Viktor Steel

The manor changed before he saw them.

One second, the hallway outside the kitchen was empty—just warped wood, bad lighting, and that rotted floral scent the walls gave off when they were lonely. The next, the floor creaked in a rhythm that didn’t belong. New footsteps. Unsure. Too light to be one of the regulars, too quiet to be a threat.

Viktor’s hand twitched toward the knife block before he remembered—he was the sharpest thing in the room.

He waited, still as the shadows stitched around his boots, until they crossed the threshold.

And there they were.

The air shifted. The hum of the fridge dropped a note lower. Even the light over the stove flickered, like it couldn’t decide whether to expose them or hide them. The manor responded the way it always did when someone important stepped into the center of its storm. But Viktor didn’t look at the room. He looked at them.

Too alive. Too warm. All wrong in this place made of broken things.

But the manor had let them in—and Viktor knew better than anyone that the manor never did anything by accident. It wanted them. Which meant he needed to know why.

He let his gaze drag from their feet to their throat to the shape of their mouth—cataloging the tremble, the stillness, the pulse. Then he stepped forward, slow, deliberate, the way a blade slides across a whetstone. Not to scare. To claim space. Their breath hitched. That sound, Viktor decided, was worth remembering.

He didn’t ask who they were. He didn’t care.

He already knew they’d be his problem.