Chapter 1

Pain.

Then nothing.

And then—light.

Elias Ashcroft gasped awake, his lungs burning as if he’d been drowning. His heart hammered against his ribs, frantic and too loud in the silence. He lay tangled in silk sheets that smelled of lavender and old money, staring at a ceiling he hadn’t seen in five years.

Not possible.

He sat up too fast. The room spun. Heavy velvet drapes, the massive four-poster bed, the antique desk still littered with empty wine bottles and crumpled gambling notes. His old bedroom in the Ashcroft ancestral manor.

He was twenty-three again.

Elias pressed a trembling hand to his chest. The scar from the dagger that had ended his first life was gone. The broken ribs, the bruises from that final beating—they were all gone. Only the memories remained, sharp as fresh blood.

The betrayals. The slow, methodical dismantling of his family. The way his own relatives had smiled while driving the knife in deeper. And at the end, when the estate burned and the last of the loyal servants fled or died… only one man had stayed.

Elias swung his legs over the side of the bed, bare feet hitting the cold marble floor. His reflection in the tall mirror across the room looked exactly as he remembered being at this age: tousled dark hair, sharp cheekbones, and the reckless glint in grey eyes that had made half the nobility call him the Ashcroft Devil.

Back then, he’d earned the name. Drinking, fighting, gambling away small fortunes, bedding whoever caught his fleeting interest. A disappointment. A chaos engine. Easy to dismiss.

Easy to kill.

But not this time.

A soft knock sounded at the door.

“Master Elias?” The voice was low, perfectly modulated, and painfully familiar. “You asked to be woken at eight. Breakfast is prepared in the east parlor.”

Elias’s throat tightened.

“Come in.”

The door opened soundlessly. The man who entered carried the quiet authority of someone who ran an entire household without ever raising his voice. Tall, slender, with neatly combed black hair and calm hazel eyes that revealed nothing. He wore the dark uniform of the Ashcroft butler with effortless precision, white gloves immaculate.

Adrian Vale. Twenty-six years old. The youngest head butler in the family’s history—and the only person who had refused to abandon Elias even when the rest of the world turned its back.

Adrian’s gaze flicked over him once, assessing. “You look… unwell, my lord. Shall I call for the physician?”

“No.” Elias stood, the nightshirt hanging loose on his frame. A crooked smile curved his lips—the same reckless grin that had once masked everything. “Just a bad dream, Mister Butler.”

Adrian’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered in those hazel eyes. Exhaustion, maybe. Or the weight of secrets he carried far too well.

“Very good, my lord. Your father has requested your presence in his study after breakfast. There are… matters regarding the upcoming gala.”

Of course there were. The gala where the first major crack in the Ashcroft empire would appear. Elias remembered every detail now. The poisoned wine. The whispered conversations. The way certain guests would never leave alive.

He crossed the room slowly, stopping just short of Adrian. Close enough to catch the faint scent of starch, soap, and something like rain-soaked cedar that always seemed to cling to the man.

Adrian remained perfectly still, the picture of professional composure. But Elias could see it now—the faint shadows beneath his eyes, the almost imperceptible tension in his shoulders. The butler was already carrying too much.

“You’ve been working late again,” Elias said softly.

“It is my duty, my lord.”

“Duty.” Elias let out a quiet laugh. In his first life, he had thrown that word back in Adrian’s face more times than he could count. “One day that sense of duty is going to get you killed, Mister Butler.”

Adrian’s brows drew together the tiniest fraction. “If that is all—”

“Not quite.” Elias reached out before he could stop himself, fingers brushing the crisp sleeve of Adrian’s uniform. “Tell me something. If the manor were under attack tonight… would you still stand by this useless young master?”

The question hung in the air, too raw, too revealing for this moment in time.

Adrian studied him for a long second. “I serve the Ashcroft family. That has not changed.”

Not the answer Elias wanted, but it was honest. He dropped his hand, the reckless smile returning like armor.

“Good. Because things are about to get interesting around here.” He turned toward the wardrobe. “Lay out the charcoal waistcoat. The one that makes me look less like a complete disaster.”

Adrian moved to obey without question, though his gaze lingered a moment longer than necessary.

As the butler’s efficient hands sorted through the clothes, Elias watched him in the mirror. In his past life, he had been blind to the quiet strength beside him. Blind to the man who had dragged his broken body from the flames, who had stayed until the very end.

Never again.

Tonight the assassins would come.

And this time, Elias Ashcroft would be ready.

He met Adrian’s eyes in the reflection.

“Shall I save you, Mister Butler?” he murmured under his breath.

Adrian didn’t hear it.

But he would. Soon.

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