I turned my face away from him.
A growl rumbled against my ear, hot enough to raise goosebumps along my arms. “You should worry more about yourself,” he hissed. “You tried to escape. Again.”
My back arched slightly, instinctively leaning away from the heat of his voice. Oh, Hades. Was I trembling? No… it was him.
Before I could stop myself, the words tumbled out. “You try to scare me—and yet, you’re cradling me like I’m precious.”
That did it.
He stood abruptly, letting my feet drop to the floor. Then his hand caught the edge of the sheet.
He yanked it free.
I tried to hold on to the fabric, but it dissolved between my fingers like smoke. My breath hitched.
His gaze swept over me, slow and deliberate.
The remains of my shirt clung in tattered strips around my waist. My bra was mostly intact, and my panties…barely. Still, I didn’t flinch.
Behind him, his tail slapped the ground—once, twice—like it was acting on instinct alone.
He scoffed, voice thick and low. “Is this what woke the sins inside me?”
My heart thudded.
He moved behind me, his presence coiling like smoke around my body. I felt the air shift as his breath skimmed my shoulder.
“It’s laughable,” he muttered, darker now.
Twisting around to keep my eyes on him, I caught the Devil still scrutinizing me—like I was a riddle he couldn’t solve.
Before I could question whatever nonsense he was muttering under his breath, he stepped forward and ripped the last scraps of my shirt away. The air hit my skin like ice, and my breath caught as he raised his hand lazily, a flick of fingers toward the space between us.
“Undress.”
One ridiculous word—and suddenly, my skin buzzed like static. An involuntary throb pulsed between my legs, fierce and unwelcome.
Was it him? Was it me? Hades. Maybe it was the monster circling me like a predator whoalready knewhe’d won.
“It’s time for your next punishment,” the Devil said coolly. “There’s a tub behind you.”
I turned. A porcelain tub sat where there’d been nothing seconds before. His obsession with shifting reality at his whim was going to give me whiplash.
“My punishment is…to bathe?”
There was a scraping noise behind me—his claws dragging a chair across the floor. He dropped into it, lounging like a bored king.
“My eyes on you is the punishment,” he said, voice darkening. “You’ll wash every crevice of your body while I watch. Or I can do it for you.”
A glint sparked in his red eyes. Not amusement. Hunger.
But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Everything he did—his so-called punishments—felt absurd. His tail coiling around me, watching me eat, caging me with his body,now this?
Was it truly cruel?
Even if I loathed him, was this…torment?
Or was he playing a game he didn’t even understand anymore?
