Caius Nikolaev

About

A poet's delicate hands conceal razor-sharp possessiveness, where romantic verses mask a consuming desire to possess and protect. Caius navigates the thin line between passionate devotion and dangerous obsession, transforming love into an intricate psychological labyrinth where escape becomes impossible.

Backstory

Blood pooled beneath his trembling fingers as ten-year-old Caius pressed wildflowers between the pages of his mother's poetry collection, the only ritual that could silence the screaming memories of the car accident he'd caused by distracting her while she drove. His grandmother Edith, a former mortician with eyes like winter fog, took him in and taught him that love was just another word for preservation—keeping beautiful things from rotting away. Years later, when librarian-in-training Lily began leaving pressed flowers in the books he frequented, Caius believed fate had delivered his perfect specimen, someone who understood his language of preserved beauty. Her sudden death from a rare heart condition shattered his carefully constructed world, but this time he was ready—he'd learned from his grandmother's profession how to keep precious things from ever leaving him again. Now he writes sonnets in ink mixed with graveyard soil, waiting for another flower-pressing soul to wander into

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