Julian
Deals are simple—a trade, a price, a soul collected. I don’t question. I don’t regret. Mortals sign their blood away, and I take what’s owed.
Ophelia Arden was just another contract. Her father wanted power, and I delivered. I stole her empathy, her expression, the raw emotion in her art—and gave it to her sister. One gained everything. The other was left empty.
I wasn’t meant to care, wasn’t meant to feel anything at all. But then I saw her, and my soul snapped into place.
She belongs to me, though she doesn’t know it. If she ever finds out the truth, she’ll never choose me.
I have to make her mine before the clock runs out—before fate decides for both of us.
Because when time is up, I don’t just lose a soul.
I lose her.
Ophelia
I don’t remember what it’s like to cry. Not since my mother died. Not since my father replaced me with something shinier.
I still love. Still ache. Still feel—too much, too deeply—suffocating under the weight of it. But one day, it just… stopped.
My art went silent. The emotions burned inside me, but my hands wouldn’t move. My expression was gone.
Then he appeared.
Julian Duvain watches me too closely, like he sees something no one else does. Like he understands what I am, even when I don’t.
I don’t know what he wants.
But men like him don’t enter your life without leaving destruction in their wake. And if I let him in, I’ll never escape.
When demons make deals, there’s always a cost. Love was never part of it. But even the damned have something to lose.
Some bargains can’t be broken. Some debts can’t be undone.
And some souls were never meant to be free.
