Haustus, page 10
“Because I could tell you didn’t want to be there.”
I frowned, unsure if I believed him.
“It wasn’t just that. You said it yourself—if I didn’t leave right then, you wouldn’t be able to save me.”
“Did I?”
“What were you saving me from, Heath?”
This time, his jaw tightened—just barely.
A single second.
A small fracture in his mask.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“No.”
The drive lasted longer than I’d expected.
After leaving central London behind, we passed the bright streets, the taxis, the noisy pubs, the gleaming shop windows. We moved into a more residential area, and then into something darker… quieter. Old houses with overgrown gardens, trees that looked like raised hands against the night sky, streetlamps flickering faintly.
And then, beyond even that…
The countryside.
The landscape changed entirely. The noise disappeared. Only the sound of the engine kept our thoughts company. I didn’t ask where we were going. Part of me feared the answer. Another part… didn’t want to break the spell of the mystery.
Finally, Heath turned onto a dirt road barely visible from the main road. It was flanked by tall trees draped in moss. The Mercedes moved slowly, as if it, too, recognized the place.
And then I saw it.
A house.
The door opened without effort.
I expected a creak, something dramatic, like in the films about old houses. But no—the mechanism was perfectly oiled. Silent. Precise. Like everything else here.
The first thing I felt upon stepping inside was the change in temperature. The air was cooler than outside, but also cleaner. It smelled of polished wood, expensive leather, and something softer… musky, perhaps. A faint, old fragrance that didn’t come from candles or diffusers. It was the kind of scent that seeps in over years, not from products.
The house was breathtaking.
Old, yes.
But nothing was neglected.
The floor was black marble with silver veining, covered here and there with exquisitely preserved Persian rugs. The walls were tall, with elaborate moldings in shades of cream and smoky gray. Stone-carved columns framed the hallways, and the ceiling—high, vaulted—was adorned with a crystal chandelier that looked like a constellation suspended in midair.
There was no ostentation.
No gold, no excess.
Only a kind of luxury that didn’t need explanation. The kind that is inherited. That comes with lineage.
To the right, a sitting room with burgundy velvet armchairs, a lit fireplace, and an enormous bookshelf covering an entire wall, filled with worn, heavy spines. Some of the titles were in languages I didn’t recognize.
To the left, a black grand piano with its lid closed. On top of it, a forgotten glass of wine and a single dried rose perfectly placed, as if deliberately arranged. There was no music, yet the house had rhythm. The kind you feel in your bones.
Heath walked as if every step belonged to him. As if there wasn’t a single corner here he didn’t know by heart.
And I, trailing behind, felt small.
Out of place.
Like I’d just walked into a club I hadn’t been invited to—but one I couldn’t leave.
I brushed my fingers lightly over one of the moldings, just to confirm that all of this was real. That I wasn’t imagining it. That it wasn’t a dream brought on by Heath’s scent or the fear still lodged in my throat.
It was real. Too real.
Why had he brought me here?
“Is this your house?” I asked, still scanning every corner.
Heath didn’t answer.
“Come with me,” was all he said, ignoring the question entirely.
I didn’t press. I just followed.
And though I’d already thought it before, I wouldn’t tire of repeating it: the house was stunning.
I’d only ever seen something like this in films, or in dreams too elaborate to believe. And yet here I was, inside it, as if I’d slipped into another reality.
Heath opened a set of double doors and let me step through first.
The room revealed before me looked like something from a nineteenth-century portrait. The only light came from candles—dozens of them, arranged with surgical precision on antique candelabras and dark wooden surfaces. In the center of the room, a round table for two, also adorned with small candles casting dancing shadows across an ivory linen tablecloth.
Through a massive window, partially veiled by drawn-back curtains, I could see the rear of the house: a dense forest, outlined in black silhouettes beneath a gray sky. And though the rain outside was light, I could clearly hear it tapping on the leaves—steady, hypnotic.
Heath moved one of the chairs slightly, gesturing subtly for me to sit. I did so without a word, feeling entirely out of my depth. He took the seat across from me, and within seconds, a figure approached from one of the side entrances.
A tall man, expressionless, his movements deliberate.
Pale like Heath.
But different.
There was something more rigid in him. More silent.
He wore a perfectly tailored dark suit, though his style felt different. More formal. More… old-fashioned, as if time had never touched the way he dressed or the way he walked.
And his accent, when he spoke, confirmed it.
“Would you care for something to drink?”
His voice was deep, his English slightly drawn out. Not British. Russian, perhaps?
When I met his gaze, a shiver slid down my spine.
Really dark eyes.
“Bring us wine, Rudolf. Please,” Heath said calmly, as if asking for something as ordinary as water.
The man nodded without another word and disappeared with the same elegance with which he’d entered.
I kept my eyes on the door he’d left through, silent.
