Chapter 5
AYLA
“Kneel.”
The word isn’t shouted. It doesn’t need to be. It rings like iron striking stone, reverberating in the center of my chest. My breath catches, my body frozen mid-motion, hands clenched uselessly at my sides.
“No,” I whisper at first. Reflex. Defense.
But my knees are already bending.
What the hell is wrong with me?
The cold metal floor bites into my skin as I lower myself, the chain attached to my collar clinking softly with every movement. I glare up at him, daring him to laugh, to mock me, to make me hate him.
He doesn’t.
He just watches. Eyes burning. Breathing slow. Not triumphant. Not cruel.
Appreciative.
“Good girl,” he murmurs, the words curling around my spine like smoke and heat.
I flinch, twisting away from his hand as it brushes my cheek, but it’s too late. My heart thuds once—twice—harder than it should. I felt that. All of it. The tone. The touch. The... reaction.
No. No, no, no.
I bare my teeth. “Don’t call me that.”
“You liked it.”
“I did not!”
He tilts his head, a predator considering his prey’s tantrum. “Would you like to prove me wrong?”
I open my mouth to fire off something scathing, but he’s already walking away, toward a low platform in the center of the room. He points to the space beside it.
“Display position. Knees wide. Hands behind your back.”
“What the fuck is display position?”
He grins.
He teaches me.
Slowly. Deliberately.
He describes what he wants—on all fours, kneeling with my hands on my thighs, head down, ass up—and expects me to get it right. Not because he demands obedience for its own sake. But because... he wants to see me. To know me.
“I’m not your puppet,” I hiss, chest rising and falling too fast.
“You’re not a puppet,” he agrees. “You’re a challenge.”
I snap into the pose, more from spite than submission.
He circles. Corrects. Sometimes gently, sometimes not. The touch of his hand on my thigh makes my stomach twist in on itself. When I falter, he doesn’t strike. He waits. Patient. Unyielding.
My thighs ache by the fifth position. My arms tremble with the sixth. And yet… every time I do it right, he hums his approval, low and primal.
“Well done.”
“Better,” he murmurs.
“Exquisite.”
The praise shouldn’t matter. But it does. Each word lands like a spark against dry kindling. It’s not just what he says. It’s how he looks at me while he says it. Like I’m powerful. Like I’m fire incarnate.
Like he wants me, yes—but also respects me.
The realization is a sucker punch.
He steps back, nods once. “You learn quickly.”
“Maybe I’m just trying to lull you into a false sense of security.”
He smiles with too many teeth. “Then you’re even cleverer than I thought.”
And just like that, the session ends.
He gestures toward the adjoining chamber—dimly lit, shimmering steam curling through the open doorway. A bath. Deep. Luxurious. An indulgence, not a necessity.
“I need to be cleaned,” he says, turning away. “You’ll undress me.”
“Oh, will I?”
He says nothing.
But his shirt is already unfastened, one clasp undone, his back turned to me in complete, unguarded trust. Or arrogance.
Maybe both.
My hands hover for a second before I curse under my breath and step forward. The material is unfamiliar—thick like armor, but soft like silk. My fingers find the hidden seams and begin to work the closures free.
I don’t think about what I’m doing until my knuckles brush the bare skin of his shoulder blades.
Gods.
He’s not just muscular—he’s sculpted. Every ridge, every plane, built like a statue carved from obsidian. My fingertips glide along the curve of his spine, and I feel a jolt in my belly. Heat pools low. Shame rises up to meet it.
He goes still.
I gasp and snatch my hands back.
The silence between us is electric.
His voice cuts through it like a blade. “Say the word.”
I freeze.
“I’ll bind you in silk and fire,” he says, quiet now. “I’ll worship you like the treasure you are.”
I look up at him. He’s turned his head, eyes meeting mine—not demanding, but offering.
My lips part.
No sound comes out.
The want is there. It pounds through me like a second heartbeat. My skin is flushed. My core aches. My head is spinning.
But I don’t say the word.
Not yet.
He watches me for a moment longer, then steps into the bathing pool. Water sloshes, steam rising. He doesn’t look back.
I stand there, trembling.
Wanting.
Confused.
The collar feels heavier around my neck now. Not because it restrains me.
Because part of me doesn’t want to take it off.
And that’s the worst part.
My thoughts won't settle. They churn like the gas storms on Myrrh Prime—violent, gorgeous, unstoppable. Every instinct tells me I should be plotting, resisting, clawing for the nearest escape hatch. But I can’t stop thinking about the weight of his gaze.
The sound of his voice. The way his fingers brushed my skin like he owned it.
