Page 35

Darian

I should be checking the perimeter wards.

Or cataloging supply routes. Or doing literally anything that resembles the strategic planning Alekir expects from his perfectly controlled operative.

Instead, I’m sitting on the floor of an abandoned storage room like some broken toy someone forgot to put away.

My knees are drawn up, shirt clinging to my back with sweat that won’t dry no matter how long I sit here.

The stone wall offers nothing—no comfort, no answers, no absolution for what I’ve become.

Just cold granite that reminds me how far I’ve fallen from the pristine Light Faction student who used to have a future.

I haven’t slept. Or maybe I haven’t woken up yet. Hard to tell the difference when every moment feels like I’m still trapped in that cell, still wearing invisible shackles, still hearing the echo of a scream that never quite left my throat .

The corruption writhes beneath my skin, restless and hungry. It wants something I can’t give it. Or maybe it wants something I won’t admit I want to give it.

Either way, we’re at an impasse.

I drag my hands through my hair, noting distantly that they’re shaking. Pathetic. The great Darian Luthar, reduced to trembling in storage rooms like a—

The bond explodes through me.

No warning. No gentle buildup. Just raw, overwhelming sensation that hits like lightning striking water.

Her.

I’m not seeing it—I’m feeling it. Every nerve she has becomes mine. The stretch, the pressure, the way her breath catches on a sound that’s half-sob, half-surrender. My body responds before my mind can catch up, arousal slamming through me so hard my vision blurs.

It’s not mine. None of it’s mine. But my traitorous flesh doesn’t care.

Her pleasure builds through the bond, bright and devastating, and I’m drowning in it. In the way she gasps. In the trust she’s giving to someone who isn’t me. In the choice she’s making with every movement, every touch, every broken sound.

And then she breaks.

The orgasm crashes through our connection like a tidal wave, dragging me under. My body seizes, back arching off the wall as I come harder than I have in months. Unwanted. Involuntary. Utterly, completely mortifying.

I bite down on my sleeve to muffle the sound that tears from my throat—part groan, part sob, all humiliation .

When it finally stops, I’m left gasping on the floor, pants ruined, shirt soaked through with sweat and shame.

Alone.

Thank every god in every realm, alone.

The aftershocks fade slowly, taking the heat with them. What’s left behind is worse than emptiness. It’s the crystal-clear understanding that I just experienced the most intense physical pleasure of my life because of someone else’s choice to be intimate with someone else.

Someone who isn’t me.

Someone who will never be me.

I sit there for a long moment, staring at my hands, trying to process what just happened. “Well,” I mutter to the empty room, voice hoarse. “That’s a new low. Even for me.”

The walk to the baths feels like a parade of shame.

Every person I pass seems to stare too long. A guard nods in my direction but I pretend not to see him. One of Alekir’s advisors starts to approach and I turn down a side corridor so fast I nearly trip over my own feet.

My shirt clings to my back, my pants are a disaster, and I’m pretty sure I look exactly like what I am: someone who just had an unwanted magical sex dream that wasn’t even his own.

The baths are mercifully empty. I strip with mechanical efficiency, letting the ruined clothes fall to the floor like evidence of a crime I didn’t commit but somehow feel guilty for anyway.

The water is hot enough to scald, which feels appropriate. I scrub my skin until it’s raw, trying to wash away the phantom sensation of pleasure that wasn’t mine. Trying to erase the memory of what it felt like when she chose someone else .

It doesn’t work.

Nothing ever works.

By the time I’m clean and dressed in fresh clothes, I look like myself again. Controlled. Composed. The perfect image of a man who definitely didn’t just fall apart on a storage room floor.

I find Thorne in the planning room, bent over maps that won’t save any of us.

“You look terrible,” he observes without looking up.

“Charming as always.” I settle into the chair across from him, grateful my voice sounds steady.

“Rough night?”

I almost laugh. “Something like that.”

He glances up then, taking in whatever expression I’m failing to hide. “The bond?”

I don’t answer immediately. Instead, I look out the narrow window at the bleak landscape beyond. Somewhere out there, she’s probably still glowing with satisfaction. Still wrapped up in someone else’s arms. Still choosing everyone but me.

The thought should hurt more than it does.

Instead, it just feels… final.

Like the end of a story I never got to finish.

My Little Shadow. She doesn’t even know I still think of her that way. Doesn’t remember what it meant.

“I felt her choose,” I say quietly, the words tasting like ash.

Thorne sets down his pen. “Darian—”

“No pity.” My voice comes out sharper than intended. “I knew what I was when I made the deal. This is just… confirmation. ”

He studies me for a long moment. “You could still—”

“Could still what?” I meet his gaze, letting him see whatever’s left of the man I used to be. “Win her back with my sparkling personality? Seduce her with my unwavering loyalty to the man who wants to destroy everything she cares about?”

The silence stretches between us.

“She chose,” I repeat, softer this time. “And it wasn’t me. It will never be me.”

And for the first time since this whole nightmare began, that feels like the truth.

It should be liberating.

It’s not.