Then I looked back at Heath.
“Are you hungry?” he asked suddenly, pinning me with that gaze that seemed capable of stripping thoughts bare.
“What am I doing here, Heath?” I shot back, meeting his stare with equal intensity. If he thought he could intimidate me, I wasn’t going to make it easy.
He sighed. Barely perceptible—but in his face, I saw something.
An internal struggle he tried to hide, though not completely. “What did you see and hear last night, Bennett?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
I looked away, toward the window.
The view was hypnotic: the dense forest under a light rain. Branches swaying with a slow rhythm, as if time itself moved differently out there.
When I looked back, he was still watching me.
But this time, he was smiling.
A faint, arrogant smile. Intriguing.
“You gain nothing by lying to me, Bennett,” he said with a calm so sharp it felt like provocation. “For your own sake, tell me the truth.”
“What am I doing here?” I insisted, steady.
He didn’t answer right away.
He held my gaze.
“The truth…” he began at last, his voice lower now, almost thoughtful. “When I invited you here tonight, I had an entirely different reason in mind. But plans changed. Circumstances changed.”
“And what exactly does that mean?”
Before he could answer, the door opened quietly.
Rudolf entered with the same impeccable presence as before, holding a bottle of dark wine and two crystal glasses so fine they looked weightless. His face betrayed no emotion, yet his mere presence seemed to shift the atmosphere. He moved with near-ceremonial precision, placing the glasses on the table and pouring the wine in such fluid motions that the sound of it was barely audible. The color was rich—a deep garnet.
“Would you like something to eat, miss?” Rudolf asked when he’d finished, standing straight once more.
Instinctively, I looked at Heath.
He was already watching me.
As if he’d been waiting for exactly that reaction.
He smiled—not kindly, but provocatively. Arrogantly.
Almost like a predator.
“No, Bennett. I’m not going to eat,” he said, eyes never leaving mine. “I’m not hungry. Order whatever you like.”
I swallowed the questions pressing at my lips and turned back to Rudolf.
“No, thank you. I’m not hungry,” I said politely, though my voice sounded sharper than I’d intended.
Heath smiled again, giving a slight nod, as if confirming something he already knew.
“If I need anything else from you, I’ll let you know,” he said then, without glancing at Rudolf. His focus stayed locked on me, as though the rest of the world didn’t exist.
Rudolf nodded in silence, unbothered by the lack of acknowledgment, and left.
“So…” I said, letting the word slip between us like the opening move of something dangerous.
Heath held my gaze.
“So,” he repeated, his voice sounding as if it didn’t belong to this century.
For a few seconds, he said nothing more. He didn’t need to fill the space with unnecessary words—he filled it with his presence. With the way he looked at me, as though he already knew what I was about to ask.
He picked up his glass, swirling the wine slowly before raising an eyebrow, as if waiting for me to take the next step.
“What is this place?” I asked at last, without softening the question.
“A house,” he replied, amused, leaning back in his chair as if the conversation were already his game.
“I’m not talking about the walls.”
“Ah, of course.” His smile widened just slightly, but his eyes never left mine. “You’re asking about intent. Not location.”
“I’m here because you brought me, Heath. The question is: why?”
He drank a sip of wine and took his time before answering.
“When someone has the bad luck of seeing something they shouldn’t, dangerous people have two options: erase it… or understand it.”
“And you’re here to do what? Erase me, or explain?”
He smiled—this time without restraint.
“That depends on you, Bennett.”
I leaned in slightly over the table, not breaking eye contact.
“What did you see in me that made you bring me here?”
He didn’t answer immediately. He set his glass down and leaned toward me with deliberate slowness, as if the air between us were part of the game.
“There’s something about you that draws me in. I don’t quite know what it is yet, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
His words hit me harder than I expected.
Not because of what he said—but because of how he said it.
It wasn’t seductive. It wasn’t corny.
It was honest. Strangely honest, as if he hadn’t allowed himself to think it out loud until now.
I didn’t know what to say.
“And what exactly are you supposed to do when you can’t stop thinking about someone?” I asked finally.
Really, Sarah? What a stupid question.
He held my gaze. Didn’t blink.
“You bring her to your house. You watch her. And you decide what to do with her.”
“And? Have you decided yet?”
“Not yet. But every second you sit across from me, the answer gets harder—for more reasons than I can explain to you.”
A faint heat stirred in my chest. Not a blush—something subtler. More electric. A recognition I didn’t want to fully accept.
“You didn’t bring me here just because you can’t stop thinking about me,” I said more seriously. “That’s what you say to soften something you’ve already admitted you can’t even explain to yourself.”
Heath stood without a word.
He walked toward me with a calm that put me on alert—not because of the sound of his steps, which were nearly silent—but because of what he projected. Every movement was precise, calculated, as if he knew exactly what reaction he’d provoke.
