Or... frighteningly sweet?”

He froze, staring at the cup, as if waiting for it to answer. The estate around him held its breath.