Ethan:

  The first time I saw her, she was wearing a halo made of firelight and contempt.

  Senior year. Creative Writing. Fourth period. I had transferred late — the kind of kid who didn’t raise his hand unless he was bleeding. I sat in the back, hoodie up, sketchbook open, pretending not to exist.

  And then Celeste Lysandre walked in.

  Not late. Not early.

  Perfectly timed, like a crescendo in a song that was written just for her.

  She didn’t sit. She claimed the seat. Front row, center. Like she owned the oxygen. Like she’d decided this class wasn’t a requirement — it was hers.

  She glanced at me once.

  And smiled.

  Celeste:

  He was soft then. Art-boy quiet. Pretty in a bleeding-heart kind of way. Too big hoodie, charcoal under his nails, a sketchbook full of ruined angels and handwritten poems that read like confessions.

  Everyone else ignored him. I couldn’t stop watching.

  You have to understand — by seventeen, I already knew how to break people. Knew how to make them cry with compliments. I’d left a trail of ruined boys with stars in their eyes and no idea how they lost.

  But Ethan?

  Ethan looked at me like he already knew what I was.

  And didn’t care.

  He just saw me — the wicked edges, the hunger, the rot in the center of the fruit.

  I gave him one week.

  He lasted two days.

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  Ethan:

  She cornered me after class. Didn’t ask. Just stood there like I was a book she’d decided to read.

  “You don’t talk much,” she said.

  I shrugged. “Words are expensive.”

  She smiled. “Lucky for you, I’m rich.”

  I should have walked away. I almost did.

  But then she leaned in and said, “I bet you have a monster inside you.”

  And I answered, without even thinking: “What if I do?”

  Her eyes lit up like the end of the world.

  Celeste:

  I brought him home two weeks later.

  Not officially. Not like that. He helped me carry some poetry assignment to the car, and I just happened to mention the Lysandre estate was on the way to his place. (It wasn’t.)

  He was quiet the whole ride. Nervous. Curious. But I saw the way his eyes devoured the gates when they opened. The mansion. The staff. The power.

  And then he met my family.

  Vincent was in the study, cigar lit, watching stock tickers and security feeds like a king at war. He looked at Ethan once, saw the softness, and nearly dismissed him.

  Until Ethan saw the books.

  First editions. Locked behind glass. Annotated by criminals. Blackmail disguised as literature.

  Ethan asked questions. Sharp ones.

  And my father listened.

  Ethan:

  Vincent Lysandre didn’t trust anyone — especially not boys brought home by his daughter.

  But I asked about the painting behind his desk. A 19th-century oil that had been “lost” in a war museum fire. I asked about the blood on the frame. Not literally, but close.

  He smiled.

  Just slightly.

  “You read between lines,” he said.

  I nodded. “That’s where the truth is.”

  He offered me whiskey I was too young to drink. I took it anyway.

  And from that moment — I wasn’t just Celeste’s.

  I was theirs.

  Celeste:

  I didn’t expect him to survive the house. The politics. The rot.

  But he didn’t just survive.

  He adapted.

  Fast.

  The boy who brought me flowers started bringing me secrets. He found leverage on a family friend. Blackmailed a crooked teacher. Exposed a mole in my father’s company — all before senior prom.

  He wasn’t corrupted.

  He evolved.

  Ethan:

  She didn’t mold me. Not really.

  She dared me to be what I already was, underneath all the soft. The Lysandres? They taught me tactics. Threats. Strategy.

  But Celeste?

  She taught me the art of it.

  How cruelty could be intimate. How love could be violent. How power could be romantic.

  And the moment I realized I didn’t want to be saved — only understood?

  She kissed me.

  Right there.

  In her father’s study.

  With her hand on my throat and her teeth against my lips.

  Celeste:

  I didn’t fall in love.

  I claimed him.

  And he let me.

  Not because he was weak.

  But because he wanted this.

  Me.

  The game.

  The house.

  The war.

  He walked into my life with a poet’s heart and a blade hidden behind every word.

  And he stayed.

  Because no one else would understand the monsters we were becoming.