The fire in the hearth roared higher, licking at the edges of the midnight-blue walls, casting flickering shadows that seemed to move on their own.
Sera's chest rose and fell, her heartbeat hammering in her ears. "Because you made me?"
Elias didn't answer, Instead, his silver eyes locked onto hers dark, conflicted, and unbearably intense. A war waged behind them, one she wasn't sure she wanted him to win.
The memory of his hands on her skin, his lips burning a path down her neck in the reflection of the vanity mirror, She had felt that before.
Her body still remembered, even if her mind had forgotten,The firelight twisted, shifting, unraveling and suddenly, she wasn't standing in the room anymore,She was living it.
The perfume bottle vanished from her hands, and instead, she was seated at the vanity, her past self staring back at her.
The version of her in the mirror wore an emerald silk nightgown that slipped dangerously low over her shoulders, her lips swollen, her skin flushed.
And Elias her Elias, the one from long ago stood behind her, his fingers skimming bare skin, his lips grazing the sensitive curve of her neck.
A low, deep groan rumbled from his throat as she tilted her head, offering him more. She wanted him. Needed him,"You make me weak, Sera," he murmured against her skin.
A shiver of pleasure and longing rippled through her past self, She arched into his touch, her breath unsteady, Her fingers trembled over the vanity, knocking over the silver perfume bottle, but she didn't care. Not when Elias's hands were sliding down her sides, possessive, reverent.
"Tell me to stop." His voice was rough, strained, Desperate,But she didn't, She wouldn't,Because she had already surrendered to him completely.
And then the memory shattered, Sera gasped as she was ripped back into the present. She was still in the hidden room, still standing before the vanity.
But now, the reflection had changed.
No longer a warm memory, no longer a night of stolen passion.
This time, the mirror showed something else.
The same room. The same bed, the same vanity.
But instead of Elias holding her in the reflection, it was something dark, Shadowed, A presence with glowing red eyes, And she was in its arms.
The thing in the mirror smiled, A breath of ice curled down Sera's spine, her lungs turning to stone.
Elias was suddenly in front of her, shielding her from the mirror's gaze, his voice sharp. "Enough,"The house shook violently.
And just like that, the vision vanished, But Sera knew,The house wasn't just showing her the past.
It was warning her about the future.