Chapter 21 #2
He gives me a nod and I thread my fingers back into her hair, gentler this time.
I guide her forward and she takes me eagerly, sucking hard.
Her fingers graze my balls then cup them in her warm hand, and I come fast, shooting off like a goddamn rocket.
The room fills with the sound of my groan and my hips lurch, pushing cum down her throat.
She swallows every drop, throat working around me until I’m spent.
When I pull out, she’s wrecked, pressed forward on all fours.
DK hauls her up carefully, cradling her against his chest, murmuring praises against her temple.
I don’t know how he does it, shifting from gentle to rough.
Kind to scathing. It’s a balance I don’t understand, but for now, the room settles and my control is restored.
For now.
The bed frame creaks in the dark, followed by a ragged gasp that slices through the quiet. I’m awake instantly, heart slamming against my ribs, hand already reaching for Ares.
He whines at the bed across the room, where I can see Arianette sitting upright in her bed.
She’s been sleeping with DK at night, but after everything, we decided to give her space to stretch out without pressing on the welts.
Moonlight cuts through the curtains, painting silver across her sweat-slick skin.
She’s breathing like she’s been sprinting for miles, chest heaving, eyes wide and unfocused.
DK’s already swinging his legs off the edge of his bed. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t need to. He heads straight for the bathroom, flicking on the low light. I hear the medicine cabinet open, the soft clink of the ointment jar, water running into a glass.
I’m out of bed before he comes back.
“Let me,” I say, voice rough with sleep and something heavier. Guilt. Regret. Confusion. One or all three, I don’t know. I block his path, hand out for the jar and glass. “I owe her that much.”
DK studies me for a second, reading everything I’m not saying.
The scar on his throat seems extra ghoulish in the pale light.
He nods once and hands them over. He shuffles back over to his bed, running his hand over his face to wake up.
He sits on the edge, arms crossed, watching.
I move next to her, careful not to jostle the mattress too much.
“Drink,” I murmur, holding the glass to her lips.
She takes it with shaking hands, gulps half, then lets me take it back. Her skin is hot, feverish from sleep.
“Roll over for me,” I say softly. “On your stomach.”
She hesitates, then obeys, slowly, wincing as the sheet pulls away from her back and ass. The bruises are in the shape of my palm against her brown skin, swollen and raw in the moonlight. My stomach twists.
I uncap the ointment, cool and herbal smelling, and dip my fingers in the jar.
This kind of touch is always the hardest part for me.
The monster lives right under my skin, whispering how easy it would be to press harder, to turn care into cruelty.
My hand hovers for a second, anxiety spiking, but I push through.
She gave me what I needed. I can give her what she needs in return.
I start at the top welt, spreading the cream in light, careful strokes. She flinches at the first contact, then relaxes by degrees, breath evening out.
DK watches every move, ready to step in if I falter.
After a minute, her voice comes, small, distant, like she’s still half in the dream. “I was underground,” she whispers. “When I started waking up… after they took me. Dirt floor. Cold. Running water somewhere close, like a stream or pipe. Old rusted bars on the cell door.”
My fingers pause. DK straightens and we look at one another. It’s hard to know when Arianette is here or lost in her mind.
“I don’t know how long it was before someone came. A day at least. Then someone brought food,” she continues, eyes fixed on the wall. “Trays slid through a slot on the floor. I never saw their faces.”
I continue to rub the cream into her wounds but when she shudders, I don’t think it’s from the pain.
“I’d been there for days when someone came right up to the bars.
” Her arm reaches up to hover over her face.
“They were wearing a mask. Not like yours. It was… wrong. Scorched black with a hint of bronze. It was metal, including the horns that protruded from the sides, like a ram, thick and ridged. The eyes were just holes, deep and empty.” She shivers.
“I don’t think there was a person behind that mask. ”
“Then what?” DK asks.
“A demon,” she whispers.
I realize I’ve stopped moving and force my hand to move again, spreading ointment lower, but my blood’s gone cold.
“The voice… it was distorted. Said we, the girls taken in Forsyth, were part of something bigger. An old cycle. That it was an honor to be chosen. That everyone else was just on the surface… but we were the roots.”
Her words trail off, voice fading like the memory is slipping away again.
The room is silent except for her breathing and the faint tick of the clock.
DK and I share another look over her back, confusion, and unease. I finish with the ointment, cap the jar, and pull the sheet gently up to her waist.
“Anything else?” DK asks.
She shakes her head, exhaustion settling back over her.
“Sleep,” I murmur, brushing damp hair from her forehead. “We’re here.”
She curls onto her side, facing away, and within minutes her breathing evens out again.
DK exhales, rubbing a hand over his face.
I stay on the edge of her bed for a long time, watching the moonlight shift across the floor.
Whatever she saw down there… whoever kept her, it wasn’t just for fun. It was for a greater purpose. Figuring out what that purpose is may just be what leads us to break this wide open.
The summons comes just after dawn, Graves at the bedroom door, voice flat. “The King wants you in the library. Now.”
