All Chapters of The Billionaire and his Blood-Bride: Chapter 61
- Chapter 70
182 chapters
Chapter Sixty-One – The Inscriptions Unveiled
The following evening settled slowly over the mansion, as though the world itself was reluctant to let night fall. Dinner had been quiet. Lana picked at her food, too restless to eat, while Grey finished his glass of wine with a focus that seemed more like discipline than indulgence. Seraphine, as usual, said little. She finally gestured for them to follow her. The three of them moved into the library, where the fire burned low and the scent of old parchment lingered like memory. The curtains had been drawn against the storm still muttering outside, and the room was a cocoon of muted firelight and shadow. Seraphine walked to the heavy oak desk, setting her leather folio down with care. She did not sit. Instead, she remained standing, her back to the fire, her gaze moving between Grey and Lana. “You wanted details,” she said simply. “Tonight, you’ll have them.” Grey leaned against the mantel, his arms folded but his eyes sharp. Lana took the armchair nearest the desk, the l
Chapter Sixty-Two – Shadows of the Fire
The fire sputtered, casting a spray of sparks that died before they reached the hearthstone. Lana stared into the glow, as if it might hold the answers Seraphine spoke of but refused to lay bare all at once. The room settled into silence again, broken only by the faint crackle of burning wood. Grey remained where he stood, close enough that his presence steadied her but far enough that he wasn’t crowding. Seraphine, however, stayed perfectly still, as though carved from the very shadows gathering at the edges of the room. When she finally spoke, her voice carried the weight of something long rehearsed. “The fire was no accident.” Lana’s breath caught, though the words were ones she’d dreaded hearing her entire life. Grey’s jaw tensed. “You’re certain?” Seraphine’s gaze didn’t waver. “Certain enough to risk telling you both. It wasn’t nature or chance. It was deliberate — an erasure. Someone wanted the Thompson estate, and everything inside it, gone.” Lana’s fingers cur
Chapter Sixty-Three : Portraits and Bloodlines
The storm had not let up. Rain lashed against the mansion’s tall windows like restless fingers, rattling the frames, whispering threats. The fire in the hearth hissed every so often, as though uneasy in its own cradle. Grey led the way through the corridor with the lantern raised, its circle of light cutting faint swathes into the dark. Seraphine moved with the unhurried patience of someone who had walked these halls before. Lana trailed close behind, one hand pressed against the wall as though the stones themselves might anchor her if the floor gave way. They passed tapestries too aged to show their colors clearly, their patterns blurred into shadows. Dust hung in the air, stirred by their steps, thick enough to taste. Seraphine finally slowed near the end of the corridor, stopping before a narrow door of oak. The iron latch groaned when she touched it. “This room,” she murmured, her voice strangely measured, “was sealed for a reason.” Grey didn’t answer. He pushed past her and
Chapter Sixty-Four – The Paper That Pulled Her In
The night air in the European mansion carried a silence too deliberate, as if the stone walls themselves were listening. Somewhere in the corridors above, the hum of old pipes moaned faintly, but here in the library it was only the three of them: Lana, Grey, and Seraphine.The ledger still lay open on the table, its pages rippling under the faint draft that snuck through the tall windows. Grey leaned against the edge, arms folded, his profile caught in firelight. He looked unreadable, but Lana knew his mind was already tearing through possibilities.She sat in one of the deep leather chairs, clutching her knees to her chest. The name on the page still glared at her:Elana Rey.Her name. Her full name. The name she hadn’t used since childhood. She felt as though the ink had bled into her skin.She broke the silence first, her voice raw. “Someone knew. Long before that letter reached me. They knew who I was… even when I didn’t.”Grey’s eyes shifted toward her. “The letter?”She nodded,
Chapter sixty-Five – The First Stone Turned
The fire had burned low, reduced now to a quiet smolder that hissed and cracked when embers collapsed under their own weight. Shadows leaned long across the study walls, curling around the shelves and the old, heavy drapes. Neither Grey nor Lana had spoken in minutes, the silence stretching taut, yet not unbearable. It was the kind of silence that came after a decision—when words were no longer needed to mark a shift, only the slow drawing of breath and the steady thrum of what lay ahead.Lana sat in the armchair nearest the hearth, the locket clutched between her palms. Its faint warmth hadn’t left her skin since the conversation with Seraphine. She had thought the glow and the inscriptions were the mystery. She had thought this house, with its locked rooms and hidden corridors, was the battlefield. But Seraphine’s words still rang sharp in her ears: What lies beneath these walls may decide whether you stand a chance—or none at all.The truth wasn’t just about the locket. It was olde
