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“I’ll ensure she has no opportunity for escape again,” Kaiser said, picking me up and slinging me over his shoulder like I was a fresh kill waiting to be skinned.

My paws dangled uselessly down his back and I caught sight of North’s sniggering face as Kaiser walked me from the room.

Rage coiled in my chest, my foolish choice to spy on them serving me nothing but imprisonment once more.

I’d wasted my chance. For the love of Pisces, I could have been half way out of the city by now.

The Fury carried me through the palace down gothic hallways with dramatic chandeliers, passing between pillars that created towering archways overhead.

He pushed through a door and threw me onto a hard wooden floor.

With my body unable to brace, I impacted painfully, but Kaiser offered me no attention.

He stepped over me and I watched him walk further into the chamber which had a large iron bed to one side, dark flagstones stretching across the floor and simple wooden furnishings.

He sat on the end of the bed, contemplating me.

“Shift,” he growled eventually and his possession forced me to obey.

The fur receded and my body settled back into its Fae shape, leaving me naked and strewn across his floor like a carcass waiting to be picked clean.

“Come here, silka la vin.”

My limbs eased up and I had to follow the call of his words, rising to my feet and padding toward him. My hackles rose, my upper lip peeled back and hatred spilled from every pore in my skin.

Kaiser took me in with a bland disinterest, but when I halted in front of him, I noticed the bulge in his trousers, the thick outline of his cock that was big enough to be classed as a weapon.

My breathing increased as heat shivered its way across my skin, crawling through me until I felt agonisingly hot.

My gaze snapped up to his and I forcibly ignored the rising burn that was setting my cheeks aflame.

But Kaiser was unaffected. He sat beneath me without any cares while he brought on a riot in my chest, making me seethe until I was raw with bloody rage.

The Void sat dormant inside me, offering no way out as it sometimes did, and I wondered if I was even its master at all or if I was just its vessel.

“Lay your hands on my chest. I need to recharge,” Kaiser demanded, pulling his shirt off and revealing his powerful body. My eyes slipped to the tight lines of his muscles, the carved perfection of my enemy, making me all the more hateful.

I leaned down and slapped my palms hard to his chest as venom poured from my lips.

“Let me dress first at least,” I hissed.

His gaze fell to my naked body, those dark eyes glinting red as they scored lines across my tits.

My nipples hardened and shame washed through me, my cheeks flushing hotter as his attention slid over my stomach, lower and lower until my clit began to throb under his scrutiny.

He studied me without embarrassment, openly staring, his eyes only rising when he’d had his fill of me.

I cursed myself for the way I was flushing, the way the burn in my skin was spreading between my thighs and making my nipples tighten. He was a monster. A heathen who I would rather let carve me up piece by piece than fuck me, but my traitorous body seemed to be unaware of that.

“Here.” He thrust his shirt at me, knocking my hands free of his chest in the same motion. “Put this on if you prefer.”

I quickly did so, the scent of him falling over me in an instant.

It was a smell that was uniquely him. Oak and cinders.

And it made my heart beat even faster. He surrounded me in this room; there was no refuting it belonged to him.

It was as vacant as he was, no sign of true life between its walls, but his taint was here. Ever haunting me.

“Now,” he said in a dark voice, capturing my wrists and making the cuffs shift against his firm fingers. “Give me your fears.”

He placed my palms against his chest again, his muscles flexing beneath my hands and as his eyes caught mine, I was lost.

He sifted through my mind, watching Ransom hound me through the woods, hurling sticks and stones at my back. I re-lived the sweat collecting on my spine, the way my lungs would feel close to bursting, and how the thorns catching my legs would leave little trails of blood on my calves.

Then there was a new fear that the soul-tie forced from me.

Kaiser saw me in that damp room beneath the Keep where I’d slept for so many nights.

He saw me curling inward upon myself and tasted the loneliness in the air, my terror that I would lose Harlon and be left alone forever. Abandoned entirely.

The fear sharpened until it was all I could feel and I wanted to sob and beg Harlon to stay, losing sight of the Fury who watched ever on and just feeling the suffocating terror of being all alone in this unwelcoming world.

