Chapter Three
Isaac rubbed the sleepiness from his eyes as he sat up. Something had disturbed his sleep, but what? He inhaled a sharp breath when he spotted Dimitri sitting in the cream-colored chair in the corner. The intensity with which Dimitri stared at him was unnerving.
“What are you doing in here?” Isaac was fully dressed but still had the urge to pull the blankets close to his chest.
Dimitri rose from the chair with fluid grace that reminded Isaac of a snake uncoiling before a strike.
“Whichello wanted me to check on you.” He tilted his head, lips curling into something resembling a smile but landing somewhere far more predatory. “Make sure you were comfortable in your new accommodations.”
Absolute garbage lie. Every instinct Isaac possessed screamed that Dimitri was lying through his teeth.
“I’m fine.” Bile rose in Isaac’s throat. How long had this creep been sitting there? The thought of being watched while asleep was enough to make his skin peel. “You can leave now.”
Instead of leaving, Dimitri took a step closer to the bed. Then another. His expression shifted into something hungry and evaluating, like Isaac had just turned into dinner.
Isaac scrambled off the bed, nearly tripping over the sheets tangled around his ankles. His heart thundered as he put the bed between them.
“Where are you going, beautiful?” Dimitri’s voice dripped with false sweetness. “We’re just getting acquainted.”
“By watching me sleep? That’s not getting acquainted. That’s being a perv.” Isaac edged toward the door, keeping the bed between them, his eyes never leaving Dimitri. “You need to leave right now.”
“But I don’t want to leave.” Dimitri took a step forward, and Isaac watched those pale eyes travel down his body in a way that made him want to scrub his skin raw.
“You know, I’ve wanted to get my hands on you since Whichello brought you home the first time.
Kept you locked away like a treasure. But he’s not here right now, is he? ”
Isaac’s panda chittered frantically inside him, screaming warnings that his human brain was already processing.
Danger. Threat. Run. He bolted for the door because staying put meant whatever Dimitri had planned, and his body refused to just stand there and wait for it.
His fingers closed around the handle, twisted hard, yanked with everything he had.
Locked. Shit! He struggled to get it open anyway as he heard Dimitri’s footsteps behind him, unhurried and certain.
Isaac spun, pressing his back against the door, and slapped away the hand reaching for his face. “Don’t fucking touch me!”
“Feisty.” Dimitri caught Isaac’s wrist on the second swing, grip iron-tight. “I like that about you. All that fire just begging to be tamed.”
Isaac drove his knee upward, aiming for something soft and vulnerable, but Dimitri twisted at the last second, and the blow glanced off his thigh.
Isaac darted left, trying to circle around him, but Dimitri lunged forward with surprising speed. He grabbed Isaac’s wrist and spun him around, shoving him backward.
“Let go of me!” Isaac twisted and pulled, using his free hand to claw at Dimitri’s arm. His nails raked down flesh, drawing blood, but Dimitri’s grip never loosened. “You psychotic piece of—”
The bed caught Isaac behind the knees, and he went down hard, mattress bouncing under his weight. He tried to roll away, but Dimitri was already there, climbing over him, one knee on either side of Isaac’s hips, pinning him down with body weight alone.
“Get off me!” Isaac bucked upward, trying to dislodge him, but Dimitri’s weight held him trapped. Fingers wrapped around his wrists, slamming them down against the mattress above his head.
Isaac twisted violently, using every ounce of strength he possessed to break free, but Dimitri was stronger, heavier, and had leverage Isaac couldn’t overcome. Rage mixed with terror as Isaac realized how completely helpless he was in this position.
“You’re disgusting! I swear to god if you don’t get off me right now—”
“You’ll what?” Dimitri’s breath ghosted over Isaac’s neck, making his skin try to crawl right off his body. “Scream? Go ahead. These walls are thick, and everyone downstairs thinks I’m standing guard like a good little soldier.”
“You bastard!” Isaac spat, still fighting even though his muscles were already starting to burn from the effort. “I swear to every god listening, I will end you for this!”
Dimitri leaned down, his lips brushing against Isaac’s neck in a mockery of tenderness. “You’re even more beautiful when you’re angry.”
Lips pressed against the side of Isaac’s throat, wet and unwanted, and Isaac’s brain short-circuited into pure animal panic.
He couldn’t think, could only feel the wrongness of it, the violation of having someone touch him like this when every cell in his body screamed no.
His panda thrashed inside him, desperate to shift, to run, to do anything but be trapped here under this predator.
