Chapter 7: Death Penalty

Evelina Sinclair:

"Strip!"

The word cracked through the air like a whip, and I flinched so hard I felt my bones rattle inside my skin.

My hands went immediately to the neckline of the gown—the beautiful, terrible gown they had dressed me in, all silk and pearls and lies—but my eyes dropped to the floor. I couldn't help it. Three days ago, I had been a slave waiting to die. Now I was standing before the Supreme Alpha, the monster who had killed eight women before me, and he wanted me to—

"Look at me."

I froze, my fingers trembling against the fabric.

He moved closer. Close enough that I could see his boots in my peripheral vision, black leather polished to a mirror shine. Close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body like a furnace, scenting the air with pine and smoke and something darker, something that made my mouth water against my will.

"If you look down," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper that somehow felt more dangerous than his shouting, "if you look anywhere else except my eyes while you bare yourself to me, I will have you punished. Do you understand?"

I swallowed, my throat clicking dryly. "Yes, Your Majesty."

"Then look."

I forced my head up.

My heart was hammering so hard I thought it might crack my ribs, rising and falling in my chest like a bird trying to escape a cage. I was terrified—genuinely, bone-deep terrified—and yet the moment my eyes met his, something inside me stopped.

Gods.

He was handsome.

No—handsome was too small a word. Too human. He was devastating. Catastrophic. The kind of beautiful that ruined civilizations and toppled kingdoms, that made queens surrender their crowns and warriors lay down their swords just for the chance to kneel at his feet.

Long white hair, falling past his shoulders in silken waves that caught the candlelight and turned it silver. Red eyes—not brown, not amber, but true crimson, like fresh blood, like rubies lit from within—that stared into me with an intensity that made my knees weak and my core clench with a sudden, traitorous heat. Olive skin stretched over sharp cheekbones and a jaw that looked carved from marble, dusted with the shadow of a beard that hadn't been there during the frenzy.

He was so beautiful it felt like sin just looking at him.

I realized I had stopped moving. My hands were frozen at my collarbone, my mouth slightly open, my eyes probably wide as a doe's. I was staring at him—actually staring at the Supreme Alpha—and I couldn't stop.

No one looked at him. Everyone said so. The guards looked at his boots. The ministers looked at his shoulder. The concubines looked at his chest.

But me? I was looking at his eyes, and he was letting me, and I was so mesmerized by the color, by the centuries of pain and power I could see swirling in those crimson depths, that I forgot I was supposed to be undressing.

He reached out.

I didn't even see his hand move—he was that fast, that lethal—but suddenly his fingers were hooked into the neckline of my gown, and with a single, violent yank, he tore the fabric clean down the middle.

I gasped, the sound high and shocked, as silk ripped like paper and cool air hit my bare skin. The gown fell away, pooling at my feet in a puddle of expensive ruin, leaving me standing there in nothing but the jeweled earrings and the pearls in my hair.

I was naked.

Before him.

The Supreme Alpha.

And I had just looked him in the eyes.

Probably the only low-life Omega born in the gutters who had ever dared such a thing.

His gaze dropped.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

He dragged those crimson eyes down my body like a physical touch—over my collarbones, my breasts, my nipples peaking hard and tight in the cool air, down my trembling stomach to the place where I was already wet, already aching, already *his* in a way my mind hadn't caught up to yet.

He made a sound—low, guttural, almost pained—and I saw his throat work as he swallowed.

"Turn around," he commanded, his voice rough, strained, nothing like the cold control he had shown with Morgana.

I blinked, confused, trembling.

"Hands on the desk."

He gestured to the massive oak desk behind me—the same desk where he signed death warrants and declared wars—and I understood. Find support. Hold on.

My legs felt like water, but I turned and stumbled to the desk, placing my palms flat against the polished wood. It was cold against my fevered skin, smooth and solid and real. I bent forward, my hair falling around my shoulders like a curtain, my body exposed and open and vulnerable in a way that made my stomach clench with fear and my thighs slick with something else entirely.

I heard him move behind me—the rustle of his coat, the clink of his belt, the whisper of leather against skin as he freed himself—and then his hands were on my hips, gripping hard enough to bruise, his thumbs pressing into the soft flesh with a possession that made me whimper.

"Don't close your eyes," he ordered, his breath hot against my ear. "Keep them forward. Keep them open. I want you to watch yourself take me."

