Chapter Thirteen – The Wrong Mouth

Caelan stalked through the castle corridors like a man possessed, Ilia’s voice still echoing in his ears. Her defiance. Her fire. The way her eyes had met his without an ounce of fear.

He should have been angry.

Instead, he was aroused. Achingly so.

What was it about her? The lowborn slip of a girl with no title, no power, no claim to anything but a servant’s apron—yet she had walked away from him like a queen, leaving him in the dust of his own desire.

By the time he shoved open the doors to his chambers, he was barely holding himself together.

He didn’t notice the scent at first.

Didn’t register the shift in the air until a soft voice purred, “You look tense, Alpha.”

Helena.

She was lounging on his bed, a silk sheet pooled around her hips, her breasts bare and nipples peaked from the cool air. Her skin glowed in the low firelight, smooth and flushed, her thighs pressed together to hide the glistening wetness already pooling between them. The scent of her arousal clung to the air like perfume, thick and cloying. Her hair spilled over her shoulders like a golden river, and her eyes held the glint of triumph—as if she already knew how this night would end.

He barely opened his mouth before she was on her knees in front of him, hands working to unfasten the clasps of his pants. As she freed him, he spilled out, thick and aching—too large for her delicate hands to wrap around with ease. Her breath hitched, but he barely noticed. His thoughts were already far from her.

“Let me help you relax,” she whispered.

“Helena,” he warned, voice taut, but his body betrayed him. His mind—traitorous, starved—was already conjuring Ilia.

Not Helena’s hands, but Ilia’s.

Not Helena’s eyes gazing up at him, but the wide, dark ones that haunted his sleep.

She took him into her mouth, and he groaned—a raw, guttural sound torn from the depths of him. Her lips stretched around his size, struggling to take him in as her tongue swirled with practiced pressure. His hips bucked forward, instinctive, desperate, chasing the phantom image of another. His fingers tangled in her hair, not to guide her, but to ground himself—because in his mind, it wasn’t Helena kneeling before him.

It was Ilia.

Ilia, looking up at him with defiance and desire melting together.

Ilia, taking him deeper like she needed to own him.

His jaw clenched. His abs tightened. Every muscle in his body was drawn taut with a blistering, all-consuming need that had nothing to do with the mouth currently working him—and everything to do with the ghost of a girl seared into his mind. His cock throbbed, too thick for Helena’s mouth to handle, yet he barely registered her struggle. It was Ilia he saw. Ilia he imagined—on her knees, her lips parted and wet, cheeks flushed as she took him deep, her tongue teasing the underside of his shaft with a shy boldness. He could see her dark lashes fluttering, feel the tremble of her moan vibrating along his length. And gods help him, he could smell her too—jasmine and heat, not perfume, but something wild and feminine and wholly hers. It wasn’t pleasure Helena was pulling from him; it was madness—the madness of a man who’d already given himself to a dream he had no right to want.

A girl who should not matter.

A girl he could not stop craving.

But it wasn’t her he was responding to.

It was the dream. That damn dream. Ilia on her knees, hair spilled like ink, lips parted around him as she moaned softly against his skin. He could feel the heat of her mouth, the imagined worship in her gaze, the way she whimpered when he tangled his fingers in her hair.

He was close.

Too close.

And then Helena spoke. Said something smug. Something that wasn’t Ilia’s voice.

The illusion shattered.

He yanked back, panting, heart pounding with fury and guilt and disgust. “Stop.”

Helena blinked up at him, lips swollen, confusion quickly morphing into anger. “I was just—”

“I said stop.”

And then the door creaked open.

Ilia.

Standing there with a tray, her eyes locking onto the scene before her.

A naked Helena on her knees.

Caelan half-undressed.

Her expression didn’t change—not at first. But something in her eyes went dark. Detached. She placed the tray on the nearby table with quiet precision.

“Beta Derrin mentioned you’re prone to irritability when you’ve gone too long without nourishment,” she said, keeping her tone neutral, respectful. “I brought a meal, Alpha.”

Then she turned.

And left.

Caelan didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

Because the only thing worse than seeing her cry… was watching her go completely numb.