Once more, I was in that store room with Harlon, his mouth on my skin, holding my skirt aside as his tongue rode over my clit.

My fears poured from me, making it impossible for me to come even while Harlon painted lines of ecstasy over my skin, causing me to pant and moan.

But the fears grew louder than my desire until I was clouded by them.

This will never work.

He will leave.

He’s a Reaper now.

Somewhere, outside of this sharp and cruel memory, hands gripped me, tightening on my body and pulling me close.

I was clogged with the fear of losing my friend and I leaned into the embrace offered to me, soothing the panic.

I softened in the cage of those large arms and the Void opened itself to me, unpredictable as always.

Tugging on its power, I let the rush of its strength gild my bones, thinking of Harlon and falling deeper into the memory of his body pressed against mine.

Perhaps we could make it work. Maybe there was still a chance for us.

My mouth found Harlon’s in the dark and his fingers tangled in my hair, his kiss hard and full of a feral brand of desire that I’d never tasted on his lips before.

His tongue pressed against mine, and his palm firmed against my lower back, pulling me tight into his lap and making my bare pussy grind over the hard length of his cock.

I moaned into his mouth, biting on his lower lip and he bit me back in return, showing me a savagery I had long wished to see from him.

My eyes cracked open to seek the heat in his amber eyes, but two blood-red irises stared back at me instead.

No.

I gasped, breaking the kiss in horror. Confusion rippled through Kaiser’s eyes followed by a fierce, potent emotion that was crafted from pure bitterness.

“Yes, he will abandon you. And if he does not, the next time I see his face, I will drive my sword into his worthless chest,” Kaiser snarled.

“Fuck you,” I snapped.

My knees were pressing into the bed either side of him and the hard ridge of his cock was still rutting between my thighs.

Kaské, I had to move. I had to get away from him.

I was so wet, so embarrassed, so damn ashamed that I wanted to crawl into the shadowy corners of this room and never show my face again.

Kaiser’s hands tightened on me, one palm still on my lower back and the other knotted in my hair. The Void was humming in my chest, latching onto him too and I could see the effect it was having. He was in torment, his eyes searching mine for answers I couldn’t give as rage clung to his face.

“No, I am not done with you yet,” he growled, grabbing my wrists and forcing my palms back onto his chest. My Void had receded enough to let him get control again, forsaking me in my moment of need.

“ Stop ,” I gasped in panic, but I was lost once again, diving into the worst memories of my past.

He threw all of his strength into unveiling my deepest terrors, ripping them from me mercilessly and demanding I relinquish it all to him.

His Order did all the work, dragging my fears from the depths of my mind and offering them to Kaiser, making me relive them while he watched too, breaking me apart piece by piece.

He fed on every memory of Ransom’s cruelty, then sought out that darker place where I never wanted to go.

But this time, I couldn’t stop him, his power like an anvil crashing through my resistance.

My father’s face came into view, his nose crooked and his features hardened by battle, his mouth twisted in a sneer.

I knew what came next and I so desperately didn’t want him to see it.

Kaiser’s soul yanked violently on mine as my fears sharpened and his hand latched around my throat.

My eyes flew open, the connection between us shattering, and the Void blossoming to life once again, offering me salvation - only that wasn’t what I found awaiting me.

“Who is he?!” Kaiser bellowed, his eyes lighting as I fed his Order and terror blossomed in my chest.

Kaiser threw me to the floor on my knees, standing up and towering over me as fire ignited in his palms. “Speak or burn.”

“My father,” I blurted, scrambling away from him in confusion. “Commander Abraham Rake.”

The Void had left Kaiser wide awake, rage pouring from him in bloody waves. I could sense the way it was burning, screaming, and wailing inside him, yet he seemed to have no idea what to do with it.

“Your father?” he snarled. “Then you’re the spawn of the warrior who brutally killed my family.”

The knowledge jarred through me as viscerally as it did him, and I glared up at him from my knees in shock.

“My father killed them?” I rasped, the memory of their cruel deaths blazing at the forefront of my mind.