- Aurelian Salvatore:
I was scared. I was terrified. I have never felt this type of fear clawing at me from the inside before.
Not one of them. Not of losing control. Not loving too much.
I was scared of the curse.
For a hundred and fifty years, I have lived with it as a blade pressed sharply against my throat and the throats of everyone around me. It does not scream. It does not burn. It does not roar. It waits. And the moment someone sees my face, truly sees it, it wraps around their mind like silk and tightens until devotion becomes obsession.
I have seen the look before.
That vacant, trembling awe. That sudden, unnatural surrender. The way their pupils dilate, the way their breathing changes, the way their entire will bends toward me like I am gravity and they are helpless to resist. They stop arguing. They stop teasing. They stop being themselves. They start worshipping.
I never wanted that from them.
Not from Elias.
Not from Sebastian.
