He found my clit and teased it with maddening circles. I gasped, my head hitting the wall behind me, my body arching toward his touch.
“You are to join the Timehunters,” he said, lips brushing the hollow of my throat.
I froze. “What do you mean?”
He didn’t stop. Two fingers pushed into me, coaxing my surrender with an intimate rhythm that made my knees buckle. “Exactly what I said. If you want my knowledge, you’ll become one of them. And you’ll hide what you are… or I’ll be the one to order your execution.”
Then his hand plunged deeper—his whole hand—and my body opened for him with a shocking, hungry ache. He curled his fingers into a fist, stretching me wide as his cock pressed against my hip, thick and hard, demanding attention.
“Promise me,” he growled against my ear, his breath hot, his voice a command disguised as a plea.
I couldn’t speak. Every nerve was aflame. His thrusts were merciless, claiming every part of me. I had to relax, or it would feel like pain, but the line between pleasure and surrender had already blurred. And maybe that was his point.
“Promise me,” he said again, voice low, dangerous, almost broken. His fist moved deeper inside, and I gasped, overwhelmed by the fullness, by the pleasure, by him.
What real harm could there be in joining this loathsome society? Was it not wiser to stand beside them than to keep running like hunted prey? The Timehunters—sworn enemies of every Timeborne—had carved their name into history with brutality, precision, and unshakable loyalty to their cause. To align with them was to betray everything I once believed in. And yet...
Raul’s eyes locked onto mine, filled with dark reverence, like he saw something sacred in my defiance. That look shattered something inside me. Or maybe it awakened something I’d buried—something primal. Something willing to surrender.
His fist moved with a brutal rhythm, stretching and claiming me, and I clung to the edge of consciousness as pleasure laced with purpose roared through my veins. His stare never wavered, daring me to cross the line and never look back.
His request settled deep in my chest. This was no idle favor—it was a blood pact. If I refused, it wouldn’t just be Raul I betrayed. It would be me—my survival.
I exhaled a shaking breath and nodded.
Electricity sparked beneath my skin. My body buzzed, nerves alight with pleasure and fear. The choice was made—I would join the Timehunters. I would learn Raul’s deadly alchemy. And if my daughter ever dared to walk the path of time travel, I would craft the poison that would end her.
Everything was unfolding just as I planned. But as Raul claimed me with relentless force and shadows thickened around the edges of the Phytomancer’s Den, a chill crept into my bones.
Something about this path felt… wrong. Twisted. Fractured.
And deep down, I knew—no plan survived the darkness it invited.
Chapter 44
Alina
Three months after my son was born, the shrieks of Scholar’s wicked voice began invading my mind. They never stopped. They slithered into every corner of my thoughts, poisoning my sanity with cruel whispers. Paranoia devoured me. The hallucinations grew more vivid until I couldn’t tell reality from madness. No matter where I went, I was never alone. His voice always followed.
“You think you can run away and hide in Italy?” he hissed. “I see everything. I watch you, always.”
There was no escape. No silence. No safety. He haunted me like a curse stitched into my very bones. And still, one small voice whispered in the background—But why hasn’t he killed me?
Sometimes I would claw at my scalp, sobbing and screaming into the void, “What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?”—but Scholar would vanish into chilling silence, letting my own thoughts destroy me.
The quiet was worse than his words.
My suffering was constant, relentless.
Even my son—my beautiful boy—was beginning to show signs of darkness. He would cry and thrash with a rage far beyond his age, like something ancient and angry stirred inside him. Part of me wanted to stay, to nurture that darkness, to raise him to understand what he carried in his blood.
But the voices… they wouldn’t stop. And I knew—if I stayed, I would only bring ruin to us all.
The idea of leaving Raul and our child crushed me. The memories—our whispered conversations, shared laughter, and burning passion—lived in my chest like dying embers I didn’t want to extinguish. I wished, with everything in me, that I could freeze time, that I could live inside those fleeting moments forever.
But time never froze. And shadows never slept.
Raul had left for the Phytomancer’s Den early that morning, unaware that he would return to find me gone. He believed all would be well—that our little world would remain unchanged. But I couldn’t take the torment any longer. I had to leave. I had to find Malik. I needed answers before I lost what was left of my sanity.