Chapter Sixty-six – Dust and Echoes
The morning light slanted pale and muted through the tall windows of the mansion’s library, streaking across shelves that climbed high into the rafters. Dust floated in the beams like ash suspended in air, every mote carrying the weight of time. Lana trailed her fingers along the spines of books as she entered, the faint smell of ink and mildew thick around her. She had slept little, tossing with the memory of Seraphine’s words from the night before. Secrets buried beneath walls. Choices they didn’t ask for. Grey was already inside, jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled above his forearms. He had pushed a stack of ledgers onto the wide table, his posture taut but focused. The sight of him—sharp angles, controlled movements—stirred a strange sense of steadiness in her, even now when the world felt like it was shifting beneath her feet. “You’ve been at this for hours,” she said softly. He glanced up, managing a faint, tired smirk. “Couldn’t sleep. Figured if the answers are anywhere,
Chapter Sixty-Seven – The Lost Years
The weight of the ledger lingered in Lana’s hands long after she closed it. Dust clung to her skin, but she couldn’t bring herself to brush it away. Her fingers trembled as though the parchment itself carried some charge, whispering truths she wasn’t ready to hear.Her throat ached. “All my life, I thought I knew where I came from. I thought…” She shook her head, unable to finish the thought.Grey leaned against the edge of the table, his jaw set but his eyes fixed on her. “You weren’t wrong to believe it. You believed what you were given. What you were told.”“Then why does it feel like none of it was mine?” Her voice cracked. “Not my name, not my choices, not even my childhood.”The silence stretched, heavy, until Seraphine stepped further into the room. The candle she carried burned low, wax dripping steadily down its side. Her expression, as ever, was unreadable.“You’re not wrong, Lana,” Seraphine said softly. “Some of it wasn’t yours.”Lana’s gaze snapped to her. “What do you me
Chapter Sixty-Eight – Between What Was and What Is
The silence in the library pressed close, thicker than the dust that clung to the ledger’s pages. Lana sat motionless on the edge of the leather chair, her pulse loud in her ears, her mind refusing to settle. The words Seraphine had spoken still clung to the air like smoke: not coincidence… a marriage not for love, but for power.Her fingers curled tighter over the ledger as though she might crush it into something smaller, less terrifying. But she couldn’t. It was there in her hands, heavy with names, contracts, and an echo of decisions made years before she even had a voice.The faint crackle from the hearth should have been comforting, but it only seemed to draw her deeper into her own unrest.“Lana,” Grey said at last, his voice quiet but steady, as if he feared startling her.She looked up. His face was half in shadow, the fire painting sharp lines along his jaw. He was watching her carefully, not like she was fragile, but like she was holding a weight he couldn’t lift for her.S
Chapter Sixty-Nine – The Hollow Name
The fire had burned low, leaving only a few orange embers crackling in the hearth. Grey hadn’t pressed her with questions, hadn’t pushed her to explain the shadows clinging to her face when she closed the ledger. He had simply drawn the curtains shut again, offered her the kind of silence that felt deliberate, not careless.It was a strange gift — space.Lana thought she should feel relief. Instead, it hollowed her out.When Grey finally excused himself, retreating down the hall with that steady stride of his, she lingered in the library. The heavy book still sat on the table, the dust it had coughed up earlier settled back into stillness. Its weight seemed to bend the air around it, like gravity itself leaned harder where the ledger lay.She couldn’t bear to touch it again. Not yet.Instead, she slipped out into the corridor. The mansion carried itself differently at night — too large, too silent, every corner brimming with echoes that weren’t there in daylight. The sconces glowed fa
Chapter Seventy – The Number in the Dark
The candle guttered low, spilling a wavering halo across the ledger’s brittle pages. Shadows leaned in from the corners of the library as if to watch, their silence thick enough to press against Lana’s skin.She couldn’t move. Not yet. Her eyes remained fixed on the margins where the numbers curled faint and merciless: 47R.The memory refused to let her breathe.The thin plastic biting her wrist. The cheap ink bleeding into pale skin. The girl with braids, tugging her own band with a scowl, telling her, “We’re just numbers here.”Lana’s stomach clenched so hard she had to grip the table to stay upright.Not here. Not now. She had spent years burying that place, smothering it until even the smells and sounds felt like fading dreams. But the ledger had dragged it back into the open, carving it into permanence. This wasn’t her imagination. The same number she once carried like a brand was now written in the margins of a book centuries older than her life.She snapped the ledger closed. T