About half an hour later, Roman found her bent over sprawled maps that Robert had unlocked from an iron chest.

“God’s teeth,” he said with a quick glance over the covered table. “You have the entire plans for the city out.”

She smiled, keeping her eyes lowered on the carefully drawn illustrations. “I had a hunch.”

“A hunch?” he questioned in a dry tone. “How quaint.”

She ignored him and tried to bury the rising heat in her body as he pulled out a chair sat across from her. From the corner of her eye, she watched him lean across the diagrams, his face pinched in a scowl.

“Are you avoiding me?” he asked. Her breath stalled in her throat as she finally raised her gaze to meet his. His glittering eyes sent her stomach into knots.

“No,” she lied and then sighed. “You just seem to be in a bad mood.”

He grunted. “Well, you’re not wrong.”

They sat in silence as she returned to scanning the documents while he merely watched. The weight of his eyes on her was excruciating. She pushed past the rising tension in her nerves and reached for another map beneath the one she’d just gone over.

There.

Right there, as if it had been waiting for her.

“Roman!” she cried out with an excited gasp. He lurched forward, the sour expression replaced by intrigue.

“What? What is it?” he demanded, squinting to make out the symbol that she was excitedly gesturing to.

“This symbol,” she said in a rushed voice and then stopped. She couldn’t tell him that she’d snuck into his secret supernatural library. “I’ve...I’ve seen it somewhere else before. I think we need to investigate.”

He swallowed her excuse and rose to trace his fingers over the lines.

“This place,” he mused. “I’ve seen this symbol before as well, it marks something in my mother’s side of this house. Her rooms haven’t been touched since she passed away, when I was younger.”

Her heart throbbed painfully. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know-”

“It’s fine,” he said quickly. “Let’s go.”

They abandoned the maps on the table and headed off into a wing that she’d never been in before. Unlike the rest of the estate house, it was dusty and dim.

“Nobody cleans here,” he explained when he caught her staring at cobwebs that had gathered on the stairs. “My father refused to have anyone in here after my mother died. He wanted everything left just as it was when she’d last touched it.”

“Oh,” she said. Silence lapsed between them as they headed further down the hall. “How long has it been? You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Twenty years? She passed away when I was seven years old. Robert would love to send a housekeeping team down here, but he respects my father too much to do that.”

“Your father, where is he?”

“He’s ill,” he answered slowly. “He’s with our private physician.”

The stale air seemed as suffocating as the tension between them. She trailed behind him as they finally reached a large sprawling study.

“The symbol,” she breathed suddenly. “There.”

He followed her pointed finger to a magnificent, albeit dusty, statue of the same naked form that she’d seen in the book. On the woman’s stomach, the symbol could barely be made out in a shallow carving.

She heard his sharp gasp as he approached it, as if some realization dawned on him.

“My mother brought this statue out to the house shortly after the contractor finished and my father was furnishing it. She felt it added a touch of home. I never thought much of it,” he admitted.

Josephine kept close to Roman as they approached the stone structure. He reached out his hand and she watched as his fingers inched towards the symbol. He paused, extended finger in midair and briefly closed his eyes. Reopening them, he finally made contact with the symbol.

What happened next was too fast for her to process. With a sudden bang, she was thrown back onto the carpet. A cloud of dust rose up as a flash of light exploded from the statue, consuming Roman’s form.

“Roman?” she called and squinted to see through the thick air.

A roar resounded throughout the room and it chilled her to the bone. She gasped as a lumbering form emerged from the clearing dust and she saw that it wasn’t Roman.

It wasn’t even human.

“A bear,” she whispered in a shaking voice. Her hands quivered as she shook her head in disbelief. “That can’t be. Where did Roman go?”

As she spoke his name, the beast reared in the dim light. It turned on her with wild eyes. She screamed as the bear lunged for her. Without thinking, she cried out Roman’s name again. Suddenly, the same light permeated the room.

The bear was gone. In its place, Roman stood, hunched with a hand to his head. She gasped when his head jerked up and she saw the same wild eyes as the beast. Before she could scream, he lunged towards her. His lips were on hers in a burning kiss. She gasped, a mix of pain and pleasure.

He sunk his teeth into her collarbone and she cried out. It was a blissful agony that surged through her entire body. She groaned as she fell back against the carpet and Roman slumped beside her.

A small amount of blood pooled from his bite. She patted it wildly as she stared down at his unconscious form. What happened? Her mind refused to believe any of this was real.

Footsteps descended, quick and hard, towards them. Robert’s panicked face emerged into the room as he rushed towards them.

“Your Highness!” he yelled as he came towards Roman’s body. She stared, looking back and forth between the two men. “Prince Roman!”

“Prince?” she muttered before everything went black.