Page 65 of Dark Soul (Tainted #1)

I feel the subtle tremor in the bunker’s network, and the pattern breaking before the breach before I see it. I am with my cyber-intel team in the digital command center, four screens reflecting maps, traces, incoming data.

My thumbs hover over the console.

“Sir,” Rourke says without breaking my gaze. “One of our internal nodes is leaking. We’ve got movement on safe-house IP flickers—burners.” He pauses, face hard. “We suspect an insider.”

My chest tightens. An insider. I tighten my jaw. “Trace the vectors. Find the exit servers.” Not for protection. For retribution.

One screen flickers, red icons jumping across Europe. “And one more,” another technician says. “The main auction network is going dark. Preparing to vanish.”

Silence roils beneath my skin. My stomach sags for a moment. “Good. Let them run. We’ll chase them harder.” My voice shakes a bit, but I force steadiness. “But prepare for fallout.”

The auction isn’t collapsing, it is migrating. They are taking their people underground, slipping them away. I run a hand over my face. Weeks of surgical takedowns, and now the whole operation is shifting under me.

I had built portals, shut them and now they are fighting back.

I leave the bunker, storming into the penthouse. The elevators dismiss me like a bad memory. Up top, no music, no screens. Just my pulse rattling through the marble.

I enter the command suite. My eyes snap to the alert of another intrusion. On my own server. The firewall bypassed. Root-level access. The screen names who logs in: VERA.DS T- 0219.

It hits me. My blood turns cold. That code isn’t random; it’s hers. My old password, tucked inside her brain. She has found it, used it. She has breached me.

I open the logs.

Download time: last memory tick. IP trace: offsite European address. Vera downloads a folder—CrownSig_ C- Red_Tier, classified as highest-level clearance. Seconds later, encrypted off to an unknown relay.

I close the laptop with enough force to crack the binding. The quiet, it rips.

She’s inside my walls. Inside my trust. Inside everything I built to keep her safe.

I storm through the penthouse toward the rooftop door. My suit jacket slung around shoulders rather than worn. My mind roars with fury.

She’s in the kitchen when I burst in—arms crossed, posture defensive. She looks up, expecting me to ask something gentle. Instead, she sees the wild in my eyes.

“You broke into my system,” I say, voice low, volcanic.

She doesn’t flinch. She turns. “I had to. You wouldn’t tell me the truth.”

My lungs burn. “You had no idea what you were touching. You could’ve burned everything down.”

She straightens. “Then maybe it deserves to burn.”

That sentence shakes me. Something in me cracks. She wants me to burn—not just the system—but me. I am igniting all around me.

The silence stretches. My chest heaves. My throat winds shut. But I can barely contain the predator inside.

I move.

The rooftop door slams shut behind us, the heavy latch snapping into place like a guillotine.

I twist the lock, sealing us into this frozen wasteland of wind and shadow.

The night is a living beast, the wind slashing like a thousand unseen claws, tearing at my skin, her hair, the fragile illusion of control.

The city sprawls below, its neon veins pulsing through the darkness, a world she once hungered to claim.

Now, she’s here, trapped in my orbit, a captive to the hunger that binds us.

The glass wall at the rooftop’s edge looms behind her, framing her silhouette against the glittering void, her dress a fragile barrier against the cold, her eyes a storm of defiance and dread.

The wind howls, carrying shards of ice that sting our faces, but her gaze doesn’t waver.

She stands rooted, her heels digging into the gravel-strewn tile, her lips parted as she breathes in the jagged air.

I step closer, my boots crunching against the ground, and I can feel the heat radiating off her, a furnace of want and resistance.

My hand shoots out, seizing her wrists, pinning them together in front of her with a grip that promises bruises.

She gasps, a sharp, fleeting sound swallowed by the wind, but she doesn’t pull away.

Her eyes—those fucking eyes—burn with a challenge that makes my blood roar.

I pull the thin leather belt from my waist, the buckle clinking as it falls to the tile.

Her breath hitches as I wrap the belt around her wrists, binding them tightly, the leather biting into her skin.

Her arms hang bound before her, not tethered to anything but my will, her fingers curling into fists as she tests the restraint.

The sight of her like this—helpless yet defiant, her body trembling in the wind, sends a jolt of possessive heat through me, my cock straining against my jeans

“You think you can outrun this?” I murmur, my voice a low growl, roughened by the need clawing at my chest. “You think you can walk away from what you’ve started?”

Her lips tremble, but her voice is steady, edged with a reckless fire. “I didn’t start anything. You dragged me here.”

The words are a spark to dry tinder. I step closer, my body crowding hers, forcing her back until her spine presses against the cold glass wall. The city glitters below, indifferent to the battle unfolding above it.

My hand slides under her blouse, fingers grazing the soft curve of her waist, and with one sharp tug, I rip the fabric apart. Buttons scatter like broken promises, skittering across the tile. Her gasp is a mix of shock and heat, her chest heaving as the wind kisses her exposed skin.

“You came to me,” I say, my lips brushing the curve of her jaw, my breath hot against her ear. “You walked into my world, knowing what it would cost. Don’t pretend you didn’t want this.”

Her eyes flash, a storm of fear and want, but she doesn’t deny it. She can’t. The truth is written in the way her body arches toward me, even as her bound wrists tremble.

I drag her skirt up, the hem catching on her hips, baring her thighs to the biting cold.

My fingers find the edge of her underwear, and with a slow, deliberate pull, I tear the delicate fabric away, leaving her exposed and vulnerable with her slick heat glistening in the faint glow of the city lights.

