Aya spun around, her heart lurching into her throat.
He stood less than three feet behind her, close enough that she should have heard him approach. Yet, she had not heard a single footstep.
And then her brain caught up with her eyes, and every coherent thought she had evaporated.
He was tall. Very tall. And lean, with angular features that looked like they had been carved by someone who understood that beauty could also be unsettling. Slightly long dark brown hair fell across his forehead, and a few strands dangled in front of deep-set dark eyes that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.
He watched her with an unblinking stillness that made her skin prickle.
His robe was unlike anything she had seen in this world so far. It was wrapped around him in layered folds and cinched at the waist with a dark sash. The collar crossed low over his chest, exposing the upper planes of his collarbones and the beginning of what appeared to be elaborate tattoo work of dark, swirling patterns that crept up from beneath the fabric and along the side of his neck like living ink.
The wide sleeves of his clothing was structured, giving him an almost regal look that blended something between a Korean hanbok and ancient Greek clothing.
He was, without any exaggeration, one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen in her life.
"Oh, my God," Aya breathed. "You're so handsome."
The words left her mouth before her brain had any say in the matter.
His expression shifted.
His eyebrows rose slightly, and it was the only indication of surprise on an otherwise unreadable face.
Aya's soul left her body.
'Oh God. Oh no. Did I just say that out loud?'
Heat flooded Aya's cheeks as mortification crashed over her. She had meant to think it, not say it, but her mouth had decided to betray her in the most humiliating way possible.
And she wasn't wrong.
He was handsome.
"I — that's not what I — I mean you're —" She clamped her mouth shut because every word that was coming out was making the situation far worse.
Disgust twisted his features and his upper lip curled slightly. Those dark eyes that had been unreadable moments before now blazed with contempt.
[Husband Detected!]
[Dorian Nighthollow]
[Status: Previous Alpha of Ashveil Pack. Head of Intelligence and Internal Security]
[Current Hatred Level: 1000%]
[Relationship Status: Absolute Contempt]
[This system recommends Host stop talking immediately]
'Little too late for that, don't you think?' Aya thought miserably, too busy processing the wave of hostility rolling off the man in front of her.
Right. The husbands who hated her.
She had almost forgotten.
This wasn't some hot stranger she had bumped into at a coffee shop. This was a man who had spent over a decade hating the woman whose body she was currently in.
And then, because Aya's brain and her eyes had apparently never been introduced to each other properly, her gaze dropped to where the fabric of his robe fell between his legs.
It was barely half a second. A stupid, involuntary flicker of a glance driven by the system's earlier bombshell about the curse and exactly what it had locked. Her eyes snapped back up to his face immediately, but it didn't matter.
Half a second was plenty.
Plenty enough for him to have noticed.
Slam!
His hand crashed into the bookshelf beside her head with enough force to make the books rattle. A thick leather book close to them toppled off the shelf and hit the floor with a heavy thud that echoed through the silent library.
Aya jumped and her back pressed against the shelf as he leaned in, closing the distance between them in one fluid, predatory movement.
"What," he said, his voice low and dangerous, "are you looking at?"
His face was inches from hers now. She could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and smell the nice scent from him.
Aya's mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her brain had short-circuited somewhere between the hand slam and the proximity of his face to hers.
Her heart was hammering so hard she could feel it in her throat. She couldn't hold his gaze. It was like staring directly into a fire that wanted to burn her specifically.
Her eyes darted to the fallen book. To the ceiling. To the window. Anywhere but him.
"Nothing! I wasn't—that was—I just—I didn't mean to—"
His forearm was right next to her head and the sleeve of his robe had pushed back enough that she could see the tattoo on his wrist in sharp detail. The veins running beneath his skin. The tension in his fingers where they dug into the wood.
And her stupid, stupid brain decided this was the perfect moment to produce a vivid mental image of him closing the last few inches of distance and pressing her harder into the shelf and taking her right there and then.
'NO! Stop it. Stop thinking about that. What is wrong with you?!' she screamed at herself as she felt the heat pooling low in her stomach.
Blood rushed to her cheeks, and she felt her body responding in ways that were absolutely inappropriate for someone who was currently being cornered by a man who clearly wanted nothing to do with her.
Her thighs pressed together on their own.
'Get rid of the dirty thoughts. Get rid of them NOW!'
'He hates you! He is looking at you like he wants to feed you to wild animals! Your hormones do not get a vote right now! Shut up! SHUT UP!'
She braced herself for the system to pop up and drag her to hell and back. Something about her degeneracy levels reaching new heights, or an achievement unlocked for getting horny while being threatened, or literally any of the hundred cutting observations it was so fond of making.
But the screen didn't appear.
However, when she looked at him, eyeing the rigid set of his jaw and the fury burning in those dark eyes… she felt guilty and ashamed.
Even if he was technically her husband, she had no right to ogle him like this. Not when he despised her for cursing his manhood and locking him into a celibacy he never asked for.
Looking at that part of him was the equivalent of rubbing salt in a wound that had been festering for over a decade.