Page 101 of Lustling

“Control is yours,” he says, every time he gives me something I didn’t ask for.

He calls me queen as if it’s sacred. As if it’s the only name I’ve ever deserved. And maybe, if I were weaker—more broken than I already am—I’d believe him.

But I know better. Or… I try to.

The bond—the bonds—have been muffled. Not severed, not really. Zepharion thinks he’s cut them, but he hasn’t. They’re bruised, muted, like breathing through silk or screaming underwater. Dimmed to embers, but not dead. I feel them still. Aching beneath my skin like phantom limbs.

Cassiel’s is the warmest, though.

A low, silvery glow that settles in the hollow of my ribs. Soft, steady, whispering. I don’t let Zepharion see how often my hand drifts there, fingertips pressing gently as if to cradle it. To protect what little is still mine.

But every time I touch it, I feel the press of the necklace around my throat—cool metal that looks like a gift, but fits like a noose.

It hums softly, like it’s listening. Like it’s feeding. I don’t know what kind of spell he laced into it, only that it smothers me. Mutes the magic inside me until I can barely hear it sing. I try to channel, to call the energy buried in my blood, but it’s like reaching for something through a thick pane of glass—always there, never close enough to grasp. Like reaching from the bottom of a lake, lungs collapsing, vision blackening, always just shy of breath.

Zepharion shows me palaces made of illusion. A garden that blooms in the shape of desire. A library where every book knows what I want to read before I open the cover. A bedroom carved from obsidian and flame, veiled in velvet shadows that shift with my breath.

Here, I can be anything. Anyone. Everything is beautiful here… and wrong. The angles don’t sit quite right. The light is too perfect. The walls too smooth. It all feels like a dream I once had and forgot—too bright, too clean, too still. A place built by someone who’s only heard of desire but never felt it.

I don’t ask questions. I’m not that naive. But when I’m alone, I speak to the silence.

Bastion. Deimos. Cassiel.

When I whisper Cassiel’s name, a flare of warmth ignites behind my breastbone. His bond. Still alive. Still listening.

My chest tightens. My lips lift. Just barely. Just enough to feel like me for a moment.

I am not lost. Not yet. But I’m starving.

Not for food, or rest, or even the magic that pulses through this place like poisoned honey. No, what I crave is connection. Touch. The spark of magic braided with meaning. The electric pulse of bonds that once beat through me like second heartbeats.

Zepharion says this is mercy. That what he’s doing is healing.

But he’s lying.

There are no chains here. No visible restraints. Just comfort so seductive it chokes you with softness. I lie in the silkiest bed imaginable, one slow unraveling thread at a time. He calls it freedom. He calls it love. But he never touches me.

That’s the cruelest part.

Not his distance—but his awareness. He knows. He feels the hunger building in me, the ache coiling low and hot and desperate. He knows what I am. A succubus born to feed on pleasure and intimacy, on soul-deep surrender and connection. To be without it is to unravel.

And Zepharion watches me break and calls it patience.

He doesn’t try to seduce me. He doesn’t have to. His weapon is silence. Indulgence. The illusion of choice in a kingdom built entirely to strip me of it. He lets me want—and then he withholds. Again. And again.

Until tonight. Tonight, he wants a performance.

I’m led into a throne room dressed like a garden. Illusions shimmer beneath my feet—roses blooming and vanishing with every step I take. The air is thick with sweet magic, the scent of night-blooming jasmine curling around my skin.

The walls pulse with moonlight that doesn’t belong to any sky.

It should be beautiful. And maybe it is—but I’m crawling out of my skin.

Zepharion waits at the far end, sprawled across a throne, his robes draped carelessly open to expose the smooth lines of his chest. His hair is damp. His eyes burn like embers. His smile is slow and curved like a scythe.

“Petal,” he murmurs, voice deep and honeyed. “You came.”

“Didn’t realize I had a choice,” I say, voice flat—but breathy, too. Weak. Hungry.