LOGINSilence. Caelum's breathing was shallow, controlled. He stood perfectly still, chains barely moving.
Isabella stepped closer, reaching toward him through the bars. "Are you hurt? Are they feeding you? Oh, darling, you look so thin—"
"I'm fine," Caelum said. His voice was hoarse but stea
Chapter 43When the vampire's mouth descended to close around one aching nipple, tongue swirling with skill, Caelum's last coherent thought was that he was lost—utterly, completely lost—and that perhaps, in this drugged state, he didn't entirely mind being found.The sensation was unlike anything in his previous experience—not the rough urgency of stolen moments with palace guards or the clumsy fumbling of his few romantic encounters during diplomatic visits.This was something else entirely: methodical, deliberate, as though Velis were mapping every nerve ending with the patience of a scholar studying ancient texts."Look at me," Velis commanded softly, lifting his head just enough to meet Caelum's gaze. "I want to see those
Chapter 42"Why?" The question hung in the air between them, deceptively simple. "Your human constitution should not allow such rapid recovery. What are you not telling me, little prince?"Caelum's response was a barely coherent mumble, his tongue still thick from the drugs. "Fuck... off..."A hand reached toward him—pale, long-fingered, decorated with rings that had probably adorned the fingers of kings before their owners met unfortunate ends. The gesture was gentle, almost hesitant, as though approaching a wounded animal that might bolt at any sudden movement."Let me help you back to bed. These floors are too cold for someone in your condition.""Don't—" Caelum tried to jerk away, but
Chapter 41The endearment, the tone of false comfort—it was worse than violence. Violence, at least, was honest.This mockery of care, this pretense of gentleness from the monster who had destroyed everything Caelum had ever loved, made bile rise in his throat.But the sedative was already coursing through his veins, turning his limbs to lead and his thoughts to honey.His body went limp against Velis's chest, strength fleeing like water through cupped hands.Yet still the vampire lord held him, one arm supporting his shoulders while the other continued its careful work.Through the gathering haze of drug-induced stupor, questions bur
Chapter 40The surviving soldiers would remember those words for whatever remained of their miserable lives.They would whisper them in the darkness of their cells, would wake screaming from dreams where that soft voice promised them torments beyond imagination.They had witnessed something being born in that chamber—not love, for creatures like Velis were incapable of such pure emotion.But obsession, certainly.Possession that transcended the merely physical. The kind of fixation that had toppled kingdoms and driven men to acts of madness that echoed through history.And at the center of it all hung a broken prince who had som
Chapter 39Bronze rang against stone like a bell tolling doom. Caelum's blood painted the walls in crimson arcs, splashed across the faces of the torturers who had been so absorbed in their work that they hadn't noticed death entering their sanctuary.The metallic scent exploded through the confined space, thick enough to taste, rich enough to make even the strongest stomach clench."Who," Velis asked, and each word fell into the sudden silence like a blade finding flesh, "gave the order for this?"The three men who had been so confident in their work moments before now looked like rabbits caught in an open field by circling hawks.Two of them—mere soldiers whose names Velis had neve
Chapter 38Velis stepped carefully between the bodies, his boots squelching in puddles that reflected torchlight like dark mirrors.The silence felt wrong—not the comfortable quiet of a tomb, but the breathless hush that follows catastrophe.A single prisoner had done this. A mortal boy, barely past twenty summers, who had been dragged into these dungeons more dead than alive just days ago.Caelum, the fallen prince whose kingdom Velis had ground to dust, whose family had died screaming his name.That same boy had carved a path of destruction through Velis's most seasoned killers armed with nothing but chains and desperation.For the







