Whipping her head around, her eyes widened in profound shock upon seeing Gavriel. He stood perfectly still, peering down at her with those frosty, piercing eyes that had always brought her to her knees.

But her initial shock quickly melted into absolute delight.

It had been an entire year since Gavriel had abruptly cut off all contact with her and the others of her kind.

For a succubus like her, his sudden appearance after such a long absence could only mean one thing.

He wanted her to serve him again.

A seductive smile spread across her face as she looked upon the gorgeous man before her. She glided across the room, her movements deliberately provocative, until she stood right before him.

Sinking to her knees just as she always used to do, she looked up and asked in a coquettish voice, "Master... you are finally here. I was beginning to think you had abandoned me completely."

Her blood thrummed with excitement at the mere thought of being claimed by him once more.

Yet Gavriel neither replied nor reacted to any of her attempts to allure him.

She fluttered her lashes and shifted her posture to make her semi-exposed breasts peaking out of her red lacy gown more enticing to his eyes. But absolutely nothing stirred within his chest.

Even the mindless, primal lust that used to take over him from time to time... the raw instinct of the ancient being he was, remained entirely dead.

’Why? Why am I here?’ Gavriel asked himself.

In response, the darkness stirred deep inside his soul, growling in agitation as if thoroughly loathing their current surroundings.

Without offering a single touch or initiating a word, Gavriel sat back on the leather couch behind him. His emotionless eyes remained locked on the woman before him, which she took as a silent command to come forward.

The woman, all too familiar with his unspoken expectations, moved without hesitation. She crawled toward him lasciviously, her cheeks flushing a deep crimson as she settled herself between his legs.

Placing one trembling hand on his thigh and the other on his shoulder, she felt the rigid, powerful muscles beneath his damp clothes.

Then, lowering her head close to his neck, she whispered seductively, "I missed you... Master."

As soon as the words left her lips, she closed her eyes, tilting her head to press her mouth against his neck. But before she could make contact, a sharp sting jolted her completely out of her seductive trance.

Gavriel had seized her by the hair.

Her eyes flew wide as she was forced backwards by the sheer strength of his grip. "Are you going to punish me, Master?" she gasped, her voice trembling between arousal and sudden panic.

But the moment she met his eyes, a paralysing terror seeped into her veins, making her feel as though her very blood were freezing solid beneath his icy gaze.

There was not a single trace of emotion on Gavriel’s beautiful face. Yet, his pupils were dilated with a screaming, unbridled bloodlust that made her entire body shiver in fright.

For a split second, Diana had forgotten who he actually was. He was not just any man she lusted after.... he was the most feared being in existence.

Her lips and eyelids trembled as she asked in a small, breaking voice, "D-did I do something to upset you?"

She could feel his bloodlust swelling by the second, sending violent tremors through her entire body.

Finally, Gavriel parted his lips that he never allowed her to claim and delivered a cold decree that shattered any remaining illusion of intimacy. "Move."

That single word was enough.

Diana instinctively scrambled backwards, dropping to her hands and knees, and she did not stop there.

Bending low until her forehead pressed completely against the floor, she stammered, "F-forgive me, Master, for upsetting you. I did not mean to take such liberties." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

The oppressive aura leaking from Gavriel was so suffocating that she could not stop shaking.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a heavy, abyssal darkness rolling off his silhouette. Making her shrank back further, terrified that if the black mist so much as brushed her skin, she would perish right there and then.

Closing her eyes in pure terror, she blurted out one last plea, "Forgive me, Master!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, the suffocating thickness in the air abruptly vanished.

Diana remained frozen in her submissive posture for a long time, terrified that she might be executed on the spot if she made a single wrong movement.

But as seconds bled into agonising minutes, she realised she could no longer sense his presence.

Slowly, with immense caution, she dared to lift her gaze.

The spot on the couch where Gavriel had been sitting was now empty.

A cold sweat trickled down her spine and forehead as she shakily rose to a sitting position. She looked around her dimly lit bedroom, searching the corners, but she was entirely alone.

As her terror gradually subsided, a deep wave of disappointment settled into her chest. She spoke aloud to the empty room, "What was that about? Why did he even come here if he was just going to leave?"

Diana was one of the succubus who had served Gavriel for a long time in the past. When he had suddenly stopped visiting her an entire year ago, she had gone out of her way to reach out to him.

However, her desperate attempts had been brutally cut short by Reve, who left her with a chilling warning never to step out of line again.

Though a year had passed, she had patiently remained in her designated place. She spent her days scheming about how to contact Gavriel without being slaughtered on the spot by his loyal dog, all the while fantasising about being beside him once more.

But recently, the media had delivered a profound shock to her system. The news revealed that the position that she could only dream about next to him was going to be taken by a mere human woman.

Her heart burned with a venomous rage. She wanted nothing more than to crush that fragile human with her bare hands.

Yet, Diana was not foolish enough to act on impulses that would guarantee her own execution. She had only just begun to carefully strategise how to safely eliminate her rival when Gavriel suddenly materialised in her bedroom tonight.

But she didn’t expect her initial delight at his return to be shattered so mercilessly, leaving her completely baffled as to why he would abandon her so abruptly.

But the longer she stared into the empty space where he had just been sitting, the more the image of that blonde human woman forced its way into her mind.

A vile, crawling jealousy spread through her chest.

The more she pictured the human resting comfortably beside Gavriel, the more malicious her thoughts became. And she would do whatever it took to remove Aliana from the picture permanently.