Chapter Two
Ardyn He didn't speak. He just stared. Caelum Thorn stood at the edge of the steam-fogged glass, backlit by the low glow of the bathroom sconces like some ghost from a darker world. A nightmare I should’ve feared. A man no girl should ever tempt. But I was naked. Wet. Dripping. Fingers still between my thighs. Breath caught in my throat. My shame glowing across my cheeks as his silver eyes devoured every inch of me. I froze. Not because I was afraid—though maybe I should’ve been—but because he didn’t look away. He made no move to turn around. No demand to stop. He just… watched. I lowered my hand. Slowly. Not in modesty, not really. It was something else. Some primal instinct that told me to behave, to obey, to submit—because I was prey, and he was the kind of man who only hunted when he was ready to own something completely. His voice broke the silence like a whip. “You think I wouldn't find out?” I swallowed hard, my mouth dry despite the shower’s heat. “I—” My voice cracked. “I didn’t mean—” “You didn’t mean to disobey?” His eyes narrowed. “Didn’t mean to finger yourself in my shower while thinking about my cock?” I gasped. Not from the words—God, I lived among worse in the brothel—but from how calm he was. Like none of this affected him. Like I was a stain on his floor he hadn’t yet decided whether to clean or claim. I tried to cover myself, one arm over my chest, the other across my core. He tsked softly. “Don’t hide. It’s too late for that.” I dropped my hands without thinking. Something inside me… liked obeying him. “You want to be punished, Ardyn?” he asked, voice low and lethal. I blinked up at him. My legs shook, the heat of my arousal nowhere near gone. I was still throbbing. Still wet. Not from the water. “No,” I whispered. A pause. “But you do want something, don’t you?” God help me. I nodded. He stepped closer. My back hit the slick tile wall, heart hammering against my ribs. He didn’t touch me. Didn’t raise his voice. But I felt the threat of his control in every inch between us. “You want me to touch you. To bend you over this marble and fuck you until you forget your own name.” I sucked in a breath. “Yes,” I whispered, dizzy with want. He smirked. Cold. Cruel. “No.” The word hit harder than a slap. He stepped back, watching my face twist in confusion, then humiliation. I wanted to scream. Beg. Cling to him like an animal in heat. But I didn’t move. “You don’t get rewards for disobedience,” he said, turning on his heel. “And I don’t fuck desperate little girls who touch themselves like whores in my home.” My eyes burned. I should’ve hated him. But all I felt was need. As he reached the door, he paused, glancing over his shoulder. “Clean yourself up. Put on your uniform. And stay out of my quarters.” A beat. “Next time, I won’t just watch.” Then he was gone. The door clicked shut behind him. And I collapsed to my knees, still shaking, skin burning with the weight of his voice. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry, come, or follow him down the hall just to beg for the chance to feel his hands on me. But I knew one thing with terrifying clarity: I wanted to be his. But he hasn’t even touched me yet. --- End of Chapter TwoChapter Eight – “The Woman in His Bed”The hallway outside his room was quiet.Too quiet.My pulse kicked up as I crept closer, feet bare against the polished floor. I should’ve been folding laundry or scrubbing the west hall. Instead, I stood outside Caelum’s door, doing what he told me never to do.Spying.The door wasn’t fully shut.And what I saw through the gap slammed into my chest like a fucking sledgehammer.Her.She was draped across his lap, bare legs tangled in his. Her moans were low, needy. One of his hands was in her hair, the other between her thighs.He looked... unaffected.Cold. Detached.He touched her like it meant nothing. Like she was a chore. A distraction.But she was still in his bed, and I wasn’t.Something sick and hot twisted in my stomach. My fists clenched at my sides.She wasn't me. And maybe that’s why it hurt.I turned, left without a sound, and practically ran down the stairs.I felt like an idiot. Like a child with a crush who thought being tied up a
Chapter Seven I didn’t know what I expected when he said, “Come to my quarters tonight.”Maybe velvet sheets. Maybe chains.Maybe to be fucked until I forgot my name.What I didn’t expect was silence.The kind that wrapped around you like a collar. Choked you softly.His bedroom was nothing like the rest of the mansion. No gold. No crystal chandeliers. Just dark stone, cold floors, and heavy shadows that didn’t leave when the lamps came on.He sat in a black leather chair, legs spread, wine glass in hand, watching me like I was already on my knees.“Lock the door,” he said.Click.“Strip.”I hesitated.He raised one brow. “You want to play this game, Ardyn? Or are you just another little girl who begs for attention and runs when she gets it?”I swallowed hard and peeled off my dress, inch by inch.By the time I stood naked before him, I was shaking. Not from fear—but from the weight of everything unsaid. The knowledge that this was the moment I wouldn’t come back from.He set the win
