Chapter 68: Chapter 68: FIREWORKS AND FUCKERIES

AZRAEL

Valoria leaves me hanging and thirsty like a fish gasping for water, with a raging boner and an insatiable hunger gnawing at my insides, skipping back toward her room while my mouth hangs wide open, completely aghast at her impossible, infuriating audacity.

How dare she end it right when it was getting so fucking good?

When I was seconds away from losing all sense of control and dragging her straight to my chambers to fuck her on every goddamn surface I could find?

When the pleasure was climbing to unimaginable heights and my body was screaming for release?

How dare she play me like a fiddle, wrapping me around her delicate little finger until I was the one left begging and desperate for more?

I’m the most sexually frustrated that I have ever been in years—parched and dying like a man crawling through an endless desert with no water in sight, and absolutely livid about it.

The irony isn’t lost on me. I’m a king with a harem waiting for me back at the palace, women who would drop to their knees with a single glance, who beg for the privilege of warming my bed.

Even here, in this territory filled with wolves, I could easily snatch up any willing female for the night—and there would be plenty willing, power and danger have always been the ultimate aphrodisiac.

But that low, burning hunger churning relentlessly in my gut? That insatiable ache clawing through my entire body?

It only yearns for one infuriating, impossible woman who just walked away from me like I’m nothing more than a plaything she’s already grown bored of.

And that realization pisses me off even more than the throbbing erection she left me with.

That is, until—just before she can fade completely into the distance—she pauses for a moment to look back at me again.

A warm, satisfied smile spreads across those soft pink lips, followed by a playful, mischievous chuckle that rings out in the quiet morning air like the sweetest torture.

She bounces away like an excited little rabbit, practically glowing with confidence and pride from winning her very first game against me, and that’s when it happens.

The strange thing that lights in my chest.

The world itself seems to slow down around her, my vision sharpening and hyperfocusing until she’s the only thing I can see clearly anymore.

It’s like watching tiny fireworks suddenly begin exploding out of thin air all around her delicate frame, releasing glittering sparkles that catch in her damp hair and illuminate her eyes until they’re more vivid and alive than everything else in my line of sight combined.

I feel my lips pulling up on both ends into a genuine smile, and a light, warm chuckle vibrates from deep within my chest as everything I was furious about just seconds ago fades away completely, dissolving into an abyss somewhere in the back of my mind like it never even mattered in the first place.

There is also a loud thumping sound in my ears, drowning out everything else around me.

The longer I stare, the louder it grows, the more my chest feels like it’s about to explode from the inside out, like my ribs can’t contain whatever the fuck is happening to me right now.

It doesn’t stop throbbing painfully until she’s completely gone from my sight and I can finally catch my breath again, snapping out of what felt like the strangest, most disorienting spell I’ve ever been put under before in my entire immortal life.

It leaves me shaken and confused, standing there like an idiot, like my mind has been completely taken over by some kind of parasite that’s eating away at my common sense and rationality from the inside out, devouring every logical thought I’ve ever had.

It’s getting worse.

This new curse sent by the goddess to torment me, triggered by her presence and her touch and her fucking smile… and now she doesn’t even need to be close to me or naked or touching me to cast her wicked, maddening magic over my entire being.

Worst of all, those clear greenish-blue aquamarine eyes of hers have left a permanent imprint branded somewhere deep inside me, burning themselves into my memory in a way I can’t shake off no matter how hard I try.

Something about them remains painfully, achingly nostalgic, like I’ve seen them before in another life, in another time, in a dream I can’t quite remember but can’t fully forget either.

But that’s not what’s important right now.

I need to get her out of my head, need to stop thinking about those eyes and that smile and the way she felt pressed against me.

I need to focus on literally anything else before I lose my goddamn mind completely.

“Are you there, Eros?” I call out into the void around me.

He steps out of a cloak of darkness, appearing just by my side with a simple curt bow.

“Sire?”

“You heard it, right?”

The story of her family treating her like crap.

I have heard parts of the rumors—what little the old bastard allows to slip out to the outside world—but I didn’t think it was this bad.

I didn’t know the depths of their cruelty, the calculated viciousness of it all, the way they’ve spent years systematically breaking her down piece by piece.

After centuries of living, I’ve heard every sob story imaginable. Gods, lycans, wolves—they all have their tragic tales of abuse and betrayal and suffering that they think makes them special, makes them deserving of my sympathy or mercy.

And honestly? Most of the time, I don’t give a single fuck. Their pain means nothing to me. It never has.

But something about hearing her pain, about watching her try to hold herself together while spilling the ugliest parts of her history, about seeing the way she still blames herself for crimes she didn’t commit—it made something dark and violent stir in my chest that I haven’t felt in a very long time.

I want to rip them apart. All of them. That pathetic excuse for a father who punished a child for her mother’s sins.

Those spoiled, vicious sisters who use her as their personal punching bag because they’re too cowardly to face their own demons.

Every single person in that house who turned a blind eye and let it happen.

I want to paint the walls of their precious estate with their blood and make them beg for mercy they’ll never receive, the same mercy they never showed her.

The whole purpose of bringing her here was practical—I needed someone with a detailed layout of the entire building, someone who could navigate the territory without raising suspicion.

At the time, it was also a convenient excuse to keep her close for my own entertainment, for the fun of watching her squirm and stutter and try to survive me.

But now things have changed.

Now I almost feel bad—and I don’t do guilt, I don’t do regret—for bringing her back here to face the same people who worship and enable an abuser and a rapist.

For throwing her back into the den of wolves who’ve been tearing her apart since the day she was born.

Almost.

“You said it didn’t matter what her relationship with her family is like at the beginning.”

“That’s not the point I’m trying to make here,” I snap uncontrollably, tense for some reason.

From the moment I saw her kneeling in filth, I’ve not been myself. My thoughts come out distorted and chaotic against my will.

If she hadn’t stopped me back then, I would have done much worse to her so-called sister—maybe tortured one of them for the fun of it—but our plans would have been derailed.

Ottomar will refuse to cooperate if we attack head-on, so I need to be patient until then. If none of those things mattered, then perhaps I would’ve burned the whole place down just to get rid of this tightening feeling in my chest.

Get that image of her crying face out of my mind.

But my carefully laid plans were ruined beyond recognition, and I have an inkling who’s responsible.

“Clearly I’m not terrifying enough for them to pretend to be civil while I’m here.”

Maybe because I haven’t ripped anyone in half since setting foot here, they think I’ve gone soft and complacent enough to mess with me.

Perhaps I should cause some chaos; ripping someone deserving to shreds right now is the only way to calm down this rage.

Werewolves have only ever responded well to violence, after all.

“Where is Ottomar?”

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