He's a Monster

Selene's pov

Like a panther, he moved fast, his fingers tangled in my hair and yanked.

A cry caught in my throat as my head snapped back, pain slicing through my neck. My scalp burned. My knees buckled under the pressure. I stared up at him, his face carved in stone, eyes glowing with a rage that had long since eclipsed reason.

I swallowed hard, choking on the scream clawing at the back of my throat.

His breath ghosted over my he looked furious. “You either strip… or I call the guards to do it for you, and believe me, Princess, they’d enjoy it a lot more than I would.” he said.

The words stung like a slap, cutting deeper than his hands ever could. I felt the humiliation tighten around my throat like a noose. His sarcasm was sharp, cruel and deliberate. He wanted me to feel the weight of it.

My hands trembled.

But slowly… deliberately… I reached behind me and loosened the back of my dress. The fabric slipped from my shoulders. One layer… then another. Until the silk pooled around my ankles in silence.

I stood there, cold, exposed. I was shivering not from the temperature, but from the storm swirling behind his eyes.

I forced myself to look up at him. My voice cracked like dried leaves. “Why?” I whispered. “Why *me*? Why not my father? Why not the man who… who did this to you?”

His expression faltered for a second.

“I don’t know,” he said. His voice was lower now. Rougher. “I ask myself the same damn question.”

He took a step closer. I didn’t move.

“My father was on the throne. My mother was in the nursery. My pregnant sister Lizzy was Seventeen when your father kill them all."

I froze. I hadn’t known this. None of it.

“I was sixteen,” Kael went on, his eyes locked on mine. “Old enough to remember every second of it. Old enough to hear them scream. Old enough to watch them burn. And then your father… he took me.”

A breath hitched in my chest.

He moved closer again, his face now inches from mine. His eyes were fire.

“He paraded me like a trophy. For fifteen years, I’ve asked—why me?” His voice thundered, then fell into a growl. “Why did he kill all of them and take only me into his hell?”

Tears pricked my eyes. My heart pounded so loudly I could barely hear my own breath.

Kael’s jaw clenched, “Do you know what makes my blood boil every time I look at you?”

I shook my head—afraid to speak.

“You’re his only daughter, just one. Why does a man like him who destroyed everything get to keep one child?”

His voice cracked on that last word, and I swear the earth could have split between us.

“You can’t take it all,” he said coldly. “You’re not enough.”

He turned away as if disgusted then turned back just as fast.

“But you will take it,” he snapped. “Every ounce of hate. Every demon I’ve kept buried. You’ll carry them all, because there’s no one else left to give them to.”

My knees threatened to give out. I couldn’t breathe. He meant every word. There was no madness in his eyes only clarity. Only the raw, twisted clarity of pain left to rot for too long.

Then, Kael pointed to the massive bed behind him.

“Climb the bed,” he ordered, voice like steel. “Now.”

I was shaking—knees to chest, nails digging into my arms. The cell walls closed in, stone and silence pressing against my chest like a vice. But nothing was more suffocating than the truth I had just heard.

My father…

I couldn’t even say the word father without tasting poison. The things he’d done. what Kael had survived because I didn’t want to believe it.

And now… I was the one paying for it.

Not him.

But me.

The cruel irony of it all was unbearable. I would lose my virginity tonight not to love, but as retribution. In the cruelest, most inhumane way. I would carry the shame for a sin that wasn’t mine to bear.

"Climb the bed. Spread your legs."

I blinked. My breath caught in my throat. The air in the room turned brittle.

For a moment, I wanted to run, to curl up, to vanish into the shadows. But where would I run to? What did I even have left?

So I obeyed because sometimes, the only thing a person can do is survive.

My limbs trembled as I climbed onto the hard bed. I spread my legs slowly, my cheeks burning with fear, and the realization that this cruel ritual was how I’d lose the last piece of myself.

He moved forward.

I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. But I felt him.

The heat of his body and the weight of his gaze.

The silent rage still simmering inside him.

Then he gripped my thighs, and my breath hitched.

I’d seen slaves before with bare bodies but none like Kael. He wasn’t just a man. He was carved from fury and vengeance. Built like the gods my mother used to tell me stories about, but twice as merciless.

And then I felt his phallus inside me. It was so big.

A white-hot scream tore through me as my back arched off the bed. The pain was blinding, savage, and absolute. I wanted to disappear. To wake up and learn this was a nightmare. But it wasn’t.

He moved.

So rough and unrelenting. Like he hated me.

Each thrust was a punishment. I bit my tongue to stop myself from crying out again. I clenched my fists, forcing my body to endure.

Then, after a few thrust… he stopped.

Without warning, he pulled out of me, breathing ragged and uneven. I didn’t dare look up.

“Get. Out,” he growled.

His voice was like a blade.

I blinked in confusion, my body still shaking, my thighs slick with pain.

He hadn’t even finished.

Why?

Why just throw me out like that?

But I didn’t ask. I couldn’t.

I slid off the bed, my legs were unsteady beneath me, and staggered back to my cell like a shattered doll. My body ached. My soul felt hollow. I wanted to scream, to cry, to bleed out my shame.

I curled into the corner again, just like before.

The door creaked again.

I flinched.

It was the leader of the maids again.

She stepped forward and said coldly, “The king has ordered me to extract you.”

I blinked at her, the words barely making sense.

“Again?” I croaked, my voice hoarse.

“What does he want now? To humiliate me further?”

Her gaze narrowed.

"Watch your tongue, girl.”

I didn’t care.

“He’s a monster!” I hissed. “He took everything from me and threw me out like filth! Like I was nothing! Just like my father—”

Her hand clamped over my mouth.

“You’ll learn to control that tongue if you want to live long in this palace,” she snapped, eyes burning into mine.

I yanked away from her grip, breathing hard. “He is a monster.”

“No.” Her voice dropped to a bitter whisper. “You have no idea what a monster truly is. Your father was the monster. Compared to what he did to Kael… that man is a saint.”

I stared at her, stunned.

“Now get up. And follow me.”

I didn’t argue.

I was too numb.

She led me through narrow corridors I hadn’t seen before, past thick velvet curtains and towering iron doors. And then… we stopped in front of a large chamber.

She pushed the door open.

My breath caught.

The room was beautiful—simple, but… livable. It had light. Air. A proper bed. A clean mat. A basin with water that wasn’t murky or ice-cold. It was more than I’d had in days.

“This is your new room,” the woman said.

I turned to her, confused. “Why?”

“It was the king’s order,” she said. “He told me to give you this room.”

I froze.

Kael?

After what he did?

My face twisted in disbelief. “Why would he—?”

“If you truly want to survive,” she cut in, “you’ll have to learn to live here. Learn to endure. And stop blaming him for the sins of a man who ruined both your lives.”

She stepped back, her voice losing its edge.

“Sleep. You’ll need it. The real struggle sta

rts tomorrow. I’ll come for you tomorrow.”

Then she left.

And I stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by silence.

I didn’t know if this was mercy or another kind of punishment.