I’m the captive. And yet, somehow, my body aches for him.
This is sick. I’m sick. Or he’s just that good at messing with my head.
The bathing chamber is already warm, humidity curling around me like a second skin. I set about preparing the bath like a dutiful little servant. Gods, how far I’ve fallen. I would’ve spat in my mother’s face if she’d suggested I’d ever kneel and draw a bath for a pirate. A Reaper.
But I do it anyway. Because... because I want to.
I pour in the mineral salts—violet and gold, mined from Aetheris.
I swirl them with a carved bone rod until the water glows faintly, glimmering like liquid starlight.
Steam billows upward, thick and fragrant, and the scent makes my mouth water—dark spices, citrus rind, something deeper I can’t name. Something that smells like him.
I kneel beside the tub to test the water, watching the tendrils of light spiral beneath the surface. My heart is doing that annoying fluttery thing again, and my skin is already too warm.
And then I hear the door open behind me.
I know it’s him without looking. The hairs on my neck rise, the air shifts, and my entire body becomes aware of his presence in a way that has nothing to do with logic.
I turn—and immediately regret it.
He’s naked.
Utterly. Brazenly. Unapologetically.
My throat closes.
He’s...
Oh.
I’ve seen bodies. I’ve studied anatomy in art class. I’ve visited nude beaches on Venustar III in secret once. But nothing could have prepared me for the reality of Kallus standing there, all seven feet and change of predatory grace and sheer masculine power.
His skin gleams black like obsidian, stretched taut over coiled muscle. Bone spurs crown his shoulders, gleaming white against the dark. His chest is a perfect sculpture, his abdomen tight and ridged, tapering to narrow hips and long, powerful legs. And lower?
Yeah. He’s not lacking. Not in the slightest.
And gods help me, I stare.
For too long.
He notices. Of course he does. His mouth curves into that infuriatingly smug half-smile. “Like what you see, little flame?”
“I’m just... analyzing the enemy,” I manage, voice way too breathy to sound convincing.
He chuckles, low and knowing, and steps into the water with the kind of fluid grace that shouldn’t be possible for someone his size. Steam clings to him like a lover.
He leans back, arms spreading along the rim of the tub, eyes never leaving mine. “Then come. Do your duty.”
My face flushes hot. “You really know how to kill the mood.”
But I move anyway. My fingers tremble slightly as I reach for the washcloth and begin lathering it with the special soap. My hands dip into the water—his water—and I start with his shoulders.
It’s supposed to be clinical. It’s not.
My fingers brush over the curve of his deltoid, and the muscle beneath shifts, warm and hard and unyielding. His skin is smooth, but every inch radiates danger. Heat. Power.
“Harder,” he rumbles.
I apply more pressure.
My fingers trace along his shoulder blades, down his back, then circle to his chest. I should stop. I shouldn’t let my touch linger.
But I do.
Because I want to.
His breath catches. Just a little. Barely audible. But it makes my heart do a somersault. I glance up—and find him watching me with eyes that glow molten red in the steam.
“You’re not resisting,” he says.
“I’m not obeying either,” I snap back.
“Is that what you think?” His voice is low now, velvet wrapped around steel. “That I want obedience?”
“You want control.”
“I already have control.”
I hate that he’s right. I hate it and want more of it in the same breath.
My hand dips lower, brushing against his abdomen. His skin tightens beneath my palm. My fingers hesitate there, tracing the ridges.
Then—almost without thinking—I touch him again.
Not to wash.
Not to serve.
To feel.
Just for a second.
His hand shoots out, grips my wrist—not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to stop my breath in my throat.
“Touch me again,” he growls, “and I’ll take you apart slowly.”
I freeze. My pulse pounds in my ears.
His gaze burns into mine. Not angry. Not threatening.
Promising.
The kind of promise that makes my thighs clench.
I swallow. “You think threats are foreplay?”
“I think you’re not ready for what happens if you keep testing me.”
And he releases me.
Just like that.
I stumble back a step, nearly fall, barely catch myself. I feel flushed. Confused. Angry. So aroused I’m shaking. My nipples are hard and my core is pulsing, but I bite the inside of my cheek and force myself to breathe.
“You’re a bastard,” I mutter, backing away.
“No,” he says, reclining in the water like a king. “I’m your future.”
I slam the door behind me.
But I don’t leave.
I just stand there in the hall, hand on the doorframe, breath ragged, heart galloping, body thrumming with the kind of hunger that makes no sense at all.
He’s the enemy.
He’s the monster.
And I want him like wildfire wants oxygen.
Gods help me.
The silence between us is like stretched silk—delicate, vibrating with unsaid things.