And he did.
My body tensed instantly. An internal alarm I couldn’t switch off.
The instinct to run tangled with the need to stay.
He leaned in slowly until his face was just inches from my ear.
The heat of his breath against my skin made me hold my breath.
“Maybe,” he murmured, his voice dropping a note lower. “Or maybe it’s easier to confess you’re obsessed with someone than to confess you’re concerned about them.”
His eyes were no less intense. No less dangerous. But there was something else now… something he wasn’t faking.
“Concerned… why?” I asked quietly, unmoving.
Another pause. Another one of those silences of his that carried more weight than any words.
“Because you’re stepping into a world you don’t easily walk out of, Bennett,” he whispered. “And part of me wants to warn you. The other… has no interest in doing so.”
I felt exposed.
“And what if I told you I have no intention of stepping into anything?” I countered, meeting his gaze.
“You’d be lying,” he said, with the certainty of someone who already knew my choices before I made them.
“And you? Are you going to keep playing the mysterious card, or are you going to tell me who the hell you really are?”
He let out a low, dry laugh—not insulting. More… entertained.
“You have a very undelicate way of speaking, Bennett.”
“And you have a very irritating way of saying nothing.”
Silence reclaimed the room.
Outside, the forest seemed to be listening.
Not as a witness—but as an accomplice.
Then Heath straightened, without breaking eye contact.
“You saw something. But more importantly… something saw you.”
My heart lurched.
“What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer right away.
He took his glass, drank slowly, and set it down with deliberate softness, as if not to disturb the moment.
“That it’s not always us who choose to step into the darkness,” he said finally. “Sometimes, by bad luck, the darkness chooses us.”
I stayed still.
The words sank into me like a cold that didn’t come from the air. Like a prophecy I didn’t understand—but one my body had already begun to recognize as true.
“And what was it that chose me?” I whispered.
Heath looked at me. For the first time, serious. Without irony.
And that scared me more than any smile of his ever had.
I swallowed the urge to demand he speak plainly. To tell him to give me answers.
But something in his eyes stopped me.
He leaned toward me again—closer this time. His voice so low I barely heard it.
“Bennett… what you saw that night wasn’t the worst of it. The worst is what you don’t yet know you saw.”
Before I could respond, Heath leaned back and let out a soft sigh, as if closing an invisible door between us.
“That’s enough for today,” he said with implacable calm. “Rudolf has prepared a room for you. We’ll continue this conversation tomorrow.”
I stared at him, incredulous.
“Excuse me? I have to go home. My sister doesn’t even know I’m here.”
He tilted his head with a smile as serene as it was authoritative.
“I’ll take you tomorrow. But tonight, you’ll stay in the room we’ve prepared for you. Tomorrow will be… interesting.”
And without waiting for my agreement, he reached toward a small, hidden button. Pressed it with unsettling ease.
Seconds later, the door opened.
Rudolf entered with the same unshaken composure, as if he’d been waiting for this moment all night.
He said nothing. Simply stopped near the doorway, waiting.
“Rudolf,” Heath said, without looking at him, “show Miss Bennett to the room where she’ll spend the night.”
The butler inclined his head in a subtle bow.
I kept my eyes on Heath, waiting for a sign, an explanation—something.
But he had already returned to his wine.
As if I were a chapter he’d decided to pause.
I stood slowly, feeling how every step away from him left me with more questions than answers.
Rudolf waited in silence.
And behind me… Heath said nothing more.
Only the sound of the forest remained—and the certainty that, that night, I had stepped deeper still into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The door closed behind me with a soft click.
The first thing I noticed was the scent.
Old wood—like that of a forgotten library—blended with the faint aroma of dried lavender and something else…
Candle wax? Aged paper? I couldn’t be sure.
The room was spacious. The walls were paneled in dark oak, carved with details that looked as though they belonged to another century. There were no paintings, but a large built-in bookshelf stood against one wall, filled with leather-bound books, none of them bearing titles visible from where I stood.
To the left, an unlit fireplace guarded the corner, a silent pendulum clock resting on its mantle, and a wrought-iron chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling, casting a soft light that barely grazed the shadows.
The bed was at the far end.
Massive, with four carved columns adorned with floral and draconic figures. The garnet velvet curtains were tied back with black silk cords. The sheets, white as bone, were perfectly spread—without a single crease.
An antique full-length mirror leaned against one wall, its gold frame slightly worn with age. It reflected part of the room, but not all. Something about its angle seemed… deliberate, as though it avoided reflecting the door on purpose.
Beside the bed sat a small nightstand, a closed book resting on top. No title. No author.
The window was tall and narrow, draped in heavy curtains that allowed only the faintest sliver of moonlight to pass through. Through that gap, I could see the trees of the forest. Still. Motionless. As if they, too, were watching me.
