Page 51

“No.” I smiled, sweet and wicked. “I used it to remind youwhostarted this.”

In the span of a breath, he crossed the room and grabbed me.

One hand around my throat. Not tight, not choking, but enough to feel. To make me aware of just how much power sat beneath that controlled facade.

“You want to play this game?” he growled, pushing me back until my spine hit the stone. “You think you can send me illusions of your soaked cunt and pretty moans and then pretend like none of it mattered?”

“I didn’t touch myself,” I whispered, smiling wider, lettingthe words twist the knife. “But you thought I did. You saw every moment. Felt every breath. And that was enough to undo you.”

His hand tightened slightly, and I gasped—still not afraid. Not begging. I wanted him to burn. To unravel like I had. I wanted him furious.And gods, was he.

“You think there won’t be consequences for that?” he hissed, voice a promise carved in stone.

I knew I’d gone too far the second he smiled. Not a soft smile. Not a cruel one.

That razor-edged, Alpha smile, the kind that told you you'd just played a game against something older, darker, and far more dangerous than you realized.

“You want to play?” he said, low and sharp, stepping in close. The hand at my throat slipped down, dragged across my collarbone, slow and deliberate, his fingers brushing the curve of my breast just enough to make me shiver despite myself. “Then let’s play.”

I braced for the grip, the force, the bruising dominance he carried like a weapon. But it didn’t come from his hands. It came from the bond.

One snap, like a whip cracking in my mind and I felt it. A tug, hard and hot, right behind my sternum.

Andros.

I gasped, not from pain but from the rush of it, the way it tore straight through my walls. The bond surged with his will, commanding, absolute. And gods, I felt it like chains wrapping around my ribs, around my wrists, around my will. He was in my head.And he wasn’t being gentle.

“Take off your clothes,”he said, but the words didn’t pass his lips. They sank into my skin like ash and steel, his voice wrapping around the bond like a leash pulling taut.

“No,” I breathed, defiant, but my fingers twitched at my sides. I clenched them tight. Another pull.

“I want you bare, Lexa. Just like in those filthy little fantasies you sent me. But now you’ll do it in front of me. For me.”

My hands moved before I could stop them, traitorous, trembling. I gritted my teeth. “This isn’t fair.”

He stepped back, folding his arms, watching like a king waiting for his sacrifice to finish bleeding.

“This is retribution,” he said coldly. “You gave me images. I want the reality.”

The tunic slipped off my shoulders. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. I dropped it.

One piece at a time, boots, leggings, shift, until the cold air kissed every inch of me and my body remembered every lie I’d used to torture him. My skin burned with shame and heat and something far worse:want.

He didn’t touch me. Not yet. He just circled, slow, letting the bond twist tighter, coil deeper inside me. My nipples pebbled, my thighs clenched, but still I stood. Not proud. Not victorious. Exposed.

“You play dirty,” I whispered. “You’re in my head. Get out of there!”

He stepped behind me, close enough to feel his breath brush my shoulder.

“So were you,” he murmured. “Difference is, I play to win.” The bond pulsed. I shuddered. “Now sit on the bed and show me what I felt through that bond. ”

I sat.

The mattress dipped beneath my weight, the fire behind me cracking low and steady like it too waited for what came next. My thighs trembled as I pulled them up onto the bed, folding beneath me. Every inch of my skin felt raw, hypersensitive—not from the cold, not from fear—but from the bond snapping tight like reins around my neck.

He didn’t touch me.

He stood there, just a few feet away, his arms folded over that broad chest, his jaw set in stone. His eyes—gods, those eyes—they didn’t just look at me. They held me there, bared and humiliated and exposed under his will.