The Devil's obsession with the Heiress

It was five o’clock in the morning when Aliana woke from yet another bizarre dream. It was unlike anything she had experienced until now.

She ran a shaky hand through her hair as she sat up, leaning back against the headboard of her hotel suite. Her breathing was ragged, her face flushed, and a fine sheen of sweat covered her skin. Taking a deep breath, she tried to force her racing heart to calm.

Leaning forward, she buried her face in her hands, whispering into the quiet of the room as she recalled fragments of the vision. "Just what was that?"

Her fingers still tingled with the phantom sensation of tracing the hard, sculpted lines of a man’s body. She could still feel the burning trail his hands had left across her skin. She couldn’t remember his face, yet that voice... it had whispered her name.

"Aliana..."

The way he said it was so seductive.... so consuming, that she felt she could die just to hear it over and over again. It was driving her to the brink of madness. Her body felt as if he had set it on fire, a heat so intense she couldn’t find a way to put it out.

Cursing inwardly, she looked toward the window and saw it was still dark. ’I haven’t felt that presence lately,’ she thought.

She had sensed it in her room a few times before whenever she woke up, but it had suddenly stopped.

Perhaps it was just another ghost that had finally decided to leave her alone. Or maybe being away from her parents’ house, in an entirely different country, had something to do with it.

’Maybe a change of scenery was all I needed,’ she mused, though her relief was short-lived. ’And yet, those freaking ghosts are still everywhere else.’ 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

.....

As the second day of the conference started, Aliana had been miserable, to say the least.

It had started with spotting a spirit wandering into her bathroom just as she finished her bath, followed by another particularly noisy one during breakfast.

By the time she entered the conference hall, she was consumed by the worry that one of them would materialize out of thin air during her presentation.

She could almost see it happening... making a complete fool of herself and her company in front of the industry’s most powerful players.

Though she maintained a strong, composed exterior, she was crumbling inwardly.

No one noticed the cracks in her mask except for Nigel. He tried to check on her, but she quickly brushed him off, claiming it was nothing more than a standard case of nerves.

After they entered the conference, her fear seemed to come true.

Sitting at her designated table, surrounded by the upbeat chatter of colleagues and rivals alike, Aliana remained frozen. Her eyes were fixed on a corner of the stage where the grinning ghost of a man stood, staring directly at her.

Since her group had arrived early, many of the delegates had yet to fill the hall. The empty spaces only made the spirit’s presence feel more prominent.

Under the table, Aliana’s fingers were tightly clasped, her nails digging into her skin as she struggled to keep her composure intact.

"Aliana?" someone called out to her, but the voice barely reached her as she watched the ghost slowly inch closer.

Her pulse began to race, her mind spiralling as she recalled yesterday’s incident, the moment that evil spirit had nearly pushed her off the balcony.

"Aliana?"

Still, she did not respond, her gaze locked ahead on the approaching figure.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

The rhythmic thud of her own heartbeat was the only sound ringing in her ears as the ghost came to a halt right in front of her table.

Before she could run or even find her voice, the ghost’s eyes snapped toward something behind her. Just like that, the malicious grin vanished, replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated terror.

Aliana’s brows furrowed at the sudden shift and before she could process what was happening...

Poof!

The spirit vanished into thin air.

’What was that about?’ Aliana wondered.

She slowly turned her head to see exactly what had terrified a ghost that was already dead and saw him immediately.

Gavriel Valentine was walking into the hall with a stride that exuded raw power. Dressed impeccably in a tailored navy-blue suit, he moved alongside Cillian Pierce and the rest of his entourage.

He carried himself like a superior being, as if everyone else in the room were beneath his notice. Yet... just as before, as if sensing her gaze, his icy eyes moved directly toward hers.

Her heart skipped a beat as their eyes locked.

Before she could make sense of the situation, a voice broke through her trance from her left side.

"Aliana?"

She snapped out of the magnetic pull she felt while staring into those icy blue orbs when they suddenly shifted from her face to the space just over her left shoulder. The movement forced her to turn, and she realized there was a hand resting on her.

Following the arm up, she saw it was Jacob. A worried look clouded his eyes as he asked, "Are you feeling alright?"

"What?" Aliana blinked, her voice sounding distant even to her own ears.

"I’ve been calling your name," he stated.

She shifted slightly in her seat, a silent prompt that made him drop his hand. She offered him a small, practiced smile. "Oh, my apologies. I was just lost in thought."

"You sure?" Jacob asked, his dull yellow eyes drifting past Aliana to the table behind her, where the Archon Group delegates were taking their seats. For a brief moment, his gaze met Gavriel’s, whose icy stare held something sharp and unreadable, before Cillian leaned in to say something, prompting Gavriel to look away.

"Yes," Aliana replied, drawing Jacob’s attention back to her. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Right... I was just asking if you’re ready for your presentation today," Jacob asked, his voice a bit rushed.

"I am," Aliana reassured him, before turning her gaze back to the stage, where the MC had begun speaking to commence the second day of the conference.

As his voice filled the hall, a thought crept into her mind.

’Did I really see what I think I saw? That ghost... it looked terrified. Like it had seen something worse than itself.’

The idea itself seemed ridiculous. How could a dead person be scared of someone else?

Her perfectly manicured fingers tapped against her other hand as she sat with her arms crossed in her lap.

’Could it be because of...’

Her light grey eyes drifted from the stage toward the side of the room, settling on the man who was becoming an enigma to her. ’...him?’

This time, when Gavriel shifted his gaze to meet hers, Aliana didn’t flinch. Unlike the previous day, she met his stare head-on.

She began to tally the coincidences.

Even yesterday, when she was on the balcony being attacked by that malevolent spirit, the female ghost had vanished the moment Gavriel appeared to save her.

She tried to connect the dots, but there were too many loose ends and far too many unanswered questions.

She even doubted her own train of thought.

Was she reaching for a connection that wasn’t there?

It could very well be a fluke, but then again, nothing she had experienced lately followed the rules of logic.