Chapter 6

Dominic:

The scent in my room was wrong.

Faded. Hollow.

Aria’s scent was gone.

I noticed the instant I walked in, the air felt empty, stripped of the heat that had burned through it hours earlier. Only cold silence and Katherine’s perfume lingered now.

She was sitting on the edge of my bed, legs crossed, a glass of wine in her hand like she owned the place.

“Where is she?” My voice came out low.

“Who?” she asked, feigning innocence.

“You know very well who I am talking about, Katherine.” I said, looking her in the eye.

She smiled slowly, setting the glass aside. “The girl? I had her sent to the slave quarters. It’s where she belongs. You know, she is a slave, Dominic.”

My jaw tightened. “She’s not a common slave. And I did not permit her to go there.”

“She was sold, Dominic. Bought. That’s exactly what she is.” Katherine rose from the bed and glided toward me, her silk robe slipping slightly off one shoulder. “You’ve been letting her roam these halls as if she were special. The pack is starting to talk. And she has not even been here a night. She has crossed every rule, boundary, and has even dared speak back at you. You said nothing. Only this, Dominic, I will put a stop to as your Luna.”

I said nothing. My silence only seemed to encourage her.

“You did the right thing,” she purred, placing her hands on my chest. “You have responsibilities, to me, to your pack. Not to some little stray who forgot her place. I, just like always, will be the one to take care of this mess.”

Her fingers slid down, slow and deliberate as she touched my hard cock, gently stroking it through my pants. “You look tense,” she murmured. “You’ve looked that way since she arrived. Let me take care of you, ease the tension.”

“Katherine…”

“Don’t,” she interrupted softly. “You don’t have to explain. I know temptation when I see it. And I know how to satisfy my Alpha temptation. You know, I always did find it enjoyable when I did.”

She tilted her head up and pressed her lips to mine before I could step back. The kiss was practiced, soft, smooth, and utterly empty.

For a moment, I didn’t move. I didn’t even breathe. Then she deepened it, fingers curling around my collar, voice a whisper against my mouth.

“You still taste like control, a feeling that I most crave when I am with you.” She said, a faint smirk in her tone. “But your eyes, Dominic… they looked tempted. And that heat of temptation is enough to drive me insane.”

That word hit harder than it should have.

Tempted.

I stepped back abruptly, breaking the kiss. “Enough.”

She blinked, surprised. “You used to like it when I came to you first. It has been days since we’ve spent the night together. I didn’t mean to cross you.”

“I’m not in the mood.”

Her expression sharpened, but she covered it quickly with a laugh. “Then perhaps you should find one. I simply wanted to be with you. You know, as your Luna.”

I turned toward the bathroom, my voice flat. “You can stay if you want, no one is going to stop you. I’m going to freshen up. I’ll be out when I am done.”

I closed the door behind me, locking it, a silent warning for her not to follow me before I turned to the shower, turning the cap.

The slam of the water masked the sound of her sigh. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, hands gripping the sink until the porcelain cracked under my fingers.

Tempted. She was right.

But not by her.

By the woman she’d locked away like a criminal.

And though I told myself to stop thinking about it.

I didn’t. I couldn’t.

I stripped out of my clothes, my hard cock hitting my lower abdomen, throbbing, hard, and ready… ready for her.

The water hit my shoulders, hot enough to sting. It should have grounded me; instead it felt like her breath, like the memory of her skin. Each pulse of heat dragged another image to the surface, her mouth, her voice, the way she looked at me as if she saw through every layer I’d built.

Alpha…

I wrapped my hand around my shaft, stroking it, knowing that I was going to need to find my release.

My heartbeat picked up, loud against the sound of the shower. I braced my palm on the wall, trying to steady it, but the ache in my body kept rising, matching the pace of my breath, matching the pace of my stroke. Harder by the second as I thrust into my fist.

“Aria…” I groaned despite myself as I neared my own climax. My balls and cock pulsing which each stroke and each thrust that my hips took against my control.

By the time the water cooled, my chest was heaving, muscles tight, every nerve alive. The world felt too small for what was burning inside me.

I leaned forward, resting my forehead against the tile, breathing through the rough edges of the aftermath. Shame and satisfaction tangled together in the same breath.

She wasn’t here, but she might as well have been.

Even the empty room felt full of her.

A woman who has been here for a day, but a woman who managed to shift everything in less than that day.

I closed my eyes once more, letting the water run over me until the pounding in my chest began to fade. Then I shut it off, wiped the fog from the mirror, and faced the truth in the reflection that came back:

Whatever this was, I’d already crossed the line.

And the only thing that could quiet the storm she’d started… was her.