I step back, letting the tension coil between us, watching her squirm under my gaze. Her bound wrists hang in front of her, her fingers twitching, her breasts straining against the torn remnants of her blouse.

The wind tugs at her hair, whipping it across her face like a dark veil, and I can see the pulse hammering in her throat, the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

She’s a vision of chaos, caught between defiance and surrender, and it’s fucking intoxicating.

“On your knees,” I say, my voice a quiet command, laced with a danger that makes her eyes widen.

She hesitates, her lips parting as if to protest, but the weight of my stare pins her in place. Slowly, reluctantly, she sinks to her knees on the cold tile, her bound wrists resting awkwardly in her lap.

The gravel bites into her skin, and she winces, but her eyes never leave mine. There’s a spark of rebellion there, a refusal to break, even as her body obeys.

I unbutton my jeans, the sound of the zipper loud against the howling wind. My cock springs free, hard and aching, and her gaze drops to it, her breath catching. I step closer, my hand tangling in her hair, tilting her head back to force her eyes up to mine.

“Open your mouth,” I say, my voice low, a promise of ruin.

Her lips part, but there’s a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, a shadow of doubt that makes this moment all the more potent.

She’s not sure she wants this, but her body betrays her, her tongue darting out to wet her lips, her breath quickening.

I tighten my grip on her hair, guiding her forward, and she takes me into her mouth, her lips closing around me with a hesitant, trembling heat.

The sensation is electric, her tongue tentative at first, then bolder, sliding along the length of me as she adjusts to the weight, the taste, the sheer fucking audacity of it.

“Fuck,” I hiss, my head falling back as her mouth works me, her bound hands pressing against my thighs for balance.

She’s clumsy at first, her wrists constrained, but there’s a raw intensity to it, a desperation that mirrors the storm raging inside me.

I guide her head, my fingers tightening in her hair, setting a rhythm that’s slow but unrelenting, pushing deeper until she gags, her eyes watering but never breaking from mine.

The sight of her like this—kneeling, bound, taking me with a mix of defiance and surrender—nearly undoes me. I pull back, letting her gasp for air, her lips swollen, her cheeks flushed.

“You’re not done,” I say, my voice a low rumble, and I tug her to her feet, my hand still tangled in her hair.

She stumbles, her bound wrists throwing off her balance, but I catch her, pinning her back against the glass wall. The cold bites into her bare skin, and she shudders, her breath fogging the glass in short, sharp bursts.

My hand comes down on her ass, a sharp, deliberate strike that echoes in the night.

She cries out, her body jerking against me, but there’s no mistaking the moan that follows, the way her hips press back, chasing the sting.

I spank her again, harder, my palm leaving a red imprint on her skin, a mark that feels like a claim.

“Do you feel that?” I murmur, my lips grazing her ear. “That’s what you do to me. That’s what you’ve always done.”

She doesn’t answer, but her body speaks for her, her thighs trembling, her breath ragged.

I slide my hand between her legs, finding her soaked, her heat a stark contrast to the cold air.

My fingers tease her, slow and deliberate, circling her clit until she’s writhing against the glass, her bound wrists trapped between us.

She’s a mess of want and resistance, her moans mingling with the wind, her body begging for release even as her eyes scream defiance.

I step back, leaving her panting, her body aching for more.

“You don’t get to decide when this ends,” I say, my voice a dark promise. I press myself against her, my cock hard against her thigh, teasing her entrance without entering. Her hips buck, seeking me, but I hold back, savoring the way her desperation builds, the way her resolve cracks.

When I finally enter her, it’s slow, brutal, a deliberate invasion that makes her gasp, her body arching against the glass. The city below is a blur of light and shadow, oblivious to the war we’re waging. Each thrust is a claim, a theft, a fucking obliteration of any distance between us.

Her cries are a mix of lust and distress, shimmering in the air like broken glass.

She wraps her bound arms around my neck, her nails digging into my shoulders, driving into my own need.

There’s no softness here, no consent in tenderness—just fervor, desperation, a violence threaded through the jagged edges of our connection.

Her body clenches around me, her moans turning to screams as she comes apart, her climax a violent shudder that rips through her like a storm.

Her warmth pulses around me, pulling me deeper, and I follow, my own release a blinding, brutal thing that leaves me shaking, hollowed out but still starving for her.

I stay inside her, my cock still hard, her body trembling against mine as the wind howls around us.

She collapses into my arms, her breaths harsh and ragged, her bound wrists pressed against my chest. The wind rattles her hair, whipping it across her tear-streaked face. I press a kiss to her temple, soft and fleeting, a stark contrast to the brutality of what we’ve done.

She shudders, her voice barely a whisper against the roar of the night. “That wasn’t about love,” she says, tears gleaming in her eyes, catching the city lights like shattered stars.

I swallow hard, my jaw tight, silence my only answer. Love is too small a word for this, this is possession, obsession, a hunger that consumes us both. We sink to the cold floor, the gravel biting into my knees as I pull her close.

She curls into me, her body warm against the chill, but she’s trembling and it’s not from the aftershocks of her climax, but from something deeper. Fear, loss, and the weight of what we’ve become.

Her bound wrists rest against my chest, the leather still tight around her skin, a reminder of the line we’ve crossed. I don’t untie her yet. I want her to feel it, to carry the weight of this moment.

The city hums below, its pulse a faint echo of the chaos between us. Up here, there’s only us—two broken things, bound by something darker than love, something that will destroy us both if we let it.