Page 6

Nidev’s eyes slowly cracked open to warm silk. Against his mouth.

Lyric.

Hunger rolled through him, turning his body into an instant insane asylum, pulling her in tight and locking her up.

She woke in the sick possession with an innocent sound that wrapped his cock in a noose. With a slow moan that suckled his balls, she arched against him, starting that new war of wills meant especially for her. It was all about the method, now. The mindless fuck rampages clashed with the simmering filth storm in his blood. One wanted everything, instantly, and at all times. The other was methodically setting up something much bigger. More refined. It didn’t want to waste a drop of his derangement but rather divide it up into armies for a micromanaged slaughter.

But in the end, the two forces agreed on a singular thing—ruin Lyric. Own Lyric.

He pressed his lips on her shoulder as her fingers sought to wrap around his raging cock. He caught her wrist with a low growl and moved her hand between her legs. “Sixty seconds and no more. Rub it very slowly. But don’t come.”

He opened her legs more with one hand then captured half her breast in his mouth and milked it for several seconds before slowly lifting for a suckle on the soft nipple. Her breath hitched then shuddered when he let it pop from his lips, flicking the tightened peak with his tongue.

He then pressed a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll text you.”

That meticulous power waging the long war allowed him to roll out of bed with zero struggle. But his rampage urges made a sudden comeback when he glanced back at her, legs open, fingers rubbing her pussy. His jaw locked at her fucking tits. He moved his gaze to her face, finding her eyes boiling on him, her lips soft and parted, strained, shuddering pleasure adding more lust rage to his stockpile.

In the bathroom, he paused at the shower. He wouldn’t wash her off. He’d let her seep into his pores and feed his hunger. Maybe the other Kings would smell it and subconsciously know she was his. That his madness belonged to her . And he didn’t want to waste a drop on cock-blocking warfare.

****

The air in the meeting chamber with the Kings was packed tight with their unhinged bat gifts.

Nidev took his usual place at the head of the table while seats were taken. In the two minutes before the meeting started, he silently collected all the relevant data regarding their ascensions. The task was mandatory but its purpose was divided. One part measured their strength as a resource for the war outside their swamp, the other measured its threat to the war within it.

He mentally cataloged his perfect army beginning with those ranking high risk to his Lyric psychosis. Lore and Alerik. Both their gifts had reached dangerous levels. Lore was now a freak-force of nature, his voice no longer an external influence but a forced auditory fuck. He whispered bat-lust bombs in your ears without even trying. He’d gotten a handle on it around the students, but Nidev still wanted him nowhere near Lyric. A real predicament being she was his star pupil.

And Alerik was much the same, only his gift was through touch.

After them two, the risks dropped to medium. Thakx’s gift no longer needed a person to speak—it was learning to feel what wasn’t being said. Conversations were now autopsies.

Rukem’s building ability in the Dreamscape had grown exponentially. His thoughts were like strands that bridged literal distance. He was at the edge of creating alternate versions of reality but was the least threatening while being bound to his woman.

Kaelmore’s gift on the other hand was one Nidev envied. Being in his presence peeled back unknowns. What was hidden couldn’t stay hidden. Nidev wanted him to access what his brain was hiding from him and planning. He didn’t really care if Kaelmore knew the depth of his depravity since he shared similar symptoms. He only cared what he did with that knowledge. Nidev would risk a confrontation if his brother was brave enough to be that stupid.

Krovax was Kaelmore’s opposing force. Where Kaelmore cleared paths, Krovax locked them, making them the perfect team in any mission. The same was true for Vex, Gauld and Skul. Vex could now map the ever-shifting patterns in people. And Gauld was no longer just traveling the pathways in the Dreamscape, he could move through most minds. Skul had gone from simple vision to interpretation. A single glance cracked a person open and laid them bare.

Their combined gifts could locate anybody in real time. And if they added Feral to their team, they could manipulate the time trajectory of any mission.

The last were Vale and Dalk—lowest risks, for now. Vale was able to steal relevant details from people’s minds without even realizing and Dalk, their locations operator, could now anchor those they located with the Dreamscape. That meant no more arriving on location, only to find they’d left.

After their meeting, King Skul cornered Nidev and got himself elevated to the tippy top of the threat board. “I was wondering what you thought of me using Lyric for a project.”

He threw every ounce of his strength into his mental shield while contemplating how to hold it and speak normally. “Wouldn’t Lore be safer to use?”

Skul dodged his direct gaze before leaning in with a low mutter. “Yes, he would be, if his mind wasn’t a whorehouse of words.” He got a few inches closer. “One conversation and you’re face down and ass-up, getting gang-banged by the alphabet with him. It’s fucking outrageous.”

