21. Lazarus
The room is dimly lit, the air thick with the scent of sweat and musk but beneath it is something else, something metallic and sour, like old blood left to dry in the cracks of the floorboards.
My wrists are bound above my head, the coarse rope biting into my skin with every involuntary twitch.
I tug against it, but it’s useless. She’s made sure of that.
Ines stands before me, her naked body glistening in the flickering candlelight.
Her dark skin is flawless, her curves hypnotic but I know the beauty is a mask, and beneath it lies something monstrous, something disgusting.
She smirks, her lips curling into a smile as she steps closer.
Her fingers trail down my chest, her nails dig into my flesh, not scratching but carving shallow furrows that sting and weep.
I grit my teeth, refusing to give her the satisfaction of hearing me cry out.
My cock is hard, throbbing with a need I despise almost as much as her, a need they planted in me with the drugs my brother constantly slips into my veins.
I hate the heat pooling in my gut, hate the way my hips want to rise to meet her touch.
It’s not desire; it’s a violation my flesh welcomes against my will.
“You’re so predictable, Lazarus,” she purrs. “You hate me, but your body craves me. Isn’t that delicious?”
I glare at her, my jaw clenched so tight my teeth ache. “Go to fucking hell.”
She lets out a low, throaty laugh that sends a shiver down my spine not of arousal, but of primal dread. “Oh, darling, I’m already there, and I’m taking you with me.”
She climbs onto the bed, straddling me. Her weight presses down on me, her heat enveloping me like a fever.
I try to turn my head away but she grabs my chin, her nails pinching the bone, forcing me to look at her.
Her eyes are dark, filled with a twisted hunger that makes my stomach churn.
There’s nothing human in that gaze, only appetite, only the cold curiosity of something that wants to see how much I can break before I stop being me.
“Look at me,” she commands. “Look at me while I take what I want from you.”
She lowers herself onto me, her wetness engulfing my cock. I groan, hating the pleasure that surges through me, hating the sickening wave that makes me feel complicit in my own defilement.
She moans, tilting her head back as she begins to move her hips in a slow, deliberate rhythm. Each motion is designed to torment me, to scrape away another layer of my resistance while the sound of our bodies joining is obscene, a wet, rhythmic slap that fills the room like a heartbeat.
“You feel so good inside me,” she whispers, her voice trembling with pleasure. “So hard, so willing. Even when you hate me, your body still obeys.”
I clench my fists, my nails digging into my palms until I feel the skin split open.
I want to fight her, to push her away but the drugs have made me weak and instead, my body responds to her touch as if I can’t get enough.
She leans forward, her breasts brushing against my chest, and I feel the slick heat of her skin like a brand. Her lips hover over mine, her breath hot on my face.
“You’re mine, Lazarus,” she murmurs. “Mine to use, mine to break. Mine to toy with however I wish.”
Her nails rake down my chest, leaving angry red marks that burn like lines of fire.
I hiss in pain but she only laughs, her movements growing more frantic.
She’s lost in her own pleasure, her moans filling the room, but I see the glint of satisfaction in her eyes; she’s not just taking her release, she’s harvesting my despair.
I hate her.
I hate her more than I’ve ever hated anyone.
But my cock throbs inside her, my body betraying me with every involuntary thrust, and the shame feels like it’s crushing me.
She reaches between her legs, her fingers circling her clit.
Her moans grow louder, her movements more erratic.
I can feel her tightening around me, the slick clench of her orgasm building like a trap closing.
She throws her head back, her body trembling as she comes, and the sound she makes is not a cry of pleasure but a guttural, triumphant snarl.
Her cunt clenches around me, pulling me closer to the edge, and I feel the horror of my own impending release like a noose tightening.
“Come for me, Lazarus,” she whispers, her voice a sultry command. “Come inside me.”
I try to resist, to hold back, to deny her this final piece of myself but it’s no use.
My body obeys her, my release crashing over me like a wave of sickness.
I groan, my hips bucking as I spill myself inside her, and the pleasure is laced with such profound revulsion that I feel my soul curdle.
She rides me through it, milking every last drop from me, her eyes never leaving my face, drinking in my defeat.
When it’s over she climbs off me, standing at the edge of the bed. She spreads herself with her fingers, showing me the evidence of my betrayal. My come drips from her, thick and glistening, covering her thighs like an accusation. The sight makes my stomach heave.
“Look at that,” she says, her voice filled with triumph. “Proof that you’re mine. Proof that you can’t resist me.”
I turn my face away, disgusted with both her and myself.
She laughs, climbing back onto the bed. “Don’t pout.” She says. “Maybe I’ll keep your come this time, maybe we’ll have another baby, you and I.”
She straddles me again, her hands gripping my face, forcing me to look at her as those words sink in. Her fingers are sticky, smearing my own seed across my cheeks.
“Didn’t you realize?” she taunts, her eyes gleaming with malice. “Ezra is your son, not Konstantine’s.”
No. That’s a lie. A fucking lie. It has to be, it has…
My heart stops. The words don’t make sense at first, they’re just sounds, a new cruelty she can torture me with.
I stare at her, disbelief crashing against the walls of my mind.
She’s a liar, a monster who feeds on pain.
But the way she says it, with that lazy, possessive certainty makes the air in my lungs turn to ice.
“You’re lying.” My voice is a rasp, barely my own.
She smirks, her fingers tracing my lips, painting them with the taste of us. “Why would I lie? I know you’re the stronger of the two. Why would I want to breed with him when I can have the better specimen?”
I shake my head, refusing to believe her.
But deep down, in the part of me that has learned to recognize her truths by the way they wound, I know she’s telling the truth.
The pieces fall into place with the sickening click of a lock turning.
Ezra. The realization hits me like a punch to the gut, driving the air from my lungs.
My son. The product of her twisted game, a child born from violation and hatred.
I am a father, and the mother is a monster who will shape him, twist him, use him as another chain around my throat.
I can see Ezra’s face in my mind, innocent and unknowing.
I want to protect him, I want to weep. I want to tear myself apart for the part of me that is now forever bound to her through that child.
The conflict is a storm; paternal instinct screaming to shield him from her, and a visceral, nauseating guilt that my own body helped make him a pawn. I am drowning in it.
She leans down, her lips brushing against mine in what she pretends to be a loving, soothing gesture, but the mockery of tenderness is more obscene than any cruelty.
Her fingers dip between her legs, gathering a mix of her juices and my come. She smears it across my lips, forcing me to taste her; salt, bitterness, and the metallic tang of my own pathetic surrender. The act is a communion of defilement, a ritual to seal my ownership.
“Enjoy this,” she whispers. “Enjoy this cocktail of us, savour it until I am back again.”
I gag as the bitterness of betrayal coats my tongue while she climbs off me, leaving me tied to the bed.
But the taste stays, like a ghost of her that I cannot spit out.
She’s won. Again. Hasn’t she?
And I’m left to lie here with nothing but the pieces of my shattered pride, and the new, unbearable weight of a son I never knew was mine, a son who will grow up in her shadow, a son I am now terrified to love and yet powerless to abandon.
The horror isn’t just what she’s done to my body; it’s the future she’s carved into my very fucking soul.