Chapter 207: You are not made for this world.
Anne’s throat tightened. Her hands clutched Augustine’s sleeve. "I won’t pretend," she said, her voice quiet but unwavering. "Yes, I’m scared. This place is brutal, bloody. Every bone in my body tells me to run."
Lucien chuckled, cold and knowing. "Then listen to it. Weak hearts don’t last here. You are not made for this world. And you are certainly not made for him. Walk away while you still can."
"Lucien," Augustine grunted. "That’s enough. You are scaring her."
"I’m giving her the truth," Lucien replied without flinching. "This life eats people alive. You know it. If she can’t accept the beast, then she has no business with you. Better she walks now than breaks later. I’m doing you a favor."
Lucien’s presence was like a coiled storm—dangerous, unpredictable, the kind that made her skin prickle with instinctual dread. Yet even with fear curling around her spine, Anne couldn’t stay silent.
Her fingers trembled, but her voice, when it broke the charged silence, held a defiant clarity.
"Who are you to tell me to leave him?" she snapped, her eyes locking with Lucien’s head on.
The air stilled. Lucien paused mid-sip, the glass frozen inches from his lips. His silver-pierced brow lifted slowly, a flicker of surprise flashing in his razor-sharp gaze.
Anne swallowed but pressed on, her grip on Augustine’s arm tightening with every word.
"I may not know every secret of this place, or the weight Augustine has carried through the years. But I know this—he is a man who has built a world from nothing. And even in the darkness around him, he found a way to love me."
Lucien smirked as he leaned back into the sofa, watching her now with a deeper interest as if she were something unexpected, an ember that refused to be stamped out.