Nidev gave a slow, deliberate nod, while something inside ripped free of its leash. “And you think Lyric would be a better option.”

Skul looked around, behaving like a predator procuring a victim. “I think she’s... clean. Untouched, cognitively speaking.” His head tilted slightly while he avoided Nidev’s burning glare. “A rare mind. Untouched by manipulation.”

Nidev didn’t blink. But his cock-rage did. It was in his throat, his spine, his fucking skull, screaming its own translation for untouched. “And you’d like to study what, exactly?”

Skul’s lips barely moved, his voice a careful thread of sound. “The way she processes sound and its meaning. Her mind doesn’t just hear—it absorbs, translates, and projects. Her voice isn’t just her gift, it’s a cognitive event.” He let the words settle before adding, “I want to see if I can map the mechanics of it. If I can track the way she filters external stimuli, how she converts words into intention. If I can understand that… I might be able to refine my sight past the surface layer.” His gaze finally flicked to Nidev’s, just for a second. “She might help me see what isn’t meant to be seen.”

Nidev’s smile was slow as his intentions coated his vocal cords in a velvet strangulation. “She’s mature enough to decide that for herself.” He held his mind on absolute lockdown, unreadable, unshaken. But Skul wasn’t using his gift. He was using something more irritating—his intuition.

Nidev allowed the silence to stretch till Skul nodded once. “Appreciate the advice.”

With that, he slipped into the halls like a walking dead man. Nidev didn’t move or breathe as every part of his mind calculated, reframed, rearranged. He stood, waiting for the verdict of what this did to the long game he still didn’t fully know.

When nothing came, he pulled out his phone and opened it to Lyric. She’d read his last text thirty minutes prior. He slipped his phone in his pocket and headed to his office to deal with external issues, needing something to fixate on till their lunch date.

****

Nidev moved through the halls leading to Lyric’s apartment, his fingers already unlocking his phone. He thumbed open her chat and texted:

Nidev: I’m on my way.

He lowered his phone, anticipation coiling like a trigger inside him, sharpening every thought into a blade. The morning had been a parade of useless distractions.

His phone vibrated against his palm. He lifted it, reading the message.

Lyric: King Skul is here! Sorry! I had no idea. Come interrupt!

His steps faltered as he read it again.

Skul.

Inside her apartment.

With her.

His feet were already moving again, faster than before, his fingers curling around his phone.

He was inside her apartment.

Inside his fucking obsession.

A breath left him slow, controlled, but the damage was done. He didn’t text back. He didn’t warn her. And at her door, he only knocked once.

He stepped inside, getting a huge gasping smile from Lyric. “Oh, crap! I forgot about our meeting! Let me run and get my backpack.”

Nidev eyed Skul on her couch. Relaxed, sprawled the fuck out. Breathing her air.

Halfway across the room, she called over her shoulder. “I’ll think about what you asked and get back to you. Thank you for thinking of me!”

She disappeared into her bedroom as Skul stood and Nidev’s mind ground to a full stop. Not a slow, dragging halt. Not a stumble. More like a fracture. And yet it wasn’t an empty silence. His thoughts didn’t spiral, they realigned. Shifted like gears clicking into place, locking in a structure .

He went over everything he knew he still wanted:

Dirty, psychotic games.

Breaking Lyric into a million pieces.

Ruining her completely.

And then… it appeared. The missing pieces of the long game.

Time limits.

They existed.

And he wanted zero of that, zero limits. Especially in time.

He always wanted to play his psychotic games.

He always wanted to keep her broken.

He always wanted to keep her ruined.

Always, completely and permanently.

He added the missing clauses, and everything clicked perfectly into place.

Swinging his gaze to Skul, he tacked on one final law. She would never— fucking ever —thank another man for thinking of her again.

****

Skul left.

Nidev barely registered it.

He didn’t move, didn’t speak.

He was too busy experiencing the unfolding conditions between him and Lyric. There would be no before and after. No on and off. No beginning or end. No phases. No resets. No breaths between. There would be no moment in which she wasn’t unraveling. No point when she wasn’t breaking, no point he wouldn’t be there breaking her. His control—once measured, once patient—was now gluttonous. Every future moment demanded more. More precision. More ownership. More ways to take her apart.

No, this wasn’t just about keeping her ruined. It was about perfecting the destruction. In stages. Methodical. Ritualistic. A thousand ways to shatter her. A thousand ways to never put her back together. And not a single piece would ever belong to anyone but him.

Lyric reappeared, backpack slung over her shoulder, smile bright, oblivious. His fucking angel.

She moved toward him, stopping short when she caught the shift in his posture. “Everything okay?”

