"I didn’t think you’d forget so soon!"
"It was just yesterday when you were begging to touch you!" Zyren’s voice cut through the room, smooth but edged with mockery. His words dripped with venomous taunting, and Aria felt her stomach twist in fury and disbelief.
She scrambled to her feet, the sound of her shoes scraping lightly against the polished wood, her fists clenched by her side. Her eyes burned into him with indignation, but just as she opened her mouth to retaliate, his tone shifted—no longer teasing, but commanding.
His hands folded leisurely between his thighs, his posture deceptively relaxed. Yet his voice held a razor edge.
"My boots. They are yet to be removed," he said simply, motioning slightly with one hand—no force, no shout, but an unmistakable finality to his words. There was a darker undertone now. A warning. A quiet threat that coiled around her spine.
Aria froze, her breath catching before she dropped back to her knees. Every muscle in her body trembled with resistance, but she moved, reaching for the back of his shoe with trembling fingers, trying to keep her mind blank. Trying not to think. Just obey. Just finish the task and leave.
But just as her hand brushed the heel of his right shoe, she felt it. Fingers, firm and cool, winding into the wild curls of her red hair. Not tugging painfully, but holding it, stroking it through his fingers.
She stiffened, unable to look at his face from her position. But the sound of his voice drifted down to her—low, amused, and maddeningly intimate.
"Little Flas, it suits you," he murmured, and she felt the faint brush of his breath as he brought a handful of her hair to his nose.
Her stomach twisted with a mixture of anger and sothing she refused to na. She wanted to yank away, to slap his hand and scream, but she forced herself to keep moving, tugging at the other shoe with rough precision.
’I sll of sweat and dust,’ she thought bitterly, "What the hell is he—"
"I won’t force you," Zyren added, his voice suddenly darker, dipped in sothing thick and sultry. "I like my won writhing willingly and pleasurably under ."
His words teased her like the wind, her heart thudding in her ears as heat spread through her cheeks—not from desire, but fury.
She jerked to her feet with a sharp inhale, brushing off her hands as though touching him had sohow tainted her. "I’m done removing your boots!" she announced, her voice sharper than intended.
She had expected a demand, a command, so twisted order next. Instead, he moved to the bed, shedding his black armless shirt without a word, revealing a pale, sculpted chest—flawless and unmarred. He lay back, half-naked, muscles relaxed, eyes already drifting closed.
Aria kept her gaze locked on the floor, jaw tight refusing to look at him.
"You can leave," he muttered, his voice now heavy with impending sleep. "I should wake just around when the sun is setting. If I don’t—wake up."
Without another word, Aria turned, feet swift and silent, her hand reaching desperately for the door.
But she had barely touched the handle when his voice echoed behind her again, this ti deeper, more possessive.
"You belong to now, Aria Duskbane," he said, his tone drenched with finality, almost like he wanted to brand her with his words.
She froze.
"...and I don’t share."
That was the last thing she heard before slamming the door behind her.
But she didn’t walk away.
Instead, she leaned her back against the solid wood, her breath shaky, eyes wide. Her heart pounded violently in her chest, and for a mont, she did nothing but stand there—frozen.
Then slowly, her expression shifted.
The fear that had carved itself into her features twisted into pure, undiluted rage. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, nails digging into her palms hard enough to sting.
Her lips trembled, but not with weakness. With fury.
She wanted to go back inside. To plunge a blade into his chest and watch the light leave his eyes.
"Relax, Aria," she whispered to herself, voice trembling. "You need information. Lots of it."
Her mind raced, latching onto strategy, survival. She needed to bide her ti. Poison, perhaps. Sothing subtle. Quiet.
Once she was certain—once she had enough to be sure—she’d strike.
And if she died, she would make sure he went with her.
The moans and gasps from the other rooms along the corridor still echoed faintly, a haunting symphony of pleasure and submission. Aria walked past them, her jaw clenched, her expression steeled.
When she descended to the main floor of the inn, the atmosphere had changed. The crowd had thinned—vampires mostly gone, and with them, a surprising number of humans.
Her presence turned heads, but the gazes didn’t linger. They flicked to her and away just as fast, afraid to look too long at her.
She moved toward the inn’s counter, spine straight, despite the storm boiling beneath her skin.
The innkeeper stood behind it—an older man, pale and visibly shaken, his eyes rimd with red.
Aria was sure he had been crying and she knew why.
’At least I don’t see any dead bodies,’ she thought to herself as she moved to sit.
"My lady!" he stamred as she approached, bowing awkwardly even before she took her seat.
"Do I look like a lady to you?" Aria asked bitterly, gesturing to her clothes—dusty, stained, unkempt. She scoffed, her voice biting.
"I’m human. Like you. So—"
But the man cut her off, head lowered, voice trembling with restrained fury.
"You walked with the King. That alone proves you are with them."
His teeth clenched, his shoulders trembling slightly, though he refused to et her gaze.
Aria’s heart ached at his words, but she masked it well. "I’m hungry," she said, ignoring the ache in her throat. "So bread and cheese would be nice."
"Drink of choice?" he asked woodenly and for the first ti in her life Aria the felt the urge to drink sothing she had only heard described by her brother and had since avoided.
Aria hesitated. Her brother’s voice rang in her head, full of laughter: It burns your throat and your belly. Won shouldn’t have it!
She’d always listened. She’d never dared.
But today... today was different. He was gone!
"Ale," she said, voice firm. "A bit of ale would be nice."
When the food ca, she dug in only to take a sip of the ale and imdiately spit it back into the mug, coughing and grimacing.
Her face contorted in disgust as tears welled up in her eyes and it wasn’t just from the taste.
If he wasn’t already dead, this would have killed him in a few years, she thought bitterly, picturing her brother chugging it with a grin, sitting beside their father every evening.
The mory stabbed through her chest like a blade.
But she wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, lifted her chin, and kept eating.
"I’ll make him pay," she swore under her breath. "Even if it’s the last thing I do."
She swore it to herself. To the gods. To the mories of her family.
And she would not rest until the vampire king paid for what he had done.
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