Chapter 1
ONE
"Miss Temple, can you come up here, please?"
The words strike like a whip, dragging me back into my body.
I blink hard, breath catching in my throat as the classroom comes back into focus.
I’ve been drifting again, lulled into that strange, empty space where the world feels muffled and far away.
Mr. Conrad’s voice had long since dissolved into background static, his lecture on economic hierarchies forgotten.
I’d been thinking of something else. Someone else. Or maybe nothing at all. Just floating.
Now every eye in the room is on me.
Shit.
I push back from my desk, forcing my legs to move. My skirt brushes against my thighs as I stand, my hands smoothing it on instinct, even as a wave of nerves rolls through me. I try to keep my face neutral. Unbothered. Just another walk to the front of the room.
Shawn leans casually against the edge of Mr. Conrad’s desk, arms crossed, lips curled in a smirk that never fails to send heat rushing through me.
He’s a study in contradictions—dark hair in disarray, cheekbones sharp enough to cut, but eyes warm and slow like honey in sunlight.
He always looks at me like he knows something I don’t.
Like I’m a secret he’s already unwrapped, layer by layer.
My breath catches.
And then the world tilts.
I’m naked.
Not metaphorically. Not in some dreamlike, abstract sense. I look down and see skin. Bare breasts. The soft curve of my stomach. Thighs exposed. Nothing between me and the gaze of the room.
My pulse skips, then hammers wildly. Panic rises in my throat, sharp and cold, but I can’t seem to move. My arms come up automatically, a futile attempt to shield myself from view, but it’s too late. I’m already seen.
I look up—expecting laughter, gasps, maybe screams.
But there’s nothing.
Blankness.
No one reacts. Not a single shift of expression. My classmates stare with dull, glazed eyes, faces smoothed into that eerie stillness that feels more like death than politeness. As if I’m not real. As if I’m part of the floor or the furniture. Something less than them.
Then one of them smiles.
A slow, almost mechanical tug of the lips.
Another follows. Then another. Until the whole room is grinning at me with that same grotesque calm. Like they’re watching a play they’ve already seen a dozen times. Like they know the ending.
My heart pounds. I can’t breathe.
Shame should burn me alive. But instead—something colder blooms. Something familiar in a way I don’t want to admit. Like I’ve been here before. Like I’ve stood in this place, stripped and watched, and told myself it was normal.
Shawn steps closer.
He tilts my chin with two fingers, his touch warm and possessive, grounding me even as everything feels like it’s unraveling.
“On your knees,” he says, low and easy.
I obey.
I don’t think. I don’t question. I just drop.
The tile bites into my knees, but it’s distant. My focus narrows to the way he unbuttons his jeans, the way he pulls his cock free—hard, waiting, thick with need. My mouth waters at the sight of him. I want to please him. I want to be used.
I take him into my mouth, letting him fill me, deeper and deeper until my nose is pressed against the heat of his skin. His groan curls through me like silk. One hand slides to my hair, not rough but firm, holding me there. Possessing me.
I glance sideways.
They’re still watching.
All of them. Frozen in place. Smiling wider now. Mouths parted in reverence or hunger—I can’t tell which. Their eyes gleam, wide and wet and far too still.
Shawn thrusts deeper. I gag slightly, tears prickling at the corners of my eyes. But I don’t stop. I moan around him, pleasure and humiliation tangling in the pit of my stomach like smoke. His fingers tighten in my hair.
Then he shoves me back.
I hit the floor with a gasp.
He grabs me, spins me, bends me over the desk with a force that’s practiced. Brutal. My hands scramble for purchase against the smooth wood as he drives into me from behind. Hard. Fast. Unforgiving.
I moan, the sound torn from my throat. It’s too much. It’s not enough.
The world fractures.
There is no classroom. No Mr. Conrad. No students.
Only this. Only him.
Only the desperate, mounting pleasure that coils deep inside me—hot and filthy and overwhelming.
I’m close. So close.
And then—
Something shifts. A shadow moves.
It doesn’t creep or glide. It arrives. Like it’s always been there, just outside the frame of my vision. Now stepping into view.
I can’t see his face. But I feel him. Vast. Towering.
Wrong.
His presence swallows the room, swallows Shawn, swallows me. Every light dims. Every sound fades. All that’s left is breathless silence and the weight of him.
A voice—low and cruel and ancient—slides across my skin like oil.
“I’m coming for my prize.”
I scream. And bolt upright.
The dream shatters around me like glass.
My dorm room is dark and still. My chest heaves, each breath a ragged gasp. Sweat clings to my skin, my sheets tangled around my legs. The silence buzzes in my ears like static. My dorm mate’s bed is empty.
I press my hand to my chest, trying to steady the frantic beat of my heart.
He was there. Not Shawn. Him.
The faceless one. The voice. The presence.
Always at the edges of pleasure. Always waiting until I lose myself. And then… he takes.
Only this time—
Something’s different.
