Chapter 7: The Punishment Room

The door opened.

I didn't see it, but I felt it — the cold air crawling in like a living thing, brushing across the backs of my thighs, already bare beneath the hem of my nightgown. The chill made my skin tighten, pebble, like it knew something I didn't.

Footsteps followed.

Slow.

Booted.

Each one a death sentence.

He didn't speak.

But I knew it was him.

Kael moved like no one else. That silent, deliberate menace — like the ground didn't dare echo him. He could've walked into the room full of fire and I think I still would've heard nothing but that weightless silence before a kill.

He stopped somewhere behind me.

Just… stood there.

Watching me.

Breathing.

I felt it — that first breath of his. Not a sigh. Not tired. It was something deeper. A full inhale, like he was drawing the scent of me into his chest and holding it there. My scent. My fear. My sweat. My humiliation.

My wrists strained in the cuffs involuntarily.

I couldn't help it.

But the iron didn't budge.

The angle forced my arms upward, shoulders aching already. My knees were on the stone — cold, damp — and the pedestal beneath my chest dug into my ribcage every time I breathed.

Worse still were my legs.

Spread wide.

Strapped tight at the ankles to the floor.

I couldn't shift.

Couldn't hide.

Couldn't even close my thighs.

Everything was exposed — my backside, my thighs, the thin silk of the nightgown barely clinging to my hips. My cheeks burned with shame.

He hadn't touched me yet, but I was already trembling.

Not from pain.

Not from cold.

From waiting.

From not knowing what part of me he was going to unmake first.

And then — his voice.

Low.

Controlled.

"Breathe slower."

I hated that I obeyed.

I hated that my body listened to him before I did. That even now, under these chains, with this collar burning red around my throat, some part of me was already adjusting. Already submitting.

I dropped my gaze to the stone floor.

Don't think. Don't cry. Don't let him—

"You're not here to be heard," he said. "You're here to be seen."

Something about the way he said it.

Not cruel.

Not angry.

Removed.

Like I was already less than a person in his eyes.

Like this was just a function.

I bit the inside of my cheek.

Hard.

The copper taste of blood flooded my tongue, sharp enough to keep me tethered. My shoulders hurt. My legs burned. My fingers were already numb from the way the cuffs pulled at my circulation.

Still, I said nothing.

Then — he moved.

I couldn't see him, but I knew he was circling.

Not fast.

Not direct.

Like a predator in no hurry.

And I was the carcass.

My skin twitched when I felt his breath — warm and unbearably close — brush across my lower back. I couldn't help the way my spine tightened, my shoulders stiffened.

He was watching that, too.

Cataloguing every involuntary shiver like it belonged to him.

"I remember the way she screamed," he said.

The words weren't meant for me.

Or maybe they were.

Either way, I didn't answer.

"Your father smiled while she begged," Kael murmured. "I still remember the sound her knees made when they hit the floor. How her mouth bled from trying to speak through broken teeth."

A sick wave of nausea rolled through me.

He was talking about his mate.

Elira.

And me?

I was just the ghost of her — chained, offered, replaceable.

A living effigy for a crime I hadn't committed.

"You don't get to weep for her," he said quietly, as if hearing my thoughts. "You belong to him. And he sent you to me."

Then — a single touch.

One finger.

Tracing the line of my back.

I stiffened — not from the contact itself, but from how gentle it was.

Cruel, that kind of softness.

Calculated.

The pad of his finger dragged slowly down my spine, pausing at the dip just above the swell of my backside. The heat of him radiated through the thin silk fabric, and I hated the way my breath hitched.

I hated that I felt anything at all.

His finger stilled.

Then lifted.

His voice returned — quiet, composed, awful.

"You'll break slower than she did."

And that's when I knew—

He wasn't here to punish me.

He was here to make a memory.

My body was shaking.

Not violently. Just enough that I could feel it in the chains — the faintest clink of iron as the tremor passed from wrist to shackle. My arms were beginning to throb. My knees ached from the pressure against the stone. And the worst part?

He hadn't even touched me yet.

Not really.

Kael was still behind me. Still circling like some myth they whispered about in dark forests — not a man, not a wolf, just a presence too sharp to look at directly.

Then, finally—

"Say your name."

I blinked.

What?

I didn't move. Didn't answer.

His footsteps paused.

"I said," he repeated, softly now, "say your name."

The chains around my wrists creaked as I shifted — involuntary, subtle, stupid.

I didn't want to give him anything.

Not even my name.

But something in his tone said this wasn't a request. It was the first step in whatever ritual he'd come here to perform.

I clenched my teeth. "Aria."

A pause.

Then—

"Louder."

I swallowed hard.

"Aria," I said again, this time more forcefully. The word echoed off the stone like it didn't belong to me anymore.

He stepped closer.

I could hear the way his boots slowed. Like he was savoring the moment.

"You'll speak when told," he said, his voice brushing the back of my neck now. "You'll answer what I ask. You'll hold your position until I say otherwise. You will not close your legs. You will not cry. And you will not pretend this wasn't earned."

Earned.

That word cut deeper than anything else.

I didn't reply.

He reached forward and, without warning, hooked his finger under the collar at my throat. Pulled.

Not hard — just enough that I felt the tension ripple down my spine, to my hips, to my core. I gasped. Not because it hurt. Because it didn't.

"Do you know what your father did?" he asked.

"Yes," I lied.

Because it was safer to lie than to admit I didn't know the full truth.

He released the collar and let the leather snap softly against my throat.

"Then you understand why this is happening."

No, I thought.

I don't.

But I said nothing.

His hands moved then. Both of them.

To the hem of my nightgown.

I braced.

He didn't rip it.

He didn't shove it.

He lifted it slowly.

Like unwrapping something delicate. Something meant to be appreciated before it was destroyed.

The cool air kissed the back of my thighs first, then higher — up the curve of my hips, across the soft underside of my backside.

I clenched without meaning to.

Kael noticed.

"Don't flinch," he said, almost tenderly.

And then — his hands touched me.

One on each side, warm and calloused, cupping the full curve of my rear as if he were measuring it.

My jaw locked. My eyes burned.

His thumbs dug in gently. Not hard enough to bruise.

Hard enough to remind me that he could.

"You're softer than I expected," he murmured.

The humiliation hit like fire.

I tried to twist away. My legs moved, straining against the spread restraints.

He slapped my inner thigh.

The sound cracked across the stone.

Not hard.

But precise.

I gasped — more from shock than pain.

"I said," he repeated, "don't flinch."

His hand returned.

This time, he dragged a finger from the small of my back to the crease where thigh met hip.

I bit down on my lower lip so hard I tasted blood again.

His other hand slid between my thighs — not to take, but to feel.

To test the way my body was betraying me.

"You're already warm," he whispered. "You disgust yourself, don't you?"

I made no sound.

Couldn't.

He leaned in.

His voice was no longer cruel.

Just quiet. Curious.

"I wonder what your father will think when he sees how easily you melted for me."

And that was when I realized—

He wasn't here for release.

He wasn't even here for domination.

He was here to capture something.

To make a moment he could send back across enemy lines.

Something that would haunt Cassian Vale.

And I—

I was going to be in it.

Naked.

Trembling.

Eyes wide, mouth open.

Not begging for mercy.

Begging for more.

Tears burned in my eyes.

I couldn't breathe right.

Not from pain.

Not even from fear anymore.

From the knowing — the ugly, silent knowing that I'd made a sound. That he'd heard it. That he'd felt me react to his touch like I wanted it.

And now he was quiet again