CHAPTER 4: Stage Lights and Silver Knives
1063 Words
The dress fit like a promise she never made.
It was black as ink and stitched with fire—midnight sequins that shimmered red under the stage lights, a bodice that cinched her waist until every breath felt like defiance. The neckline dipped, the slit rose, and her back was left bare from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine.
She didn’t feel powerful.
She felt… exposed.
Aria stood in the center of the dressing room as stylists tugged, adjusted, pinned. They chirped about streaming numbers and lighting angles, mistaking her silence for nerves. It wasn’t nerves.
It was pressure.
It was a cage.
It was the weight of a ghost that wouldn’t stay buried.
One of them laughed. “Nova, you’re going to melt the stage in this. Even the fireworks are nervous.”
Her eyes flicked to the mirror.
Nova Quinn’s body stood reflected back—sculpted curves poured into a dress designed for maximum coverage and minimum decency. Her chest lifted, high and full. Her waist, impossibly narrow. Her hips wide and elegant. Her skin looked like it belonged in perfume ads and scandal blogs.
But the look in her eyes?
That wasn’t Nova.
That was a wolf in silk.
Her screenband vibrated once.
Kellen’s message blinked across it.
> He’s inside the building.
Her fingers tensed slightly against her thigh. She tapped to clear the screen.
She didn’t ask who he was.
She had a feeling she already knew.
---
The stadium roared.
The music shook the steel beneath her heels. Flames shot from the side of the stage, licking the night. A sea of fans screamed her name—Nova, Nova, Nova!—each syllable hammering into her like a challenge.
She walked out under blinding lights.
She sang.
And something inside her came alive.
Her voice—low, hypnotic, velvet over broken glass—didn’t belong to Nova Quinn. It belonged to something older. Deeper. Each note coiled into the air, wrapping around the audience like a noose. It wasn’t just performance.
It was possession.
She owned them.
And for one, brief, impossible moment, she forgot the fear.
Until she saw him.
Fourth row. Still as stone. Watching.
Silver eyes.
Not like wolves. Not natural. Too sharp. Too reflective.
Not human.
Then something flew.
Small. Fast. A glint of metal arcing through the lights—landing with a sharp clink at her feet.
The crowd didn’t see it. But she did.
She froze.
It was a charm. Etched with ancient script.
A symbol she’d studied as a child, whispered about in punishments and warnings.
The Banishment Sigil.
A death sentence in the old tongue. A curse against pack traitors. Wolves who refused to die.
Her body tensed. Her fingers curled. The music faltered.
And then she saw him.
Not the silver-eyed stranger.
Someone else.
Far back. Standing at the edge of the light. Pale skin. Blood-red tie.
Alric Damaris.
Vampire. Media king. Enemy of House Vex for three generations.
And he was smiling.
---
She didn’t remember leaving the stage.
Just the press of security hands. Dani’s voice screaming for damage control. A blanket thrown over her shoulders. Crew members darting around like panicked ants.
But Aria kept walking—past them all. Past the managers and stylists and camera crews waiting for a backstage interview.
She found a side corridor. Cool and quiet.
And slammed into someone already waiting inside.
A hard chest. The scent of night wind and pine.
Dominic Vale.
Of course.
He didn’t move when she hit him. He just looked down at her with eyes like stormlight.
“I warned you,” he said.
She stepped back, chest heaving slightly.
“I didn’t throw the sigil.”
“No,” he said quietly, “but someone did. And you froze.”
“They caught me off-guard.”
His voice hardened. “They caught you unprepared.”
Aria’s jaw tightened. “What do you want from me, Dominic? Gratitude? Submission? Do you think because you show up in the dark and brood at me, I’ll fall into your lap?”
He stepped toward her.
She stepped back.
He followed.
Back again. Until her spine met the wall.
“You want to play this game,” he murmured, low and rough, “but you don’t understand the rules.”
His palm hit the wall beside her head. Not violent. But absolute.
Her breath hitched.
His other hand didn’t wait.
It slid along her waist—gripping, exploring, drawing her hips forward until they met the hard press of his body.
She gasped softly—at the heat of him, the want of him, undeniable and heavy against her core.
“Don’t pretend you don’t feel this,” he said, voice a razor dragged over silk.
His hand moved lower—over the swell of her hip, the exposed length of her thigh, stopping just short of scandal. His other hand rose, brushing her jaw, thumb grazing her lower lip.
Her heart thundered.
“You think I want to control you?” he said, voice quieter now. “No. I want to burn with you.”
She stared up at him, lips parted, chest rising.
He leaned in—
—close enough to feel his breath—
—but didn’t kiss her.
Didn’t move an inch further.
That restraint burned more than any contact ever could.
And then, just as suddenly, he stepped back.
Left her standing there.
Flushed.
Shaking.
Wanting.
“You’re fire, Aria,” he said over his shoulder, already walking away. “But don’t forget… I’m the one who taught matches how to strike.”
---
The penthouse was silent when she returned.
The show was still trending. Fans screamed online. The press declared her a phoenix. But the only sound she heard was her own heartbeat.
She walked to the bedroom. Kicked off her heels. Stood at the vanity.
A black envelope sat on the table.
Unmarked.
She opened it with slow fingers.
Inside: a photograph.
Her younger brother.
Dead eyes.
Mouth open in a scream.
Across the bottom, scrawled in red ink:
“He screamed last.”
Her hands didn’t shake.
Her eyes didn’t water.
Instead, she looked in the mirror—and the girl who stared back was no longer pretending.
This wasn’t Nova Quinn.
This was Aria Vex.
And the reckoning had begun.
---
- Writer
