I try to imagine living that long. Watching civilizations rise and fall. Watching me, a mayfly by comparison, flutter through her brief existence.
“Does it get lonely?”
The question surprises us both. His eyes sharpen, studying me with renewed interest.
“Yes.” The honesty in his voice catches me off guard. “Lonelier than you can imagine.”
“But you’re surrounded by people. The court, the warriors—”
“They fear me. Or worship me. Or want something from me.” He gestures to the empty chair across from him, and I findmyself sitting without meaning to. “No one has had a genuine conversation with me in longer than most human civilizations have existed.”
“That’s…” I don’t know how to finish the sentence.
“That’s why I watched you for so long before claiming you.” He leans forward, firelight playing across his features. “You weren’t afraid of dying. You weren’t trying to manipulate me. You just saw a problem and tried to solve it. Do you know how rare that is?”
“I’m not rare. I’m just stubborn.”
“You’re remarkable.” He says it like a fact, not flattery. “And now you’re sitting in my library, asking about my feelings, like I’m not the monster who trapped you.”
“You are the monster who trapped me.”
“Yes.” He doesn’t flinch from the accusation. “I am. But you’re talking to me anyway.”
I don’t have a response to that.
“You can hate me and be curious about me at the same time,” he continues. “You can resent your captivity and still want to understand your captor. Emotions are complicated, Hannah. Especially the ones that scare us.”
“Nothing about you scares me.”
“Liar.” But he says it gently, almost fondly. “Everything about me scares you. Especially the parts you’re starting to like.”
I stand abruptly, my heart pounding. “I should go.”
“You should.” He doesn’t move to stop me. “But Hannah? The book in the case by the window—it’s a history of human-Fae relations. One of the few texts written in a language you can read. You might find it illuminating.”
I leave without taking the book.
But the next evening, when I’m sure he’s not watching, I go back for it.
That night, I break.
Not completely. Not the way he wants. But enough that I can’t pretend anymore.
The dream is the same as always—his weight on top of me, his hands pinning my wrists, his voice in my ear telling me to surrender. But this time, I don’t fight. This time, I arch into him, wrap my legs around his massive hips, beg him to fill me with the cock I’ve felt pressed against me every morning for weeks.
“Please,”I gasp in the dream.“Alpha, please—”
I wake up with my hand between my legs and my fingers already moving.
I should stop. I know I should stop. Every time I give in to this, I’m proving him right—proving that my body is being rewritten, that the transformation is working, that I’m becoming the omega he wants me to be.
But I’m so fucking empty.
The ache has been building for days—a hollow need in my core that nothing satisfies. I’ve tried ignoring it. Tried cold baths and exhausting myself in training and thinking about anything other than bronze skin and golden eyes and the way his voice drops when he calls me a good girl.
Nothing works.
And tonight, alone in his bed, surrounded by his scent, with the memory of his hand around my throat still burning on my skin—