I pull on jeans and a black hoodie, trying not to wake up DK or Arianette, who are still deep asleep. The House is quiet as it tends to be on a Saturday, hallways dim, the air thick with the scent of old wood and lingering smoke from the bonfire two nights ago.
The library door is ajar, fire already crackling low in the massive hearth. The King stands at the far window, back to me, unmasked in the early morning hours, a black silhouette framed by gray morning light filtering through leaded glass.
He doesn’t turn when I enter. “Close the door.”
I do. The click sounds final.
He faces me then, hands clasped behind his back. “I wanted to thank you,” he says, voice calm. “For taking on the role of punisher last night. It was necessary. You carried it out well.”
“You’re welcome.” My jaw tightens. “I apologize for going against you, but–”
“Don’t explain. Your job is to take care of the Baroness, and you’re doing it well.”
I stand there for a moment, weighing my next words. When he doesn't instantly dismiss me, I say, “Can I ask why you keep putting me in this position? Why do you keep letting me hurt her when you know what it does to me?”
He studies me for a long moment, eyes impassive, but I feel the weight of his gaze like it’s a physical thing.
“Learning to control your impulsivity is one of the most important things in life,” he says finally. “A man without control is a man without power.”
I almost laugh, but hold it back. “I never feel powerful. That monster inside, it’s running things. Leashed or not, it’s always there, pulling my strings.”
He steps closer, his expensive shoes gleaming in the firelight. “I told you before that you were chosen for a reason. You, DK, Arianette, you’ve all brushed death. Moments where your heart stopped, where the other side reached out and tried to claim you.”
I go still, not wanting to think about that time in my life.
“But you’re different, Hunter,” he continues, voice quieter now. “You’ve tasted it twice. Once when you almost lost your life. Once when you tried to take another’s.”
The air leaves my lungs.
Neither moment is one I’m proud of and I don’t understand why he’d see those as strengths. As reasons to elevate me.
Before I can ask, the memory slams into me, unbidden and vivid.
A single bed in a dim room. A girl lying still, pale skin marked with my teeth on her hips. Her bra, cheap black lace, wrapped tight around her throat. Her eyes wide, then glassy. The silence after.
It’s gone as fast as it came, a flash I can’t outrun, and when I blink back to the present, the King is watching me. Closer now, only a few feet away. Like he saw it, too.
Like he knows exactly what I’ve done.
The fire pops in the hearth, loud in the silence.
“My wife needs a firm hand and strict boundaries,” he says, voice steady, almost conversational. “That urge for wildness still runs in her blood, the vows did nothing to change that. But I have no doubt that together we’ll make her into the kind of Baroness the House of Night needs.”
I sit with that for a moment, the words settling heavy in my chest. He’s right about the wildness, I’ve felt it in her, seen it flare. But the rest… shaping her, like she’s clay instead of a person who’s already been broken too many times.
I shift my weight, throat tight. “She woke up last night,” I say finally. “A nightmare or memory, and she started talking.”
He doesn’t move, but I feel the pinprick of his attention behind the mask.
“She said she was underground after they took her. Dirt floor. Running water close by. Old rusted bars. Food came on trays slid through a slot, but she was unable to see any faces.”
“Because she can’t remember or because they were hidden?”
“Hidden.” I pause, remembering how her voice went distant, like she was back there.
“She said that one day someone came right up to the bars. They were wearing a mask, not like ours. This one was dark metal, almost black, but with a bronze sheen, like it had been burned or aged in fire. Massive ram’s horns curled out from the top. ”
The King’s gloved hands unclasp, falling to his sides.
“She called it a–”
“Demon,” he cuts in.
“Yes,” but I tell him something I don’t think he knows. “The person wearing it told her the girls taken in Forsyth were part of something bigger. An old cycle. An honor to be chosen. That everyone else is just on the surface… but they were the roots.”
Silence stretches, thick and cold. The fire crackles again, but it feels far away. Whatever the King is thinking he doesn’t share it with me, but I have a question, one that kept me up, long after DK and Arianette went back to sleep.
“I’ve noticed something. Her memories… they come clearest after pain. Real pain. DK pushing her under the water that day in the forest. Snapping at her during hypnosis. What happened last night after you punished her.” I swallow. “Why would that be?”
He considers it for a long moment, head tilting slightly.
“Pain can be a catalyst,” he says at last. “For Arianette, it’s possible that experiencing true, unleashed physical pain forces the part of her mind that locks things away to shift its focus to the wounds, the immediate sensation.
In that distraction, the barriers loosen.
The memories find room to surface.” He steps closer, voice lowering, “The distraction of hurt opens her mind.”
I nod, turning it over. It makes a twisted kind of sense. Pain as a key. Pain as a door.
“Be careful with that knowledge,” he adds quietly. “It’s a tool. Not a toy.”
I don’t answer. Just stand there while the fire burns lower, wondering how many more doors we’ll have to force open before she remembers everything.
And whether she’ll still be whole when we do.