They're a farce, a sham.
He's a filthy rich boy that has always had exactly what he wanted when he wanted it, and she's a poor girl, a year younger than him, with a pretty face and nothing else. Their only bond is that they're both purebloods and they prefer to make love in the dark – because if they see each other in the light they're afraid of what they might see.
She'll see a man who's lost himself to the darkness. His haughty features marred by death, his grey eyes glinting with the pain of knowledge, and a black skull burned into his arm.
And he'll see a girl, not a woman, a little girl that holds the essence of beauty and yet understands none of it. He'll see adoration in her eyes, adoration and love – two things he can't bear – because no one should love a marked man.
So in silence and darkness they tumble; for him, it's emotionless and unfeeling, a release from the pain, an escape from reality. For her, it's the ability to touch the shadow of something she could never – in reality – hold.
But then it breaks.
Then it becomes real.
Then the little world they've created in silence and darkness shatters like a pane of glass – because in the darkness, with his damp curls clinging to his face, he brushes his lips against her ear and murmurs-
"I love you."
And she begins to hope, begins to think that maybe, just maybe they're more than a sham. All of the tears she's cried over him seem non-existent and she can smile, because he said it, so he must mean it. Stupid, stupid little girl she is.
The next day he's dead.
DeadDeadDead, there's nothing left except her. A poor, little, seventeen- year- old girl who has no one in the world, nowhere to go, and nothing left inside because she wasted it all. She was foolish enough to believe in Regulus-and-Alessandra; she opened her heart to what she knew was nothing more than a lie.
And now she's facing reality – cold, hard, painful reality.
Now she's learned her lesson.
Come what may, she'll never love again.