The morning after the kiss, the house felt different.
Still silent. Still haunted. But something had shifted.
Juliette woke alone in her bed, the sheets cold beside her. A fine mist curled at the windowpane, despite no fog outside. As she dressed and stepped into the hall, she felt it, that heavy pull in her chest. A warning. Or a summons.
The halls were empty.
The library doors were open.
And Evelyn's diary… gone again.
Juliette rushed forward, heart hammering. Not again.
Then she saw it, on the reading table.
The diary.
But it was open to a page she hadn't read before.
May 4, 1901
If you're reading this, I have failed. Dorian lied. The curse is not bound to love. It's bound to obsession. To possession. The woman in white is not a spirit. She is the curse itself, given flesh. She takes the face of what you most desire… and turns it against you.
Juliette's hands shook.
Her eyes flicked to the mirror in the corner.
It was fogged.
Then cleared.
And standing behind her, no reflection.
But a presence.
She turned slowly.
A woman stood in the doorway.
Tall. Ethereal. Wrapped in white silk that floated as if underwater. Her skin was like porcelain, her eyes silver and unblinking. Her mouth, crimson.
Juliette stepped back. "Who are you?"
The woman tilted her head. "You already know."
"I'm not afraid of you."
A smile touched her bloodred lips. "You should be."
The woman's voice was layered, one feminine, one guttural and ancient beneath it.
"You let him in," the woman whispered, stepping forward. "You gave him your heart. Your blood. And now, he is mine."
Juliette's pulse raced. "Lucien?"
The woman's smile deepened. "Did you think a kiss could break a curse? No, darling. It sealed it."
And then, she vanished.
Juliette ran.
Downstairs.
Into the drawing room.
Empty.
Then to the music room.
Nothing.
Panic flared in her chest. The circle where she and Lucien performed the ritual was still burned into the floor. The blood was gone.
So was he.
And on the wall behind the piano, smeared in what looked like ink, or blood, was a single sentence:
He chose.
Lucien was gone.
The estate was colder than ever. Even the housekeeper, Mrs. Dalloway, had disappeared. No trace. No note. No sounds except the echo of Juliette's own footsteps.
It felt like the house was punishing her.
She returned to Evelyn's diary, flipping frantically through the pages, looking for anything that could explain what was happening. The further she read, the more the entries grew erratic. Ramblings. Symbols. Desperate spells.
Until,
May 6, 1901
The woman in white is not just part of the curse… she is its creator. She was Dorian's first love. He betrayed her for an Armand. She cursed both bloodlines before she was burned at the altar of the red moon. But death did not end her.
She now lives through every Armand and Blackthorne union. Feeding off their bond. Waiting for the one who gives her enough strength to return in flesh.
Juliette swallowed hard.
That meant…
Her love for Lucien had given the woman form.
And Lucien,
She wasn't sure anymore.
Night fell.
Juliette lit every candle in the mansion, terrified of the dark. As the grandfather clock struck midnight, thunder rolled in the distance.
A letter appeared on her pillow.
No one had entered.
No sound. No wind. Just… there.
She picked it up with trembling fingers.
The paper was black. The ink, crimson.
"You have until the next Crimson Moon to choose: Break the bond… or bury the one you love.
S."
There was no seal.
But somehow… she knew.
The "S" stood for Selene, the woman in white.
She fled to the cliffs.
The wind whipped around her as she stood at the edge where Evelyn had once stood in her lace gowns, whispering to the moon. The same moon that now watched her with hunger.
In her hand, she gripped the burned token Lucien had once given her.
She pressed it to her lips, whispered a vow, and tossed it into the sea.
Then, footsteps behind her.
She turned.
Lucien.
Soaked. Pale. Wild-eyed.
But it wasn't him.
Not fully.
His eyes were wrong.
His voice was layered, like hers.
"I saw her," he rasped. "I saw her face… and it was yours."
Juliette stepped back. "What did she do to you?"
"She offered me peace. Power. An end to it all. If I give you up."
Juliette's heart broke in her chest. "And did you?"
Lucien didn't answer.
But his hand trembled as he reached for her.
"Juliette… I don't know what's mine anymore. My thoughts. My heart. Everything feels like hers."
A tear slid down her cheek.
"I'm yours," she whispered. "Not hers."
Lightning cracked behind him.
He fell to his knees.
"I need to get out of this house," he gasped. "Before I become something I can't come back from."
She crouched beside him, holding his face in her hands.
"You're not leaving me," she said. "We fight this. Together."
His breath hitched. "If we lose…"
"Then we lose together."
A beat of silence.
Then a whisper, not from either of them.
From the wind.
"Not together. Never again."
A crack split the ground at their feet.
And from the shadow beneath the cliff, a hand reached up,
Pale. Feminine. Dead.
Selene was rising.