Chapter 5

AURELIAN

The moment our eyes met, I knew I’d made a mistake.

I had stumbled into hell. And the devil had lifted his head to greet me.

Vael’s golden gaze burned through the tangle of limbs and sweat-slicked skin, pinning me where I stood. His pupils flared, sharp and bestial, like some ancient creature had risen to peer through his eyes.

The woman beneath him arched, moaning as she clung to his back, hips rising to meet the ruthless rhythm of his body, but he no longer moved. He stilled inside her, one hand gripping her waist, the other tangled in the hair of the man pressed against his chest. And yet… all his attention was on me.

His lips parted around a breath, slow and heavy. His gaze did not waver.

And then, he moved.

I turned too late.

The door hadn’t even swung halfway shut when his body crashed into mine, all bare skin and heat. The weight of us slammed the wood closed behind me, and my face struck it hard enough to bite the inside of my lip. Blood bloomed against my tongue.

Then his hand curled around my throat—not choking, not yet, but firm enough to hold me there. Pressed against the door like a pinned rabbit, like prey.

“A prisoner in a King’s chamber,” he murmured, voice dark and slick with mockery. His cock—still hard, still wet—pressed obscenely against the cleft of my ass, grinding slow. “Did you get lost, little prince? Or did you come to watch while I fuck?”

“I said get off,” I hissed, shoving back.

He didn’t budge. Instead, he pressed my cheek harder into the door, just enough to make the wood bite into my skin.

“Go out there, then,” he said, too calm. “I smell them on you. Go back into the hall. My men will smell you. Do you know what you smell like right now?”

I stiffened.

He inhaled deeply beside my ear, groaning low. “You reek of heat. Not like an omega. Not even like prey. No… like something forbidden. Sacred. My men are rutting just from the scent of you.”

“You’re a beast,” I spat. “You all are.”

“You’re right,” he growled. “And if you walk out that door again, I’ll let the beasts have you.”

I shuddered, rage and fear colliding in my chest like thunder and I hated it. He reached behind me, and I felt something wrap around my wrists. She oft, warm. Silk. A discarded sash from one of his lovers. He tied me quickly, roughly, yanking my arms behind me.

“You don’t belong here,” he whispered, dragging me from the door. “But you’ll stay.”

He shoved me into a carved chair near the bed. It groaned beneath my weight. His hand pushed my chest down until the ties bit cruelly into my arms, and then another strap—leather this time—cinched around my chest. One more around my throat, not tight enough to choke, but angled to keep my chin high. My eyes forced open. Forced to look.

Vael turned away.

He returned to the bed, where the others writhed in his absence. The woman arched the moment he touched her, breath hitching. The man spread his thighs with a hungry moan. Vael climbed between them without ceremony, without kindness.

He fucked them.

Hard. Viciously.

The bed creaked, the sound of it wet and rhythmic and brutal. The woman sobbed his name as he rutted into her. The man clawed at his back, begging. Vael gave no tenderness, only heat. Only punishment. His golden gaze never once leaving mine.

It disgusted me.

“Touch him,” he said, voice slicing through the gasps and groans.

The woman slipped from the bed like a dream made of sweat and lust. She walked to me slowly, eyes glazed. Her bare breasts glistened.

I twisted in the chair, snarling, but there was nowhere to go.

Her hand brushed my face. I flinched.

She dragged her fingers down my jaw, over my collarbone, lower. Her nails scraped against the hem of my tunic. I jerked back, and the collar held me still.

“Don’t,” I said.

Vael’s laugh rolled through the room. “Look how you tremble,” he said. “Even chained, you think you have a say.”

The woman’s hand ghosted over my thigh. Not hard. Not hurried. That made it worse. She touched me like I was hers. Like she pitied me.

“I said don’t,” I snapped again, voice hoarse.

Vael leaned harder into the man beneath him, fucking him slow and deep. “You smell that?” he growled. “I do. That little flicker of heat rising from your skin. Your neck’s gone red. Your cock stirred. Just a twitch, but it was there.”

“It’s not,” I hissed. “It’s disgust. It’s hate.”

He slammed forward into the man again. The moan that followed echoed off the stone walls and I gritted my teeth.

“I’ll believe that,” Vael snarled, “when you stop leaking it into the air.”

A second figure—a man this time—joined the woman at my side. His hands found my knees. He spread them.

I thrashed.

“I will kill you,” I said, the words nearly a scream. “You filthy fucking mutts. I will slit your throats—”

They only laughed.

Their hands dragged down my legs, over my stomach. My hips jerked forward. A mistake. They saw it. Felt it.

Vael stopped fucking.

He pulled out of the man beneath him, and the room fell into a breathless hush.

He walked toward me, naked and terrible, cock still hard, still dripping. His robe hung loose over his shoulders.

He stopped inches away.

“You’re disgusting,” I snarled, lifting my head despite the collar. “You fuck like a dog and smile like a king.”

He leaned down, gripping my chin between two fingers.

“You came here,” he murmured. “You watched me fuck them.”

“You pressed me against the door.”

“And you didn’t scream until they touched you.”

I spit at him. It hit his chest, slid slowly down.

He didn’t flinch this time. Not a flicker of even disgust but his hand came up. Not a slap, but a brutal grip around my throat, fingers pressing deep, cutting off breath and defiance alike.

“You say you don’t want this,” he murmured, voice low and sharp as the blade that had brought my kingdom down. “Good. Neither do I. But the gods don’t ask what we want.”

His thumb dug in beneath my jaw, forcing my head back.

“They stitched this rot between us—made your scent crawl beneath my skin like a sickness. A curse.” He leaned in, his mouth close to mine, and his next words were a snarl.

“And I don’t need to fuck you to prove what already belongs to me.”

I fought for air, teeth gritted, muscles straining.

“I’d rather fuck a corpse than fuck a man who took everything from me,” I hissed.

His grin returned—slow and merciless. “Noted,” he said, voice calm as a blade sliding into flesh. “But no one said you’d be doing the fucking.”

Then he crouched, slow and deliberate. Eye-level. Close enough for me to smell the filth of the bed on his skin.

“I don’t want you,” he said, voice rough and cold. “The gods must be laughing. Out of every creature in the realms, they bound me to this—a shattered little prince with a pretty mouth and nothing left to offer.”

He leaned in, his breath hot against my lips. “I could kill you. I should. But you reek like sin, like something that makes even my most loyal wolves forget their names.”

“I belong to no one,” I spat.

Vael chuckled darkly. “No. But your scent does. It’s mine now. Mine to command. Mine to use.”

He stood.

Took one long look at me—tied to the chair, still trembling, still defiant.

And then he turned back to the bed like I was no more than dust on his boots.

I couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t think.

The woman leaned against my legs, soft fingers skimming my thigh. The man’s lips brushed my throat, slow and unwanted. I recoiled again. They didn’t care.

On the bed, Vael began to fuck again.

And this time, the sounds were worse. Because my body, traitorous and pathetic, reacted to them.

Even as I begged the gods to rip this curse from my blood, I could feel heat blooming where there should have been only rage.

And I wanted to tear myself apart.