“I wasn’t—”
“You were.” His hand comes to rest on my hip, massive and warm through the leather of my training clothes. “And you’ll do it again tonight. And the night after. The need will grow,Hannah. The ache will deepen. And eventually, your own fingers won’t be enough.”
I shudder at his words—at the truth of them.
“When that happens,” he continues, his hand sliding from my hip to my belly, pressing me back against his chest, “when you’re desperate enough to admit what you really want—come to me. I’ll give you what you need.”
I feel so small against him. The top of my head barely reaches his collarbone, and his arm around my waist makes me feel like a doll. His cock is hardening against the small of my back—that impossible thickness, those ridges I’ve felt through our clothes so many times. It presses against me, huge and hot even through layers of leather, and I realize with a jolt of panic and arousal that it would split me in half.
But my body doesn’t seem to care about what’s possible.
My body just wants.
“You’ll come to my bed willingly, Hannah. You’ll beg me to take you. And when I finally sink inside you—when you feel what it’s like to be stretched around a cock designed to claim you—you’ll understand why fighting was never an option.”
His other hand comes up to cup my throat again—the same position from yesterday, the same reminder of how completely he controls me. My pulse jumps against his palm, and I feel that same terrible peace wash over me. That same relief at being held by someone stronger than me. Someone who could break me but chooses to keep me instead.
“But not yet,” he murmurs against my ear, his breath hot on my skin. “I want you desperate. I want you aching. I want you toremember exactly how it felt to resist, so you understand what you’re surrendering when you finally give in.”
He releases me and steps back.
The cold air hits my skin where his warmth had been, and I actually whimper at the loss. The sound escapes before I can stop it—small and needy and pathetic—and I see his eyes flash with satisfaction.
“Now. Position one. Show me what you’ve learned.”
I turn to face him on shaking legs, my body screaming for something I refuse to ask for.
And I know—with a certainty that settles into my bones like stone—that he’s right.
I’m going to break.
It’s only a matter of time.Chapter 10: Karax
Two days since she broke.
Two days since I watched her shatter in my bed, calling my name, begging for permission to come. Two days since I smelled the change in her scent that morning and knew the heat was close—building in her blood like a storm gathering on the horizon.
I’ve kept my distance since then.
Not out of mercy. Out of strategy. Every hour I deny her my presence, the need grows sharper. Every night she spends alone in my bed, surrounded by my scent but unable to reach me, her body winds tighter. I want her desperate when she finally breaks completely. I want her so far gone that pride doesn’t even occur to her—only need. Only me.
So I train in the private arena. Attend to court matters I’ve been neglecting. Sleep in my secondary chambers, leaving her alone with the ache I’ve cultivated so carefully.
And I wait.
She comes to me on the third night.
Not to surrender—not yet. But close. So close I can taste it.
I’m running drills in the private arena when I hear her footsteps in the corridor. It’s well past midnight, the fortress quiet except for the night guards on their rounds. She should be in bed, trying to sleep, failing to ignore the heat building under her skin.
Instead, she’s here.
The door opens. She stands in the entrance wearing her training leathers, a practice blade already in her hand. Her hair is damp—she’s been in the cold bath again, trying to douse the fire that won’t stop burning. It hasn’t worked. I can see the flush on her cheeks from across the room, can smell the desperate sweetness of her arousal cutting through the stone-and-steel scent of the arena.
“I need to train,” she says. Her voice is steady, but her hands aren’t. “I can’t sleep.”
“So train.”
