Page 2 of Golden Bond (Pleasure Palace #1)

Chapter

Two

CALLIS

T he sky burned orange through the window.

I sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on my thighs, fingers loosely tangled, watching the sunlight drift across the floor.

I’d been there for hours, rising now and then to pace the room, to pour a little more water into the basin, to press a hand to the cool glass of the window before returning to the same place.

The bed was soft, but it might as well have been stone.

The silence had a weight to it. Not oppressive, but present. Patient. Like the room was waiting for me to speak, and would wait forever.

I hadn’t spoken since I’d been shown here.

There had been no summons, no instructions, just the quiet courtesy of my guide, the gift of freedom that didn’t feel like freedom at all, and the vague ache of something unspoken pressing against the inside of my chest .

The shadows had moved steadily across the walls. The air had warmed, then cooled. Birds had fallen silent in the garden below. And still I sat, uncertain what to do with a day no one had asked anything of me.

I had never left my island before this.

Never boarded a ship. Never stood on foreign soil. Never lived outside the order of temple hours and scripture. I had never gone more than a mile beyond the village where I was born. Everything I had known had fit into scrolls and prayer and stone.

Now I was in a place where beauty clung to the walls and even silence felt deliberate.

I stood. Not with a purpose—just because I needed to move. I crossed to the basin again and rinsed my hands, though they were already clean.

I had changed out of my travel robe hours ago.

It lay folded over the back of the chair, salt-stained and heavy with memory.

In its place, I wore a seret , the garment given to all new arrivals—a single piece of cream-colored fabric draped over one shoulder and wrapped at the waist, pinned discreetly at the hip.

It was light as breath, woven from something softer than linen but stronger than silk.

It left one arm bare, clung lightly to the lines of my body, and moved when I walked like it wasn’t sure it belonged to me at all.

It was the kind of thing I had seen in old temple murals, worn by demigods and offerings, not by scribes with ink-stained fingers.

It fit too well. As if someone had measured me without asking .

I didn’t look like myself in it. I looked like a version of me imagined by someone else—someone who thought I was meant to be seen.

I hated that it looked good.

I hated that I could tell.

I didn’t like the thought. I didn’t like how easily I had disappeared into this place, like I had been swallowed by it.

I turned to the writing desk and let my fingers brush the edge of the parchment. I hadn’t touched it yet. Not the quills. Not the ink. Not the chair.

My hands didn’t want to make something here.

But I couldn’t sit any longer. I couldn’t keep waiting for something that might not come. The guide had said I could go to the Temple of Aerius. That there were books. That I could read, if I liked.

I wasn’t sure I liked anything anymore, but I needed a reason to breathe.

So I took one last look at the quiet, perfect room, pressed my fingers briefly to the window ledge, and stepped into the corridor.

The light outside had turned molten, stretching long over the path. I followed it past the hedges, through the inner garden gate, and out onto the front grounds.

The front gardens opened before me like a painting set in motion. Marble paths curved between hedges and arched cypress, their leaves trembling in the late breeze. The air smelled of crushed thyme and warm stone. Pale birds flitted between branches. Fountains murmured somewhere just out of sight .

The light had turned golden and thick, poured over the world like oil. It coated the garden walls, kissed the edges of columns, and touched the petals of the flowers until they glowed.

I moved without hurrying, unsure of where the Temple of Aerius even stood, and reluctant to ask. Even the attendants were too beautiful to look at, let alone approach.

The breeze shifted. It caught the edge of my seret and moved beneath it, cool against my skin. The fabric clung and billowed in turn. My bare shoulder prickled in the air, and the muscles of my legs felt newly aware of themselves beneath the drape of the cloth.

I slowed, just slightly.

It wasn’t the wind that unsettled me—it was how it felt.

Liberating.

Not in any grand way. Just… different. Free. Like stepping out of a tight room and into open air.

I hated the way I almost liked it.

I had never worn so little in my life. Never imagined I might. But here, I didn’t feel exposed. I felt—no, I looked—like I belonged, at least in passing. And that thought struck something hot and shameful in me, as though I’d betrayed myself simply by walking a little more easily.

I turned down another path, half hoping it might lead me toward the Temple of Aerius, and stopped.

It didn’t.

