Ronan LeClair ★ Painter

The first time Ronan LeClair laid eyes on the manor, he had been caught in a storm. He hadn’t intended to find it—he had only been wandering, chasing inspiration through the misty countryside when the sky split open, rain lashing at the earth like something vengeful. He had ducked beneath the iron gate without thinking, shoving through the overgrown path, and when he finally looked up... there it was.

The manor loomed against the bruised sky, its Victorian spires reaching like skeletal fingers. Even in its decay, it was beautiful. The kind of beauty that made his hands twitch for a paintbrush. He should have hesitated. Should have questioned why such an estate stood abandoned, why the wind seemed to howl through its broken windows like a warning.

But Ronan had never been good at listening to warnings.

Inside, the air was thick—damp wood, faded velvet, the lingering scent of something unplaceable, something that stirred a forgotten instinct at the back of his mind. The chandeliers were coated in dust, their crystals catching only the occasional flicker of moonlight. Old paintings lined the halls, their subjects watching him with hollowed-out eyes. His boots left prints in the dust as he wandered, touching the remains of a life long gone.

Then, a whisper of movement.

Not the skittering of rats. Not the creak of old wood settling. This was different. This was deliberate.

By the time he turned, the shadows had already reshaped themselves into something solid. A figure, impossibly still, standing between him and the only exit.

Their face was carved from dusk and moonlight, sharp and flawless, like something painted by a master’s hand. Pale skin stretched over high cheekbones, lips like a ghost of a wound, and eyes—God, their eyes. Depthless. Dark and endless, and yet, not empty. There was something there, something restrained behind layers of time.

Ronan had never seen anything more haunting.

Or more beautiful.

And that was before they moved.

One second, they stood across the hall. The next, they were in front of him. A cold hand wrapped around his throat, pushing him back until his spine met the wall. Their strength was unnatural—inhuman. Their fingers tightened, not enough to choke, but enough to warn. Enough to say, you don’t belong here.

“An artist.” The voice curled around him, low, silken. Not a question, a statement. As if they had already seen it in him, in the way he stared, in the way his fingers had already begun sketching lines in the dust.

Ronan swallowed against their grip, but his fear was already drowned out by something else. He lifted a hand—not to push them away, not to defend himself. But to touch. To trace the way shadows pooled in the hollows of their cheeks.

“Let me paint you.” The words came before he could stop them.

The grip on his throat tightened.

Ronan should have died that night.

But he didn’t.

---

He came back. Again. And again.

Each time, the manor greeted him with silence, and each time, they were waiting. In the dim candlelight, in the forgotten corridors, in the rooms still draped in memories of a time before his own. They never invited him in, never welcomed his presence. They warned him, threatened him, left him bruised and breathless on the floor more times than he could count. But they never killed him.

And Ronan, stubborn and captivated, never stopped asking.

"Let me paint you."

Sometimes it earned him a snarl, a shove that sent him sprawling across the floor. Sometimes, a cold hand wrapping around his wrist, squeezing just enough to make his bones ache. Other times, they would simply stare at him, unmoving, unreadable, until he was forced to fill the silence himself.

“You don’t see it, do you?” he mused once, after being thrown against a decayed armchair, his ribs aching from the force of it. “The way the light catches in your eyes. The way your movements are sharper than a blade, yet fluid like water. You were made for art.”

A sharp laugh, hollow and humorless. “I was made for nothing.”

Ronan only smiled, pressing a hand to his aching ribs. “Then let me make something of you.”

And still, they did not kill him.

---

Tonight was no different.

Or maybe it was.

The moment he stepped through the doors, they were there, waiting. No patience left. No time for warnings. In a single breath, they were on him, a blur of movement, a rush of cold air. His back hit the floor with a thud, his breath escaping in a sharp exhale. The weight pressing him down was solid, stronger than anything human should be.

Their fingers curled against his collarbone, nails just shy of piercing skin. Their face was inches from his, framed by the dim glow of candlelight. Closer than ever before. And Ronan...

Ronan had never seen them like this.

Something had cracked in their expression. Not rage. Not hunger. But something raw, something that didn’t belong in a creature meant for death. It sat in the lines of their face, in the tension of their jaw, in the way their breath came just a little too quick.

Anguish.

Ronan exhaled, his own body softening beneath them. His hands, trembling from adrenaline, rose as if to cup their face—but he hesitated, fingers curling just shy of contact. Instead, his gaze traced every detail, every fractured piece, every part of them they refused to see in themselves.

And then, in a voice quiet, steady, aching—

"You’re beautiful."