Chapter 10: Q&A

Q1: Was Ayoka ever truly given a choice—or just the illusion of one?

A: Ayoka had hoped the child wouldn’t come early. In the world she lives in, there are magical midwives and people who can estimate pregnancy length, but such services are expensive—reserved for those with means. Slaves had to rely on instinct and luck. Some masters even timed their purchases to coincide with birth, hoping to gain both mother and child. There are records, even in our world, of enslaved women being sold while visibly pregnant—valued not for life, but for labor multiplied. So no, Ayoka never truly had a choice. Not when even her womb was treated as an asset.

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Q2: What do you think Viktor really wants from Ayoka: obedience, love, legacy… or just control that looks like care?

A: At this stage in the story, Viktor tries not to lean too heavily into traditional power imbalances. He's aware of how easily his role could slip into cruelty—and maybe that self-awareness is his only form of restraint. But there’s a limit to how many toxic traits a man in this type of tale can carry before he rots from the inside. Viktor doesn’t want to see himself as a monster, so he acts with control, calculation, and a thread of grace. Whether that grace is genuine—or just grooming in finer clothes—is still up for debate.

Q3: Why didn’t Ayoka fight harder when Genevieve threatened Malik?

A: Ayoka could have fought back. She had the rage, the instinct. But she also had something else—something passed down like a second spine: survival. Back then, and even in her magical world, many enslaved mothers knew better than to strike first. Because retaliation was rarely an option—it was an invitation to punishment. History is filled with parents, especially mothers of the oppressed, who had to bow their heads, fold their hands, and pretend calm while every instinct screamed to run or claw back. Black parents, Indigenous parents, colonized families—they all learned the same rule: submission saves the child longer. Ayoka didn’t freeze out of weakness. She froze because she had already learned what happened when a mother moved too fast.

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Q4: Is Sabine truly helping Ayoka—or simply making sure she survives well enough to remain useful?

A: Sabine is helping—in the only way she knows how. She walks a thin line. She's not a slave like Ayoka, but she’s no mistress either. She’s a “free woman of color,” the kind New Orleans knew well in its tangled colonial history—Creole, dignified, often educated, but never fully free from the reach of white rule or patriarchal control. Sabine represents the people who had just enough privilege to live upstairs, but still served on command. Her guidance is laced with survival tactics wrapped in kindness. She teaches Ayoka how to endure, not because she doesn't care—but because she knows what the system does to girls who don’t learn the rules fast enough.

Q5: Was the magical dress Sabine gave Ayoka truly for protection… or just another costume in the house’s performance of power?

A: It was both. That’s the truth of it. They live in a magical world buried in swampwater and secrets. It made sense to give Ayoka something enchanted—especially with the couvrefeu beasts creeping close to the manor’s edge. But at the same time, this scene wasn’t just about survival. It was about the look. The mood. The performance. Dressing a woman like a shadow-drenched queen might keep the monsters out—but it also keeps her in character. In this house, even armor is theatrical. Even safety has a stage direction.

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Q6: Why did Ayoka lie on the bed with just a ribbon—was that submission, defiance, or a way to write her own scene before someone else did?

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A: The ribbon said more than chains ever could. Chains are expected. Ribbons are intentional. When Ayoka laid there, bare but decorated, she wasn’t surrendering—she was staging. In history, enslaved women were often stripped of agency, reduced to objects or temptations blamed for their own abuse. But some learned to use presentation as power. In the Old West and Southern parlors alike, brothel workers, “fancy girls,” and even house mistresses knew how to frame themselves. As one freedwoman once said in an 1890s broadsheet: “If I must be unwrapped, let me tie the bow myself.”

Ayoka wasn’t giving in. She was taking the first line of the scene before someone else could write it.

Q7: Is Viktor’s version of protection any different from ownership? When he says, “Papa’s got this,” is that comfort… or control repackaged in gentler words?

A: Viktor bought Ayoka because he was reaching for something that felt like family. And it’s probably the vampire blood in him—because let’s face it, creatures like that don’t build families the way humans do. They curate them. Collect them like heirlooms. Domesticate the wild things they find beautiful, then bind them in silk and shadows.

In vampire folklore, there’s often a twisted sense of legacy. “Sire lines,” chosen children, lovers turned wards, partners who are also property. Viktor doesn’t see himself as a master—he sees himself as a keeper. That makes him more dangerous. Because when someone tells you they’re protecting you for your own good, what they’re really saying is: you belong to me.

So yes, Viktor’s protection feels soft—but so does velvet rope.

Q8: Why does Ayoka keep imagining violent, erotic revenge fantasies—especially toward Genevieve and even Viktor? Is it about power? Reclamation? Or is she simply trying to feel anything that belongs to her?

A: It’s a mix of all three. But let’s be honest—Ayoka gets turned on by the idea of destroying certain kinds of people. It’s not just trauma. It’s chemistry. There’s real psychology behind the intersection of violence and arousal in safe or internal spaces—especially for women who've had their power taken from them.

Studies have shown that some trauma survivors associate adrenaline and eroticism in complex ways. In fiction, especially in dark romance, we let those contradictions live on the page without apology. Ayoka isn’t here to be some soft, weeping shadow. She fantasizes about power, about reclaiming agency—not just with fists, but with sex, with presence, with dominance that’s hers.

Viktor sets off her rage and her hormones. That doesn’t make her broken. That makes her real.

Q9: Why is Malik so important—not just to Ayoka, but to the house, to Viktor, and even Genevieve?

A: Because children are the future—and in a place this broken, that makes them currency. To Ayoka, Malik is life itself. Her reason. Her line in the sand. To Viktor, he’s a second chance. A child who could pass as his own. A legacy made from something more honest than bloodlines and titles. To Genevieve? It might just be her fae nature showing. In folklore, fae creatures are notorious for stealing children—especially those marked by beauty, magic, or potential. They snatch them from cradles, swap them for changelings, or raise them in courts as trophies. And if you go even deeper: Baba Yaga, the ancient witch of Eastern European legend, was said to eat children not out of hunger, but to test the souls of those left behind. Genevieve may not gnaw on bones—but her gaze cuts just as deep.

Still… she doesn’t really want the child. She wants to unsettle Viktor. To bait Ayoka. To remind them both who still knows how to smile with a knife behind her back.

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Q10: Is the house itself alive—or just full of ghosts playing house?

A: There are no ghosts in Barinov Manor. But shadows? Shadows are different. They don’t cry out. They don’t drift. They watch. And if you pay attention, they respond.

So maybe the house isn’t “alive” in the way flesh and blood are—but it breathes. It remembers. It performs.

And that’s the real question: Is the house Viktor’s to command? Or is he just the current lead in a play it’s been rehearsing since long before he arrived?

Maybe the house is just waiting for someone who belongs to it. Maybe it’s Ayoka. Or maybe… it’s you.