Lucian's fingers traced the cut on my palm as I sat on his lap, trapped on that brutal throne.
The blood had dried, but the bond still burned — a tether woven from agony and desire, choking the air between us.
I could feel his heartbeat against my thighs.
Slow.
Predatory.
Patient.
The way a spider waits for its prey to realize it's already too late.
"You should hate me more," Lucian murmured, voice roughened with something dangerously close to regret.
I tilted my chin up, defiant even as my body trembled.
"I do," I whispered.
"But you like it, don't you?"
Lucian smiled — a sharp, broken thing.
"I need it," he said, voice cracking. "Because if you loved me, Seraphina… you'd never survive."
I stared at him — at the monster everyone feared, the cursed king with death written into every inch of him — and for the first time, I saw the fracture beneath the cruelty.
Not weakness.
Not regret.
Punishment.
He stood abruptly, tossing me over his shoulder like a possession, carrying me down endless spiraling stairs into the bowels of the rogue castle.
The dungeon.
Cold.
Dark.
Smelling of blood and chains.
He kicked open a door and threw me inside.
I stumbled, catching myself against the stone wall.
Torches lined the room — flickering just enough to reveal the horror carved into every brick: names. Symbols. Curses older than the bloodlines themselves.
This was not a prison.
It was a tomb.
Lucian stood in the doorway, his shadow swallowing the room.
"You think I wanted you?" he said, voice ragged. "You think I chose you?"
I didn't answer.
He stalked closer, grabbing my wrist, yanking me toward the center where a broken mirror stood.
"Look," he growled.
I stared.
At first, all I saw was my reflection — silver hair tangled, eyes blazing, lips bloodied.
Then the image shifted.
I gasped.
I saw Lucian — younger, almost human-looking — kneeling in a circle of ash, chained and bleeding, his soul being carved away by something monstrous.
A witch.
A curse.
A prophecy.
"A blood bond to a Silverblood mate will save the rogue king," the witch hissed.
"But it will cost you everything."
Lucian's face twisted with agony — not from the pain.
From the knowledge.
From the damnation being etched into his fate.
"You were my curse, Seraphina," Lucian whispered in the present, pressing his forehead against the back of my neck.
"My salvation and my destruction."
The mirror shattered, splinters flying everywhere.
I spun, shoving him back.
"You bound me to save yourself!" I cried, betrayal splitting my chest wide open. "You destroyed my life for your own fucking survival!"
Lucian caught my wrists before I could strike him.
"Yes," he said, brutal in his honesty.
"And if you think I feel an ounce of guilt for it, little wolf… you don't know me at all."
Tears blurred my vision.
"You could have given me a choice," I whispered.
He leaned down, mouth ghosting over my throat, sending chills down my spine.
"I did," Lucian rasped. "You chose me the second you didn't kill me when you had the chance."
He dragged my palm — the cut one — up to his mouth, kissing it with reverence and savagery.
"I never said I'd be a good king," Lucian whispered against my skin.
"I only promised I'd be yours."
The room swirled with dark magic.
The bond throbbed, demanding, writhing.
Lucian shoved me against the stone wall, his hands caging me, his scent — cedar and blood and something darker — making it impossible to breathe.
"You want to run, Seraphina?" he growled.
"Then run."
He stepped back, throwing open the dungeon door.
No guards.
No chains.
Only freedom.
"But if you walk out that door," Lucian said softly, "you'll never survive what's coming."
I hesitated, heart pounding, blood singing.
A shadow moved behind him — fast, lethal.
Another rogue.
Not one of his.
One sent to kill me.
Lucian didn't move.
He let it happen.
Let me see what the world would do to me without him.
The blade came down — and in a flash of instincts sharpened by terror, I shifted — my wolf bursting free in a silver storm.
I tore into the assassin's throat with a savage snarl.
Blood sprayed the stone walls.
Lucian watched me — proud, viciously aroused — as I stood over the body, panting, shaking, covered in blood.
"You're learning, little wolf," he murmured, stepping into the carnage, cupping my jaw with bloodstained fingers.
"And soon," Lucian promised, his eyes molten gold and damnation itself, "you'll love the monster I made you."
He kissed me — wild and brutal, teeth dragging against my lips — tasting the blood and the rage and the ruin.
And for the first time…
I kissed him back.
Because survival wasn't pure anymore.
It was filthy.
It was savage.
It was us.