I shift beneath the covers, and a soft whimper escapes me. My thighs ache. My hips. My throat. Every part of me feels bruised, tender, sore in ways that can’t be explained by a dream.
I shouldn’t feel like this.
But I do.
Like I’ve been touched.
Used.
And worst of all… emptied.
I roll out of bed, my legs trembling as I cross to the mirror. Something prickles at the back of my mind, a warning I can’t decipher. I flick on the light and stare at my reflection.
And freeze.
Horns.
Black. Elegant. Curling from my temples like a twisted crown.
I blink hard and they vanish. Gone. Just a trick of the light.
My pulse still pounds as I reach for the edges of the dresser, gripping hard enough to turn my knuckles white. I look again—just a girl. Pale. Sleep-tangled. Eyes wide with fear and shame.
I shake my head. I don’t have time for this.
Not with classes. Not with expectations. Not with everything riding on me being normal.
But still—I can’t shake the feeling.
Something’s wrong. And it’s getting closer.
By the time I’m showered and dressed for class, I feel like I’m unraveling from the inside out. Every inch of me is wound tight—too tight—like my skin doesn’t quite fit right. Like I’ve been stretched over someone else’s bones.
The morning air is sharp when I step outside, too bright for how heavy I feel. Shawn is already waiting, his car idling at the edge of the parking lot. The moment I slide into the passenger seat, he grabs me by the jaw and crashes his mouth against mine.
It’s not sweet. Not even close. It’s hungry. Possessive. A claiming kiss that leaves me breathless.
His tongue tangles with mine, and I barely have time to register the heat of him before his hand is sliding up the inside of my thigh, disappearing beneath the hem of my dress.
I gasp into his mouth, my back arching instinctively as his fingers press against the thin fabric of my panties—already damp, already aching.
A desperate sound escapes me, and I hate how needy it sounds. How true it is.
Shawn chuckles, pulling back just enough to flash me that cocky, crooked smirk. “Morning, darling,” he says, and it’s the kind of voice that thinks it’s already won. The kind that’s used to getting what it wants.
I shudder as his fingers slip past the barrier, two of them plunging deep inside me with no hesitation, the heel of his palm grazing my clit with every stroke. Heat blooms low in my belly, molten and dangerous. My head falls back against the seat as my hips chase his rhythm.
“I had a dream about you,” I manage to whisper, breathless.
He doesn’t stop. If anything, his fingers curl deeper. “Oh yeah?” he murmurs against my throat, lips brushing skin. “What were we doing?”
I moan, eyes fluttering shut. “You had me bent over a desk. You were fucking me. In front of the whole class.”
He hisses between his teeth—and then, without warning, rips his hand away.
The loss is immediate. Physical. It punches the air from my lungs.
“What—” I choke on the question, a whine scraping my throat. “What are you doing?”
His expression has changed. The teasing is gone. What’s left is irritation, sharp and simmering.
“You’ll dream about us fucking,” he says, voice clipped, “but you still won’t actually fuck me?”
The words land like a slap. Shame floods my chest, hot and nauseating.
I’ve tried to explain. I have explained. Over and over. But the guilt is louder than his voice—deeper, older. It has my mother’s pitch. My church’s cadence. The echo of purity rings and prayers and warnings about the girls who gave too much of themselves away.
“I’m waiting,” I say, teeth clenched as I force the words past the lump in my throat. “You know that.”
He doesn’t look at me.
I reach for his hand again, guiding it back to my thigh. “We can do other things. Please. I need it.”
His jaw tightens.
“Then you’ll have to do it yourself.”
The dismissal slices through me, deeper than I expect. I stare at him, stunned, the sting blooming in my chest slow and hollow. The heat under my skin turns to fire, but not the kind that melts—it burns.
“Shawn—come on.”
But he doesn’t even glance my way.
“Get out of the car, Lil. I’ll see you in class.”
That’s it.
Just like that.
My heart pounds, blood roaring in my ears. I grab the door handle with shaking fingers, swing it open, and slam it shut behind me hard enough to make my palm throb.
I storm across campus, blinking back the heat in my eyes, furious that I’m even upset. Furious that I care.
Denied in my dream. Denied in real life.
What’s wrong with me?
I shouldn’t feel this empty. This raw. Like something hollowed me out and left the shell behind.
The sun cuts through the trees overhead, but it feels wrong—too pale, too thin. Shadows stretch unnaturally across the pavement as I walk, reaching toward me like fingers. My spine prickles. I swear something flits at the edge of my vision—too fast to name, too dark to be part of this world.
Something’s watching.
No.
Something’s feeding.
I push faster, shoes slapping against the sidewalk, my heart hammering wildly for no reason I can name. The building looms ahead, the glass doors reflecting a warped version of the world behind me. I throw one open—
And crash into someone.
A body. Solid. Warm. Unmoving.
I stumble back with a gasp, my hand flying out to steady myself.
Then I look up. And I forget how to breathe.