✨ Tropes:

🧬 “We Were Never Strangers” Moment

😈 Fated Mate Revelation

🔥 Slow-Build Tension

🌒 Forbidden Truths

🩸 Prophecy Unraveling

💀 Villainous Mother Plotting

💘 Soul-Bond Awakening

🗡️ Jealousy & Protective Rage

👁️ Tension-Filled Stares

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🌶️ Spice Level

🌶️🌶️ — Emotional Seduction, Zero Touch, Maximum Heat
This chapter is all psychological intimacy and charged energy.
No physical spice, but the soul-bond tension is molten — the kind that makes readers hold their breath, whisper “oh damn,” and shift in their seat.

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😈 Sin Score

7 / 10 — “Ruin Wrapped in Revelation”

• Forbidden truths
• A bond she can’t escape
• Jealous Caspian simmering
• Sebastian dropping fate-laced confessions like sins

Not physical sin — but spiritual, emotional, destiny-level corruption.

Chapter 16

Sebastian

I exhaled slowly, walking around to the back of the chair where Gidget had sat, gripping the back of the velvet just enough to steady myself. Her voice echoed in my head; “Start talking.” She had no idea how deep this truth went.

“Fate isn’t some holy script written in the stars,” I tell her, my voice low, steady. “It’s older than gods, older than magic. It doesn’t care what we want; it just… remembers. Every choice, every sin, every promise made in blood. It threads us together, pulls us where it wants us, and laughs when we think we’ve escaped it. You and I? We were never strangers, Francesca. We were written in the same line long before we were born. Fate just waited for the right moment to remind us.”

I looked directly at her, letting the weight of it settle in. “And a fated mate… that’s the deepest bond there is. People like to dress it up as destiny, as love written in the stars. But it isn’t some fairytale. It’s older, wilder than that. It’s a tether; soul to soul, magic to magic. You don’t choose it. It finds you, claws into you, and suddenly your pulse isn’t your own anymore. You feel them in your bones, in your dreams, even when you don’t want to. It’s not gentle, Francesca. It’s ruin dressed as longing. And once it takes hold, there’s no undoing it. You can fight it all you want, but the bond just tightens.”

Her pulse ticked up; I could hear it. For a moment, she doesn’t say anything. Just stares at me, wide-eyed, like she’s trying to decide if I’ve cursed her or confessed something sacred. Her lips part, then press shut again. I can see the questions rising behind her eyes, the kind she’s too afraid to voice. She wants to believe it’s nonsense; some poetic demon myth, but I can feel the bond stirring between us, humming low and dangerous. When she finally speaks, her voice is soft, barely steady. “Then tell me why it feels like it’s already decided.”

Caspian scoffed. “A bunch of bullshit if you ask me.” His voice cuts through the silence like glass against stone; sharp, careless, too loud for the weight of what just passed between us. He hides behind mockery, but I see the truth flicker in his eyes before he looks away. He feels the shift in the air, the pull that isn’t supposed to exist. And maybe that’s what he hates most.

I didn’t take my eyes off her. That’s why she wants her. Mother’s always known how fate works, how bonds twist through bloodlines and power. Francesca isn’t just the key to some prophecy; she’s the spark that could unravel everything Astrid built. If the bond between us completes, if the thread pulls tight; then even the Queen of the UnderRealm won’t be able to control what comes next.

Francesca breaks the silence next, her voice small but steady. “What does your mother have to do with any of this?”

I draw a slow breath. The words taste like ash. “Everything,” I say. “Astrid’s always believed fate could be bent, reshaped, and controlled. When she realized what tied us together, she saw an opportunity. You’re not just her target, Francesca. You’re her undoing. The prophecy, the bond… it all circles back to you.”

Her brow furrows. “Me?”

I nod. “She wants to end it before fate can take hold. Before we take hold.”

For a moment, she just stares at me, confusion tightening her features. Then it hits her; I see it in the way her pupils widen, the breath she doesn’t take. The realization cuts through her disbelief like lightning. Her voice breaks when she finally whispers, “You mean… I’m fated to you.” I can’t bring myself to answer. I just meet her gaze and in that look, she already knows.

Before the silence can suffocate us, Caspian snaps. “Over my dead body will your sadistic mother get anywhere near Francesca or her family.” His voice drips with venom, every word coiled with fury.

I raise an eyebrow, letting the corner of my mouth curl. “Careful, Caspian. The last person who made threats about my family ended up being one of hers.”

That shuts him up, and for a heartbeat, no one breathes. I sigh, running a hand through my hair. “Enough for tonight. There’s a guest room down the hall. We are all frustrated and tired. Why don’t we just finish this conversation over breakfast tomorrow?” Francesca just nods, quiet, shaken. Caspian doesn’t say another word, though the tension rolling off him could split the floor. I led them towards the guest room, the echo of their footsteps following close behind; three souls tangled in a fate none of us asked for.