Page 3 of Velka Manor

“What’s up, baby sis? Are you not happy to see your big brothers?” Bas asks, his head cocked to the side. “Because we’ve missed you. You’ve all grown up.”

His eyes rake my entire body from head to toe, drinking me in. My head spins, and I take a step back, wrapping my arms around my waist, forcing myself to stay in the same spot and not fling myself at them.

“Of course I have,” I say with a nervous giggle. “I’m just tired; it was a long trip home. I didn’t get much sleep, so I don’t really feel like myself.”

Dorian raises his eyebrow at my lie, giving me the look he always used to give when he could tell I was lying. Thankfully, Bastian does what he always used to do as well: he shoves Dorian’s shoulder, bounding over to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders, letting me live in my lie.

“Of course you are, pretty girl. Let’s get you all tucked up in bed before the demons come out to play.”

He laughs hysterically at his joke, and I roll my eyes, elbowing him in the gut, letting him lead me to my room.

“It’s still not funny. This place is haunted, I swear. For two years, I had the same nightmare on the thirteenth of the month,everymonth. If that’s not proof that ghost demons exist, I don’t know what is.”

The night after my eighteenth birthday is when the nightmares started. I would dream I woke up in my bed to find the worldaround me melting. Each time, I would run to find my brothers, and the demons would slowly turn up in the hallway, chasing me through the castle, laughing wickedly as I screamed. Just as they would almost catch me, my brothers would turn up and slaughter them at my feet. They would bathe me in the blood of the creatures, whispering dark promises for the future.

I would wake up in the morning to my body aching and pulsing with need, drenched in sweat. I didn’t tell my brothers about the things it did to my body, watching their nightmare selves kill the things chasing me, or that I would touch myself to the thought of it when I woke. They just thought it was a horrid dream I couldn’t shake, and they would tease me mercifully about it.

“Poor angel, always terrified of the demons in her sleep.” Bastian smirks.

“While she should have been terrified of the monsters down the hall,” Dorian whispers from behind, sending shivers across my skin.

I thought I would be stronger than this. I was determined to not let them affect me, but it’s been minutes since I’ve been home, and it’s worse than ever. Father can’t see me with them; he will know in a second.

“Where is he?” I ask, not needing to voice who I’m talking about. We all know whoheis.

Bastian’s grip tightens on my shoulder, pulling me closer into his heat as we move up the stairs. Dorian’s fingers run through my hair, lightly kneading my neck. “He’s…away on business. He won’t be back for the foreseeable future.”

My head whips around to gaze at them both as they keep moving me forward. The only time he was away with no return date is when something went very wrong in the bloodline.

“Have the elders called him in? Is something changing?”

That could explain why I’ve been brought back. If something big is happening, a change of structure, I would be brought back into the fold to keep up the perfect image.

“Something like that, I suppose you could say,” Dorian answers, keeping a straight face, but he cannot hide the gleaming hunger in his eyes. He’s happy with what’s happening.

“Nothing for you to worry about, pretty girl,” Bastian says, bringing my attention to him, bopping me on the nose. “You’re home with us now, and we’ll be keeping you very,veryclose.”

He grins widely, showing all teeth, making him look feral with the crazed look in his eyes. We turn off the stairs on the second level in the east wing, and they direct me down the hall. I frown in confusion, wondering where we’re going.

“Change of rooms, little sister,” Dorian says before I ask. “There have been a lot of changes while you were away. You’ll now be in the east wing, your bedroom right next to our new one.” He stops me at a door and opens it wide, revealing all my things in the bigger room.

“A few rules before we tuck you in.”

Dorian twists me out of Bastian’s arms, and I bristle. Whenever Dorian gives me rules, I always want to break them.

Bastian settles himself at my back, the two of them sandwiching me in again. Dorian grabs my chin, lifting my head, running his thumb along my bottom lip and making me hiss.

“Now, now, angel.” He smirks. “I know you’re never a fan when I implement new rules, but you will follow these with no mischief. This will be your room now. If you go anywhere, it will be with either myself or Bastian, and that includes roaming around the manor. The west dungeons and the south wing are off limits; you will go nowhere near them, and you will not like the consequences if you do.”

He grips my chin tight, pulling our faces closer together, a stern, unforgiving expression on his face. “We know you liketo sneak around and find whatever dirt you can, or snoop and watch us work, but that will not be tolerated now that you are back, do you understand?”

My bottom lip quivers, the harshness in his tone making my eyes water. I feel pathetic at twenty-three years old, welling up because my big brother talked to me sternly. But he’s never spoken to me like this. Even when he gave rules in the past, he was always soft with me.Fatherwas the one to talk to me like this.

“Is this or is this not my home as well, Rian?” I seethe, calling him the nickname he hates. "I'm a grown fucking woman who doesn't need to be babied or tethered to your arm like a pet."

He pinches my cheeks, squeezing to the point of pain, whipping my head side to side, sneering in my face.

“No, Octavia, this place isn’t your home.Weare your home,” he whispers harshly, twisting my head back to Bastian and then him. “You will do as we say. You will not move, you will notbreathein this place if we are not by your side. You think you know the monsters we are, but we are worse than even your mind can conjure. We’ve been easy on you growing up, but we do not have that luxury now. I told you things are changing, and it’s time for you to embrace it.”

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