🔁 Previously…
Lynx faced the Sixth Ritual, not with desire—but with regret.
He remembered Thalia, the healer he once loved and abandoned.
She died waiting for him.
Now reborn in shadow, she returns to complete her own revenge: not to kill, but to claim what remains of him.
Her kiss chilled his bones. Her mark scarred his soul.
But now she walks among the others.
And the camp is no longer a sanctuary.
It is a tomb with breathing corpses.
🌫️ The Morning After
Thalia sat beside the fire, still as bone.
The others watched her—some with caution, some with curiosity. None with welcome.
Cerys sharpened her sword louder than usual.
Rika refused to sleep.
Kaethe murmured old prayers in a tongue no one recognized.
Only Lynx approached.
"You don't eat?" he asked.
"I feed differently."
She didn't look at him.
And yet he felt like he was being studied from the inside out.
🔥 Jealous Hearts
Kaethe was the first to speak what the others wouldn't.
"You shouldn't have brought her back."
"She's part of me," Lynx replied.
"She's what's left of you," Kaethe snapped. "And she's rotting."
Cerys didn't disagree.
Even Rika, who joked through hell, kept her distance.
The Seer said nothing.
But when Lynx passed her, she flinched.
"She smells like forgotten sins," she whispered. "And now they're awake."
💀 The Sixth Watches
Thalia didn't sleep.
She sat beside the fire at night and stared into the flames.
Sometimes she hummed a song none of them knew.
Sometimes she whispered in her sleep. Names. Numbers. Sins.
Once, Rika found her stroking Nyxfang while Lynx slept.
The blade didn't resist.
"She's touching your sword," Rika hissed the next morning. "Isn't that, like, sacred or something?"
"It didn't hurt her," Lynx said. "That scares me more."
🌙 The Seer Breaks
That night, the Seer went blind again.
Her eyes smoked black. Her voice dropped an octave.
"Too many hearts. Not enough soul.
They will turn on each other.
The Sovereign will bleed not from enemies…
But from lovers."
She gasped.
"A betrayal comes.
A hand once wrapped in yours…
Will hold your throat."
🩸 Tension Breaks
Kaethe caught Lynx alone.
"I want her gone," she said.
"She has as much right to be here as any of you."
"No. She doesn't love you. She just wants to own what you became after you killed her."
"She became one of the Six. That was the deal."
"Then the deal's broken."
Kaethe walked away.
But Lynx knew what she meant.
Someone would try to remove Thalia.
With or without his permission.
🌑 Ending Scene
That night, Lynx woke to cold lips at his neck.
Not passion.
Warning.
"They plot against me," Thalia whispered. "And you let them."
"I didn't—"
"I gave you my death.
They gave you their bodies.
Who do you truly belong to?"
Lynx didn't answer.
Because he didn't know anymore.
🌘 Next Chapter — "Three Nights from Betrayal"
The harem fractures.
Rituals turn from sacred to strategic.
And one of the women will strike.
Not to save Lynx.
But to claim him.
❤️🔥 Loving the twisted intimacy and unraveling power?
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