Nidev exhaled slowly. A measured breath. One he barely felt. He was still inside the moment. There was no more need to rush. No need to test or push or correct.

Not yet.

He looked at her. Looked at her soft lips, her bright eyes, her voice still carrying the weight of another man’s name.

Something inside throbbed.

Not his cock. Something deeper.

Something permanent.

“Something’s come up.” His voice was smooth and even. “I need to tend to it.”

Her face flickered, a flash of confusion.

“I’ll text you.”

Lyric hesitated. Then nodded. “Okay.”

****

Lyric’s world had shrunk down to the glowing screen on her lap.

The room didn’t exist. Time didn’t exist. Only the waiting.

She had sent three messages. Nothing. She had checked. Double-checked. His read receipts burned back at her.

The silence wasn’t silence. It was weight. It was intentional. She felt it curling around her, wrapping inside her breath, slithering through her thoughts. Nidev had left her apartment. His eyes had been dark. Changed. Now he wasn’t speaking.

Was this how he disappeared from people? Was this how he ended things?

Her stomach twisted. Her hands trembled as she typed.

Lyric: Please tell me what’s going on .

She pressed send.

Stared.

Waited.

Her pulse pounded as she stared at the screen, willing it to give her something. Anything. Even a rejection.

Her phone vibrated and it felt like a shock through her hand.

It was him. Oh God.

Nidev: Read. Every word .

Her brows pulled, confusion weaving through the panic as another vibration hit. Then his message. A long, dense, suffocating block of text.

Lyric,

I do not need to ask.

There is no decision to be made.

There is no moment where you stand on the edge and consider,

where you hesitate, where you wonder what might happen if you step forward.

Because you already have.

You already belong to me.

You have already been taken.

And now, I will tell you what that means.

You will wake up inside my hands and wonder if you were ever anywhere else.

You will feel me inside your skin, inside your breath, inside your bones

—until the only thing you recognize as real, is me.

You will not question.

You will not resist.

You will not ask how or why or when this happened.

You will only know—that there was never a door.

There was never an exit.

There was only the moment you realized it.

And now, you will listen to me.

You will listen because your body already knows what I am about to tell you.

You will listen because every word I give you is another chain.

Another inch of me wrapped around you,

pulling tighter, sinking deeper, closing in—until there is nothing else left.

You will obey.

Not because I command it—though I do.

Not because I demand it—though I will.

You will obey because your body will make you.

Because every command I give will feel like a wound, a sickness, a craving you

cannot satisfy—until you say yes.

I will strip away who you were.

I will dismantle you.

Ruin you.

Reshape you into something exquisite.

Something perfect.

Something mine.

You will watch yourself come undone,

and you will feel the thrill of it crack open inside your ribs.

You will crave the unraveling.

You will beg me to take more.

You will be tested.

Some tests will be simple.

Some will be cruel.

Some will leave you shaking.

Trembling.

Choking on the sharp edges of desire.

And when I drag you to the breaking point—

when your body is shattered and your mind is gone,

when the only thing left of you is a gasping,

pleading,

desperate mess—

you will ask for more.

Your failures will be corrected with my hands,

my mouth,

my patience,

my punishments.

And I will teach you, slowly, relentlessly, without mercy—

that pain is just another shade of pleasure.

That surrender is not something I take.

It is something you will give.

Freely.

Willingly.

With your lips parted,

your breath stolen,

your body waiting.

There is no escape.

There is only this.

Only us.

Now—Say it.

Say you understand.

Lyric’s hands trembled around the phone.

She wasn’t breathing.

She wasn’t moving.

Her mind felt stretched open, pulled taut—like something had reached inside and rearranged her. Turned her inside out.

She forced herself to read it again. Every. Word.

No decision. No escape. No before. No after.

Only him.

Her pulse was everywhere. In her throat. In her fingertips. Between her thighs, pounding.

Her body… it understood before her mind did. He was right. It already belonged to him. It always belonged to him.

But her mind—her mind was lagging, shaking against the truth, against the sheer force of his words. She could barely keep her grip on the phone as her thumb hovered over the keyboard.

She needed to respond. She had to.

But what?

Her lips parted, chest rising and falling with shuddering breaths, as if the words could form in the air before they reached her fingers.

She typed. Deleted. Typed again.

Lyric: I understand.

The moment she hit send, her heart nearly stopped.

Her phone vibrated again.

A new message.

She stared. Waited. Swallowed against the flood of nerves.

Opened it.

Nidev: You will remain in your apartment until I decide you’re ready.

Her thighs clenched. Her stomach knotted. Her hands curled against the sheets, gripping them tight. Because ready didn’t mean prepared with him. Ready meant something else entirely.