I nodded, my breath coming in short, panicked gasps, my fingers curling against the desk's surface.

The head of his cock pressed against my entrance—hot, thick, impossibly large—and I felt my body try to resist, try to close against the invasion. He was too big. I was too small. This was going to hurt, was going to tear me apart, was going to—

He entered me in one brutal thrust.

I screamed.

It was different from the frenzy—slower, more deliberate, but somehow more devastating because I was aware of every inch. He was massive, thick and hard and impossibly big, stretching me around him so tightly I could feel my own pulse beating against his length, could feel every vein and ridge of him as he forced my body to accept what it thought it couldn't take. He didn't fit all the way—he couldn't, I was too small, too inexperienced—but what did fit burned like fire and pleasure and something else, something that made my toes curl against the floor and my back arch in helpless submission.

"Quiet," he growled, but his voice lacked the edge of true command. He was holding back. I could feel it in the tremor of his hands, in the way he paused once he was seated inside me, giving me a moment to adjust, to breathe, to survive. His chest heaved against my back, his heartbeat thundering where his body pressed against mine.

Unlike the blood moon, he was... gentle.

Or as gentle as a monster could be.

He began to move, pulling out slowly, so slowly I could feel every vein, every ridge of him dragging against my inner walls, making me sob with the sheer intensity of being emptied, and then pushing back in with a force that drove the air from my lungs and my hips against the desk. He set a rhythm that was punishing but measured, each thrust hitting deep enough to make my vision spark with white light, each withdrawal leaving me empty and aching and desperate to be filled again.

I moaned.

I couldn't help it. The sound tore from my throat, high and broken and humiliating, echoing in the vast chamber.

He made a noise in response—a growl, primal and satisfied—and his grip on my hips tightened, his fingers digging into the soft flesh until I knew I would wear his marks for days. "Again," he commanded, his voice thick with lust. "Let me hear what I do to you."

I moaned again, louder this time, my head falling back as he increased his pace. The desk creaked beneath me, the wood groaning in protest as he drove into me again and again, his hips slapping against my ass with wet, filthy sounds that should have shamed me but only made me hotter, wetter, more desperate. I could feel myself dripping down my thighs, could smell my own arousal mixing with his scent until the air was thick with it, until I was drowning in the smell of us.

He was destroying me.

Rebuilding me.

I could feel the pleasure building, coiling tight in my belly, a pressure so intense it bordered on pain. Every thrust hit that spot inside me, that perfect, terrible spot that made my legs shake and my fingers scramble for purchase on the desk, that made me push back against him even as I feared what he was doing to me.

I was going to—

He changed angle, and I shattered.

The orgasm crashed through me without warning, my body clamping down on him, my back arching as I cried out his name—or tried to, the sound dissolving into a wail of pleasure so sharp it felt like dying. My vision went white, my ears ringing, my entire existence narrowing down to the place where he was still moving inside me, still fucking me, still claiming me even as I came apart around him.

He didn't stop.

He kept fucking me through it, using my spasming body to chase his own release, his thrusts becoming erratic, wild, losing the careful control he had maintained. His hands slid up my body, covering my breasts, pinching my nipples hard enough to make me gasp, before one hand wrapped around my throat and pulled me upright against his chest.

I was still shaking, still coming down from the peak, when I felt him lean forward, his chest pressing against my back, his white hair falling around us like a curtain, his breath hot and ragged against my ear.

"Mine," he snarled, the word barely human, vibrating with possession. "Say it."

"Yours," I gasped, the word falling from my lips without thought, without choice, because it was true. I was his.

He growled—low, triumphant, feral—and his hand on my throat tightened just enough to make my head spin, just enough to remind me who held my life in his hands.

Without thinking—without *meaning* to—I reached back.

My hand found his hair, my fingers curling into those silken white strands, and I pulled.

I pulled him closer.

He froze.

I froze.

Slowly, impossibly slowly, he lifted his head.

I turned mine.

Our eyes met.

Red and green. Monster and victim. Supreme Alpha and low-life Omega.

I was still holding his hair, my fist wrapped in white silk, my body still impaled on his cock, and we were staring at each other with something that looked like shock on his face and terror on mine.

A low-life Omega had just touched the Supreme Alpha's hair.

Pulled it.

Commanded him closer.

That was it.

That was the death penalty.