Page 17

CHAPTER 17

H er breath hitched, but she didn’t move.

He stood before her, silent and armored, hands still resting on her arms like weights she couldn’t shake. Not painful. Not cruel. Just inevitable .

Her skin crawled beneath the outfit she wore—not her own clothes, but the ones the Dukkar had forced onto her after the auction. Gauzy. Insultingly sheer. Meant to flaunt rather than protect. She hated every thread of it.

It didn’t belong to her.

None of this did.

Her throat burned with defiance.

“If you want me naked so badly,” she whispered, voice hoarse, “then do it yourself .”

She thought, for one wild moment, that he might react. That maybe—just maybe—he’d respond like a person.

But no.

Only a tilt of his helmet. Barely a movement.

A silent agreement .

So be it.

Then he began.

His gloved fingers slid from her arms to the edge of the thin top she wore—more veil than fabric. He lifted it slowly, as if the sheer scrap were something heavy. Her breath caught as the cool air hit her skin, as the fabric peeled away from the salt of dried sweat and tension.

She didn’t help him.

She didn’t resist, either.

Let him do it .

Let him see what it meant to strip away the last thing someone could call theirs.

He dropped the garment without care. It landed in a soft pool on the floor. Worthless. Like trash.

Then his hands returned, lower this time.

To the loose skirt. The flimsy fabric the Dukkar had tied around her hips like a giftwrap for sale.

He started slow. Trying, perhaps, to maintain some illusion of control.

But it didn’t last.

The cloth tangled.

And without hesitation—without patience—he tore.

The sound of it unraveling was like a gunshot in the quiet.

She flinched, just barely.

Another yank. Another rip. The last strips of fabric tore under the pressure of his hands, shredded like wet paper.

A gasp left her throat. She bit it back.

Not in pain. Not from injury.

But from the sheer, violent ease of it.

As if everything that had been forced on her—everything she hadn’t chosen—meant less than nothing to him.

And then…

It was done.

She was naked.

Utterly exposed.

The air felt foreign on her skin. Too bright. Too sharp. Like light could cut.

She wanted to cover herself. To sink into the floor. To disappear.

But she didn’t.

She stood.

Her spine rigid. Her fists clenched. Her body trembling—but upright.

He stood before her, still clad in full armor. Untouched. Unrevealed. She was the only one bared. The only one vulnerable. And he didn’t even blink .

Not a whisper of flesh.

Not a glimpse of face.

Just black metal, towering and expressionless.

Her voice cracked as it left her.

“ Bastard. ”

He didn’t react.

Didn’t speak.

Didn’t offer any sign that her nakedness meant anything to him at all.

He just watched.

And that—somehow—was worse than anything else.