⚠️ warning : contains dark romance, psychology manipulation advisedtion, mature content, 18+ readers
Prologue :
> I once believed people couldn't be owned. Then I met her.
Now I know the truth: Some people were made to be possessed.
And some people were made to burn you alive while they let you believe it was love.
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The rain hadn't stopped for three days.
Not the soft kind of rain that whispers on windows — no, this was the kind that gnawed at the bones of the town, turning light into haze and sky into something metallic and heavy.
And she stood in the middle of it, head bare, eyes half-lidded, like it didn't touch her at all.
From the library window, Adrian Vale watched.
She had arrived three weeks ago with a forged name and a transfer letter no one dared to question. No parents. No files. Just a pale face and a crimson ribbon around her wrist she never took off. A ribbon he now stared at like it held some kind of code.
She didn't laugh with the others. She didn't speak unless she had to. She sat at the back of the classroom like she didn't exist — until she did. When the teacher called on her, she answered perfectly. When she wrote, it was in clean, straight lines. But when she looked at you — and she had, once, briefly — it was like being dissected.
He had everything. Wealth. Control. A school of pawns who smiled when he told them to, who feared the sharpness of his words and the cruelty behind his charm.
And yet.
She didn't flinch when he spoke. She didn't turn when he passed. She didn't care. And that made her… unacceptable.
He had spent seventeen years building a world where nothing slipped through his fingers.
And then she walked in.
Her name was Rhea.
But even that might've been a lie.
That night, when the storm was at its loudest, Adrian stepped outside. He didn't care that his shoes soaked in seconds or that the wind lashed at his coat. He just needed to see her again — to prove to himself that she bled like everyone else.
She was there, just outside the art hall. Standing under the streetlight like she'd been waiting for him. Raindrops clung to her lashes. Her hands were bare now — no gloves. Pale fingers. Scratches on her wrist.
"You're going to catch cold," he said, voice careful.
She didn't answer. Just looked at him for the first time in days. Looked through him.
"You've been following me."
His lips parted. He wasn't used to being caught.
She stepped closer, slow, deliberate. "You don't want to know who I am."
He smiled — because control was slipping, and that terrified and thrilled him.
"I don't care who you are," he whispered.
"I want you."
A faint curve touched her lips. Not quite a smile.
"You'll regret that."
He didn't.
Not that night.
Not the next.
Not even when the first body turned up.
Not even when the lies began to peel.
But he would.
Oh, he would.
Because Rhea was not someone you fell in love with.
She was someone you survived — if she let you.
Prologue ends...
The first time I saw her, she walked straight past me.
That was unusual.
People don't do that. Not in this school. Not with me.
When I walk through the hallways of St. August's, people step aside. They make eye contact, smile like it's reflex, wait for my approval like they were trained to. They know who I am.
And if they don't? They learn quickly.
But she didn't look up.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't even breathe differently when our shoulders almost brushed near the courtyard entrance.
That… irritated me.
More than it should've.
I turned to watch her walk away. Black hair tied with a ribbon. White shirt too crisp, like she hadn't worn it long. A black skirt down to her knees. Leather bag over one shoulder. She blended in—except for the fact that she didn't blend in at all.
There was something deliberate about her distance.
Like she wanted to disappear and dared you to try and stop her.
And that was the moment I knew: She didn't belong here.
But I was going to make her mine anyway.
Her name appeared on the class roster the next morning.
Rhea Virelle.
Transfer from "abroad." No one said which country.
No social media. No photos. No digital footprint. The admin office claimed they had her documents, but every time I asked, there was a nervous smile and a different excuse.
She sat in the back row. My row.
I'd claimed that seat three years ago. No one else dared take it.
Until her.
"Is that seat taken?" I asked, smooth and low, hands in my pockets.
She didn't look up from her book.
"No."
She didn't move either.
I slid into the chair beside her. "I'm Adrian."
"I know," she said.
That was it. No smile. No effort. Not even a fake one.
Just a deadpan voice and an answer I didn't know how to respond to.
The next few days were… frustrating.
I tried subtle. Dropped pens. Made clever comments. Pushed my way into her line of vision.
Nothing.
She didn't avoid me. But she didn't react either. Like I was no different than the trees outside the window. Just another object in the background.
Everyone else noticed.
Whispers followed her in the hallway.
Why doesn't she talk to Adrian?
Is she stupid or suicidal?
He's going to break her. Watch.
And maybe I would have. But curiosity turned into fixation.
I started memorizing her schedule.
Third period: library, not the cafeteria.
Fifth period: she'd sit on the third step behind the art building and read some weird red notebook.
Always writing in it. Always alone.
I stole it.
Of course I did.
It was locked — not physically, but emotionally. The words were written in a language I didn't recognize. But the names inside? Some were students. Some weren't. One of them was mine.
She knew me before I ever spoke to her.
That night, I dreamed of her for the first time.
She was standing barefoot in my bedroom, her ribbon tied around her throat instead of her wrist, and she whispered my name like a curse.
I woke up sweating.
Two days later, she cornered me in the hallway.
No one else was around. The lights flickered — one of them always did near the music wing.
She reached into her bag and held something out to me.
The notebook.
"I believe this is yours now," she said.
I stared at it. "You knew I took it."
"I let you." Her voice was soft, deadly. "You're not the first one who thinks watching someone gives them control."
Then she walked away.
And just like that, the game began....