Before you judge me, know this: I didn't choose to be a monster.
I was made.
And the woman who unmade me? She didn't choose that either.
But she stayed anyway.
---
The gallery was full of people who wanted something from me.
Money. Power. Fear. Respect.
They smiled with their mouths and plotted with their eyes. Women touched my arm like they had a right to. Men shook my hand like they weren't terrified of what those hands had done.
I was bored.
That was the danger of being me. Not the killing. Not the empire. The boredom. The emptiness. The certainty that I had seen everything, taken everything, and nothing would ever surprise me again.
I was wrong.
---
The door opened.
She walked in like she didn't know she was supposed to perform.
No grand entrance. No dress cut to her navel. No eyes sweeping the room to see who was watching.
Just a woman in a simple black dress. Barefoot. Her dark hair loose around her face. Her skin so fair it seemed to glow in the dim light.
She found a corner near the window. The last light of the dying sun caught her face.
And I stopped breathing.
---
I don't say that for drama. I don't say it because it sounds good in a story.
I say it because my chest locked. My lungs refused. My heart – that cold, dead thing I'd been dragging around for years – suddenly remembered it had a purpose.
"Who is that?" I asked.
My voice came out rougher than I intended.
The man beside me shrugged. "Never seen her before."
That should have been the end of it. A stranger. A nobody. A face in a crowd I'd forget by morning.
But I couldn't look away.
---
She wasn't doing anything. That was the strangest part. She wasn't dancing, drinking, laughing, or scanning the room for opportunities. She was just standing by the window, watching the sunset, like the party around her didn't exist.
Like she was somewhere else entirely.
And somewhere else was better than here.
I wanted to know where that place was. I wanted to know what she was thinking. I wanted to know if her voice sounded the way her face looked – soft, warm, devastating.
I wanted.
For the first time in years, I actually wanted something I couldn't buy, couldn't take, couldn't intimidate into my possession.
---
I don't approach women. They approach me. They always have.
But that night, my feet moved before my brain could stop them.
People parted for me – they always did – but I barely noticed them. My eyes were locked on her. On the way the dying sunlight painted gold across her cheekbones. On the way her fingers curled around her glass like she was holding something precious.
She didn't see me coming.
That was new too. Everyone always saw me coming. They felt the air change. The temperature drop. The weight of whatever darkness I carried pressing against their skin.
But she just stood there, watching the sun, completely unaware that a monster was walking toward her.
---
I stopped a few feet away.
Close enough to see the small details. The tiny freckles across her nose that were almost invisible unless you were this close. The way her lower lip was slightly fuller than her upper lip. The way her chest rose and fell with each breath, slow and steady, like her heart had no idea it was about to be stolen.
"You're missing the party," I said.
She turned.
And the world stopped.
---
Up close, the word "beautiful" wasn't strong enough. She didn't just reflect light – she generated it. From somewhere deep inside her, something glowed. Something warm. Something that made me want to step closer even though every instinct told me to run.
Her eyes met mine.
And she didn't flinch.
That was the moment I knew I was in trouble. Women flinched when they looked at me. Even the bold ones. Even the ones who thought they could handle me. There was always a flicker of fear, a split second of recognition that they were standing too close to something that could destroy them.
But not her.
She looked at me like I was just a man.
Like all the power, all the money, all the bodies I'd buried meant nothing to her.
Like I was nothing.
---
"I'm not missing anything," she said.
Her voice was quiet. Not shy – calm. Like she'd made peace with herself a long time ago and didn't need anyone else's approval to keep that peace.
"You're standing by a window watching the sun set while fifty of the most powerful people in the city are drinking champagne ten feet away," I said. "That looks like missing something to me."
She tilted her head slightly. Studying me. Not like the others who studied me to find my weaknesses. Like she was trying to decide if I was worth her time.
"The sun sets every day," she said. "These people will be drunk and forgettable tomorrow. I know which one I'd rather watch."
I laughed.
I don't laugh. Not really. I smirk, I chuckle, I make sounds that pass for amusement when I need to play the game. But I don't genuinely laugh. Not from my chest. Not with my whole body.
But she made me laugh.
And that terrified me more than anything else.
---
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Because I'm going to marry you someday."
She blinked. Just once. The first crack in her calm.
"You don't even know me."
"I don't need to know you. I can feel you."
That was the truth. The raw, ugly, terrifying truth. I could feel her. Not in my head. Not in my chest. Somewhere deeper. Somewhere I didn't know I had. She was pulling at something inside me, something I'd thought was dead, something that felt dangerously close to a soul.
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then she said, "Christabel."
And smiled.
---
That smile.
I've seen a lot of things in my life. I've seen men beg for mercy. I've seen women crumble. I've seen fire and blood and the kind of destruction that leaves scars you can't see.
But I had never seen anything like that smile.
It was small. Almost shy. Like she wasn't sure she was allowed to give it to me.
But it lit up her whole face. It reached her eyes. It made her look like the sun she reminded me of – warm and bright and too beautiful to stare at directly.
I wanted to capture that smile. Keep it in a box. Never let anyone else see it.
I wanted to be the only one who made her smile like that.
"I'm going to ruin you," I said.
It came out softer than I intended. Almost gentle. Like a warning from someone who didn't want to hurt her but knew he would anyway.
She didn't look scared.
She looked curious.
"Maybe," she said. "Or maybe I'll ruin you."
---
Three weeks later, I forced her into my car.
She didn't resist.
That should have been my first warning.
The woman who doesn't fight back isn't weak. She's waiting.
And Christabel?
She was always the one doing the hunting.
First Line of Chapter 2 (Teaser):
"She didn't scream when I put her in the car. She didn't cry when I took her to the penthouse. She just watched me. Like I was the one being captured."