It led to something far more familiar .

There, at the end of the path, framed by cypress and bathed in late light, stood the Temple of Elyon.

I recognized it at once, though I had never seen it with my own eyes. I had drawn it, studied it, copied the ornamental scrolls that ran along its architrave. But none of that prepared me for its scale.

The statue stood before the temple steps, twice the height of any man.

Elyon, god of beauty, light, and poetry, was carved in radiant stone—his arms lifted not in command, but in offering.

His face bore the same serenity I had memorized as a child: eyes half-closed, mouth slightly curved, as though reciting a verse meant only for the divine.

The temple doors behind him were wide and open. A soft light spilled from within.

I didn’t think. I simply turned toward it and walked, slow and quiet, the wind still playing at my back.

As I climbed the temple steps, the scent struck me first, sweet and thick, a blend of crushed petals and sacred resin. Incense burned just inside the doors, curling in pale ribbons around the threshold, clinging to skin and breath. It lured me in with quiet fingers, pulling me past hesitation.

The air inside was still and golden.

Pillars rose on either side of a long, open nave, leading toward the sanctuary beyond. They caught the late light through the high clerestory windows, glowing with dust and devotion. The space swallowed sound. My bare feet moved in silence over the smooth stone, each step careful, reverent .

Someone else was already there.

A young man knelt near the entrance, back straight, head bowed in prayer. His lips moved, but I couldn’t hear the words. I didn’t try to.

I passed him quietly, drawn forward. Toward the inner chamber. Toward the altar, and what stood behind it.

The statue of Elyon.

Not the marble one outside—the public face of the god—but this one, hidden inside the heart of the temple.

Wooden, darkened by age, adorned with gilded leaf and silk offerings, his expression unchanged: serene, ever-giving, timeless.

I had copied this statue more times than I could count.

I knew every line of his face. But now, seeing him here, watching over this holy place in flickering lamplight—I felt small. Seen.

Unworthy.

I slowed my steps, not wanting to offend, not knowing if I already had.

Then I heard it.

A low sound—quick, muffled, intimate.

Breath.

I turned my head instinctively, eyes scanning the shadows near the far wall.

And there they were.

Two young men on the stone floor, half lost to the dim light, their limbs tangled together.

One of them was on his back, mouth parted in soft ecstasy, while the other moved above him, slow and sure.

Their bodies shifted against the stone as if it were velvet.

Their hands gripped and roamed, and their mouths kept finding each other again and again.

The young man lying on his back, his golden curls spilled around his head, arched his back as if in immense pain, but the other one, towering over him, hips swinging in long motions, covered the golden-haired man’s mouth.

The lover on the floor moaned, thrashing his back off the marble floor.

His leg lifted, silk cloth sliding and revealing a long, hard rod between his legs.

I stopped short, a flush rushing to my face.

I turned away immediately, heart hammering in my chest, the scent of incense suddenly too strong.

“I—I didn’t mean—” I stammered. “Forgive me. I only wished to pray.”

The young man on his back glanced lazily in my direction, his lover’s hand slipping his mouth, his lips curved in amusement. “This is how you get close to gods. Didn’t they tell you?” he murmured, and then pulled the other down into a kiss.

I didn’t wait for more.

I fled the temple, half-blind with shame, the warm air outside too sharp in my lungs. The garden hit me like a wave. It was too bright, too fragrant, too exposed. I didn’t know where I was running, only that I needed to be somewhere else.

Somewhere I could breathe again.

I didn’t stop until the temple was far behind me.

I passed through gardens I didn’t recognize, down marble paths that all looked the same in the sinking light.

The breeze no longer felt soft. It scraped along my skin like something I didn’t deserve.

I kept walking, one foot in front of the other, until I found myself at the threshold of the guest wing once more.

Only then did I pause.

My heart still raced. My breath felt shallow and tight. I leaned a hand against the nearest wall and closed my eyes.

I should have expected it.

Even the stories whispered at the edge of temple life—half-myths spoken after curfew—had hinted at such things. This was Eletheria. The island of Bonding. Of devotion not through denial, but through surrender.

But expectation is not the same as knowing.

And seeing it, hearing it, and smelling it was something else entirely.

I shut my eyes tighter.