I woke with his scent still clinging to my skin.Not cologne—no, Caelum wasn’t that cliché. It was something colder, sharper. Power wrapped in restraint. The memory of his mouth between my legs and the unbearable ache he left behind simmered under my skin like a bruise I couldn’t stop pressing.I’d begged.He hadn’t relented.I hated him for it. And I wanted him more than I wanted air.When I stepped into the hallway that morning, I felt different—like something had shifted in me. Like my body didn’t fully belong to me anymore. He hadn’t taken me, but he had claimed me.That was the difference with a man like Caelum. He didn’t need to fuck you to own you.Eda handed me my cleaning assignments like nothing had changed.The ballroom. The hallway mirrors. Fresh flowers in the drawing room.I barely heard her.He was somewhere inside this house, sipping coffee, maybe reading the paper with that same calm detachment—and I couldn’t stop picturing him watching me come apart again. Silent. Sm
Chapter Five – “Rules of Desire”ArdynI didn't know how long he left me there.Blindfolded. Hands bound. Wet with need and aching with frustration.My thighs were slick with it—shameless proof of how badly I wanted what he refused to give. Every breath I took was laced with the memory of his voice, his heat, his nearness… and the devastating space he’d left behind when he stepped away.He hadn't touched me—not really. Just a tease, a whisper of a promise.And it wrecked me.Somewhere in the dark, the door opened again. I tensed, head lifting, heart hammering. I waited to hear his voice. To feel his hands. To be—"You're still here." His voice—calm, detached. Almost amused.I swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”He exhaled slowly, like he’d been expecting something else."Good girl."My stomach flipped.A second later, the blindfold slipped away. I blinked against the light as the silk around my wrists loosened. My arms dropped into my lap, wrists tender, skin flushed.He crouched in front of
Chapter Four – “Obey Me”ArdynThe woman in the photo wouldn't leave me alone.She haunted my thoughts more than the man who kept me locked inside this mansion. And that was saying something, considering how Caelum consumed my every breath.After last night, I should’ve stayed in my lane—done the chores, kept my head down, avoided locked doors and sharp stares. But that look in his eyes when he mentioned her…There was history there. Pain. And something else.Something I wanted to understand.So I started digging.It began small. Casual questions to the other maids during laundry folding. No one said much. Just tight lips and quick glances, like they didn’t even want to think about her.“She was important,” one of them finally muttered under her breath. “Don’t go there.”But I couldn’t help it. Curiosity was already chewing holes through my spine.I cleaned his library again that morning, careful and slow, pretending not to peek at the shelf where her photo had once sat. It was gone n
Chapter Three – The Forbidden WingArdynThe walls whispered secrets.That’s what it felt like as I wandered the endless halls of Caelum’s mansion the morning after the shower—my mind still caught in the heat of everything he didn’t do to me. I hadn’t seen him since. Not a single glance. No knock. No orders.He left me to stew.Maybe that was the real punishment.The staff ignored me as they always did—well-trained ghosts who moved soundlessly through the estate. Dressed in my assigned maid uniform—black dress, sheer stockings, and that humiliating little white apron—I looked like a prop in someone’s twisted fantasy.Only I was very, very real. And I was restless.So I explored.I didn’t mean to. It just started with the east hallway, the one I wasn’t supposed to enter.“No one goes past the double arch,” the housekeeper had warned me on my first day. “Those are the Master’s private quarters. That entire wing is off-limits.”She might as well have told me to go look.The place was mas
Chapter TwoArdynHe didn't speak.He just stared.Caelum Thorn stood at the edge of the steam-fogged glass, backlit by the low glow of the bathroom sconces like some ghost from a darker world. A nightmare I should’ve feared. A man no girl should ever tempt.But I was naked. Wet. Dripping.Fingers still between my thighs. Breath caught in my throat. My shame glowing across my cheeks as his silver eyes devoured every inch of me.I froze. Not because I was afraid—though maybe I should’ve been—but because he didn’t look away.He made no move to turn around. No demand to stop.He just… watched.I lowered my hand. Slowly. Not in modesty, not really. It was something else. Some primal instinct that told me to behave, to obey, to submit—because I was prey, and he was the kind of man who only hunted when he was ready to own something completely.His voice broke the silence like a whip.“You think I wouldn't find out?”I swallowed hard, my mouth dry despite the shower’s heat.“I—” My voice cra
Chapter OneArdynI turned Nineteen today.There was no cake. No candles. Just the sound of a bolt locking behind me, and the click of heels on marble as I was led through the halls of a place women never left untouched.The brothel was nothing like the gutter I’d grown up in. Velvet curtains, chandeliers dripping in crystal, and the air thick with perfume and lust. But I knew what it was the moment I stepped through the door. A whorehouse for the powerful. A showroom for the desperate. And I… I was the new doll on the shelf.I didn’t cry. That part of me died years ago.I just stood there, wearing the black silk slip they gave me. Thin enough to see the curve of my breasts, the shape of my nipples, the hard points of my thighs. One of the women tried to do my makeup—red lips, smudged liner—but I wiped it away the first chance I got.I didn’t want to look like a whore.Not when I hadn’t even been touched yet.They said virgins fetched a higher price. That men paid fortunes for the pri