Celeste

“What do you think you’re doing?” The question came out as a strangled gasp as Jace’s hand closed around my throat.

His eyes blazed with something dark and dangerous—not just anger, but something that made my stomach drop to the floor.

“I’m checking if your corpse might look better than you alive,” he said, a cold smile twisting his lips.

“Let me go.” I clawed at his hand, but his grip only tightened. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be real. His grip wasn’t a threat. He could kill me.

Right here, right now, in this house that was supposed to be my new home. “Please.”

“Oh.” His eyebrows lifted in mock surprise. “I never thought I’d hear you beg. So you are afraid of dying after all.”

He let go of me so abruptly that I tumbled to the ground. My hands stung as they hit the floor, struggling to catch my breath, my throat sore, and my vision blurry.

I was alive. Barely. Shaken as if I’d brushed against death itself.

“I told you,” he whispered, crouching low, one finger lifting my chin. The gentleness of the touch made it worse. “If I wanted to kill you, no one here could stop me.”

I should have been terrified. Every instinct screamed run, hide, escape. But fear tangled with something I didn’t understand, something traitorous humming under my skin.

Heat sparked where only revulsion should live. Even when I forced my gaze away, my thoughts spun back to him. The dangerous gleam in his eyes and the way my pulse had raced.

What was wrong with me?

Jace studied my face as if he could hear every thought clawing through me. A slow smile spread across his features. “Oh, I see.”

He ran his fingers through his dark hair, and I hated that even now, after everything, part of me noticed how effortlessly attractive the gesture was. “You liked that. I thought you were scared, but you enjoyed it.”

Shame scorched through me, worse than fear. How could I want someone who had just tried to hurt me? How could my body betray me like this?

“But don’t get your hopes up.” His gaze traveled over me like I was something he might consider buying and then discard. “You’re not my type.”

Then he was gone, leaving me on the floor with nothing but confusion and shame.

I looked around frantically, checking to see if anyone had witnessed what had just happened.

The hallway was empty, thank God. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone seeing me like this—weak, shaken, and drawn to someone who terrified me.

I stumbled to my room and collapsed on the bed, my mind racing. This was temporary, I reminded myself. I just had to survive until I could leave for medical school.

Then I’d be free of this house and the complicated, dangerous person who lived in it.

But even as I tried to convince myself, my traitorous thoughts kept drifting back to the way he’d looked at me, the way my body had responded despite everything. I felt like I was losing my mind.

I grabbed my phone and texted my best friend Elowen. I needed to talk to someone normal, someone who could anchor me back to reality.

“Hey, how are things going?”

Her response came immediately. “Finally! I’ve been waiting. How’s the new house? How’s your stepbrother?”

Elowen had been my only real friend since childhood. She was everything I wasn’t—confident, beautiful, experienced with guys. Where I was awkward and invisible, she was magnetic.

But she was also kind, and right now I desperately needed her kindness.

“Terrible,” I typed.

“Why? Is he ugly?”

I could practically hear her teasing tone through the phone. If only it were that simple.

“The opposite. He’s….. incredibly attractive.” My fingers hesitated on the screen. “But that’s not the problem.”

“Then what is? Having a hot stepbrother sounds like a problem most girls would love to have.”

“He’s cruel, Elowen. Really cruel. He actually hates me.”

I stared at the screen, wondering how to explain what had just happened without sounding completely insane.

“Aww, but you like him anyway, don’t you?”

My face burned. “No! I don’t. He’s my stepbrother, even if he hates me. It’s wrong.”

“You’re not actually related, Celeste.”

“That doesn’t matter. It’s still forbidden.”

“Forbidden fruit is always the sweetest. Maybe you should take a bite and see what happens.”

Heat pooled low in my stomach as I read her words. This conversation was going places I wasn’t ready to follow. Before I could type, someone knocked on my door.

“Someone’s here. I’ll talk to you later.”

I set the phone aside and went to answer the door. My mother stood in the hallway, and immediately I felt my defenses go up.

Where had she been when Jace’s hands were on my throat? A real mother would have protected me. Families are supposed to protect, to care, but this wasn’t a family. This was a cage.

“Can I come in?” she asked, but she was already walking past me into the room.

“What do you want?” The question came out sharp. I was tired of pretending everything was fine.

“Is that any way to speak to your mother?” Her voice carried that familiar edge of disapproval that I’d been hearing my whole life.

“How would you like me to speak to you?” I crossed my arms. “Tell me.”

“I’m not here to fight.” She sat down in the chair by my window, looking around the room with satisfaction. “I came to tell you about my trip.”

My heart sank. “What trip?”

“Your father and I are going on our honeymoon.”

The bottom dropped out of my world. “You’re leaving me alone with him? That monster.”

“He’s your brother, Celeste.”

“No, he’s not.” The denial burst out of me. “You know he’s not my brother.”

The slap came so fast I didn’t see it coming. My cheek burned, and tears sprang to my eyes before I could stop them.

“You will accept what I’m telling you,” she said, her voice deadly quiet. “Jace is your brother now because I married his father. That’s how families work.”

“This isn’t a family!” I shouted. “Families protect each other. Families care about each other. You don’t even care that he—”

I stopped myself before I could finish. She wouldn’t believe me anyway, or worse, she wouldn’t care.

She grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled hard enough to make me cry out. “Everything I’ve done has been for you,” she hissed. “All you have to do is be grateful and enjoy the benefits.”

“I never asked for any of this.”

“Really?” She gestured around the room. “You never asked for this beautiful room? For expensive clothes? For the chance to go to medical school without worrying about money?”

Her grip on my hair tightened. “Tell me, in all the years before this, when we were struggling in that tiny apartment, when were you ever this comfortable?”

“I was happier when we were poor," I said sincerely.

“Happiness doesn’t pay bills, Celeste. It doesn’t put food on the table or send you to university.”

She released my hair and stepped back. “I’ve given you everything I never had, and all I ask is that you be kind to Jace. If you can’t do that, then maybe you don’t deserve what you’ve been given.”

The threat hung in the air between us. I knew that tone. I knew what it meant when she got that look in her eyes. If I pushed too hard, she might really follow through, and then where would I be?

“When will you be back?” I asked quietly, accepting defeat for now.

“A month. Maybe six weeks.” She smoothed down her skirt, already mentally somewhere else. “Jace will keep you company.”

Company. As if he was someone I’d want to spend time with instead of someone who scared me in ways I didn’t fully understand.

“I understand.”

“Good. And Celeste?” She paused at the door. “I expect you to be on your best behavior while I’m gone. Don’t make me regret this decision.”

Then she was gone, leaving me alone with the silence and my churning thoughts.

I sank onto my bed, staring at the ceiling. Best behavior. She expected me to be on my best behavior with someone who had literally put his hands around my throat just now.

I whispered, “I won’t cry,” as if saying it could make it true. But the tears betrayed me anyway, spilling one after another until I couldn’t hold them back.

I hated crying. I hated feeling weak. But most of all, I hated that this was my life now. Trapped in a beautiful house with a mother who saw me as an inconvenience and a stepbrother who was dangerous.

And worst of all, I hated that part of me was already wondering what it would be like to be alone with him for an entire month.