“So delicate. So perfect.”
This was wrong. Everything about this was theft. Time. Body. Isaac’s mind fractured into a thousand panicked thoughts, each one screaming for escape while his body remained trapped beneath someone who thought he had the right to take whatever he wanted.
Where was Whichello? He showed up when Isaac didn’t want him to, yet when he needed the demon, the guy was giving him space. Isaac didn’t need space. He needed someone who could stop his life from being irrevocably changed forever.
“There’ll be no grave, only absence,” Isaac ground out, still fighting, even though his arms were growing numb from being pinned. “I’ll carve my fury into every inch of you.”
If it was the last thing Isaac did, he would make Dimitri pay for this violation.
“Empty threats from such a pretty mouth.” Another kiss, this one at the corner of Isaac’s mouth, and Isaac turned his head so violently he heard something crack in his neck. “I’ll make it good for you, I promise.”
Isaac renewed his struggle, because hell no. He wasn’t going to lie down in defeat. That wasn’t who he was, and—
The weight vanished. Dimitri was there one second and gone the next, yanked backward so fast that, for a brief second, Isaac couldn’t register the movement.
Whichello stood there with his hand wrapped around Dimitri’s throat, lifting the enforcer until his feet dangled. Dimitri’s feet kicked uselessly as Whichello’s fingers tightened around his windpipe.
“You’ll wish for death long before it comes.
” The demon’s gray eyes had gone completely black.
There was no white visible, just endless void that promised suffering beyond imagination.
Suffering promised like an art form perfected centuries ago by something that had forgotten how to pretend at humanity.
Whichello’s gaze flicked to Isaac for half a second. Whatever was in that look didn’t belong in daylight. Ancient. Honest. Unfiltered. The kind of truth that didn’t care if it ruined things. Because it wasn’t about ownership.
It wasn’t about control.
Wasn’t about punishment.
It was protective.
Whichello snapped his attention back to Dimitri like Isaac shouldn’t have seen that much, but it was a truth too heavy to ignore. Damage done, truth exposed, Isaac realized, though he didn’t understand why Whichello cared so much about him.
Marcus stood in the doorway. His gaze moved from Whichello to Dimitri to Isaac still sprawled on the bed, and his expression hardened into something murderous. “What the fuck did you do?”
“I’m sorry—” Dimitri choked out, fingers scrabbling uselessly at the hand crushing his throat.
Whichello’s nostrils flared. His chin lowered, and eyes narrowed. “I don’t want an apology. I want to hear your last fucking breath.”
Dimitri made gagging sounds, his hands clawing at Whichello’s grip, but the demon didn’t loosen his hold even slightly.
A gasp escaped Isaac when frost began to creep over Whichello’s hand. He was about to kill the demon by freezing him from the inside out. It was such a personal way to end someone. It wasn’t rage. It was inevitability.
Whichello’s gaze flicked toward Isaac, but Isaac didn’t see a monster. He saw something haunting in the demon’s eyes. Whichello’s features softened, and he looked as if the sound tormented him.
“Marcus.” Whichello’s voice hit like a rumble of thunder, making the air itself heavier. “Lock Dimitri in the dungeon. I’ll deal with him later.”
Whichello was showing mercy only because Isaac was watching. Whichello was choosing control over annihilation because he didn’t want Isaac to hear that last breath.
And the demon would be right. Isaac already carried the guilt of blood on his hands. How much more could he carry before the weight made him buckle?
Marcus dragged the enforcer toward the door, showing him no mercy. Dimitri cast one last look back at Isaac, something dark and ugly crossing his features, before he was pulled from the room. Their footsteps echoed down the spiral staircase, fading into silence.
Even with the threat gone, Isaac couldn’t breathe. Nothing more than smoke where safety should’ve been. A cursed life he couldn’t seem to outrun no matter how fast his pace.
Whichello stood perfectly still for a long moment, his back to Isaac, shoulders a steel brace. When he finally turned around, his movements were slow and cautious, like he was approaching a wounded animal that might bolt at any sudden motion.
Isaac had already scrambled backward on the bed, pressing himself against the headboard like he teetered on a cliff edge. His whole body trembled with aftershocks, adrenaline crashing.
“Don’t come near me.” The words tumbled out, high and panicked. “Just…stop.”
Whichello halted immediately, his hands rising slowly in a gesture that might’ve been surrender. “This should’ve never happened. And for that, I’m truly sorry, Isaac. Dimitri will pay for what he attempted.”