Evelyn's POV
The door swung open, and my heart plummeted to the pit of my stomach.
The first thing I saw was not what waited inside the room, but the body that came crashing out of it. One of the ladies, one of the many taken to satisfy his insatiable hunger, fell forward with a guttural cry, her legs trembling, too weak to hold her up. She hit the floor so hard the sound echoed in the hall, and I barely had a moment to dart out of the way before she landed at my feet.
I froze, my pulse hammering in my ears. She was gasping, sweat coating her flushed skin, her thighs quivering as though every ounce of strength had been wrung from her. The sight made bile rise in my throat, but I forced my gaze upward....
And the sight that met me was far worse.
The demon wolf was sprawled across the massive bed, his powerful body moving with feral rhythm as he took not one, but several women at once. Their moans were were deafening, suffocating, drowning out every other sound in the room. Their cries of pleasure, or what passed for it, rattled the walls, bouncing off my skull until I wanted to scream just to silence them.
My eyes, against my own will, met his.
Lucian.
Even as his hips drove mercilessly into one of the writhing bodies beneath him, his piercing gaze locked with mine. A smirk curved across his lips, dark, wicked, unapologetic. The kind of smirk that said he knew exactly what this looked like, and he reveled in it.
Heat flushed my cheeks, not from desire but from burning disgust. My skin crawled. Any sane creature, any man with an ounce of shame, would have stopped at the intrusion, would have at least hidden himself behind a shred of decency. But not him. Of course not him. The cursed beast thrived in shamelessness. He wore sin like armor and dragged it proudly behind him like a banner of conquest.
I shook myself hard. I wasn't here to look. I wasn't here to think. I had one task, and the faster I completed it, the faster I could rid myself of this stench, this sound, this sight that clawed at memories I wished buried forever.
"I'm here to deliver your wine," I said, my voice tight, mechanical. I refused to let it crack, refused to let him hear even a tremor of weakness.
I stepped forward quickly, never once letting my gaze lower again to what was happening on that bed. I walked past them, dropped the bottle on the table with a soft clink, and turned immediately to leave. My lungs begged for clean air, my skin for distance.
But his voice, his deep, commanding voice, stopped me cold.
"Stop."
The word cracked like a whip, and my entire body tensed, frozen mid step. My heart twisted painfully in my chest, beating too fast, too wild.
"Turn around."
I swallowed, hard. My hands trembled, but I forced them still at my sides. I didn't want to obey. Everything in me screamed to keep walking, to flee, to escape before his shadow coiled itself around me completely. Yet some dark tether pulled tight, dragging me back into his gravity.
Slowly, against my will, I turned.
And his eyes were waiting.
Piercing, gleaming, almost glowing in the dim firelight of the chamber. His stare stripped me bare, made my knees weak, made my lips part in a breath I didn't mean to release. My heart stuttered and for one dangerous, fleeting moment, I forgot to breathe altogether.
"Stay," Lucian commanded, his voice rumbling like thunder,low, unyielding. His body never ceased its movements, his hands never released the women clawing at him, yet his focus was on me and me alone.
Revulsion coiled through me, suffocating. My chest heaved. I shook my head violently.
"No."
I couldn't. I wouldn't. To stand here, to watch, this was too much. Too close to memories I spent my life clawing away from. The nights when my uncle's heavy breath had pressed against my ear. The helplessness. The horror. The unrelenting shame. My stomach knotted, my throat burned. I would rather die than relive it.
"I said stay," he growled, more forcefully this time as he thrusted harder into the woman beneath him, the smirk gone, replaced by something darker.
I opened my mouth to protest, but before the words could leave me, salvation walked through the door.
"Apologies for interrupting, Lord Lucian," Aiden's voice rang out, calm and smooth as ever, though there was something taut beneath his tone. He strode forward confidently, bowing his head briefly in mock respect before turning his eyes toward me. "But Evelyn is urgently needed in the kitchen. I'll take her, so she doesn't disturb your…. intimate time any longer."
His lips quirked slightly, almost imperceptibly, as he gestured for me to come.
Relief flooded through me so swiftly my knees nearly buckled. Without hesitation, without even daring to glance again at Lucian, I bolted toward Aiden, my steps quick, frantic. I slipped past him like a hunted animal, my breath ragged, my palms clammy.
Aiden closed the door firmly behind us, sealing off the moans, the shadows, and the piercing eyes that had nearly swallowed me whole.
My chest rose and fell too quickly, my breath ragged, as though I'd been drowning and only now broken the surface.
Aiden moved with a composed grace, his boots echoing softly against the stone floor. I followed, grateful, grateful for once, for his timely interruption. My hands were still trembling at my sides, and I wanted to say something, anything, if only to ground myself.
We had just rounded the corner when he stopped abruptly.
I nearly bumped into him. "Aiden...." I began, my voice unsteady, the words forming before I could stop them. "Thank you for...."
His hand shot up sharply, palm out, silencing me mid sentence. The gesture was curt, cold, final. His dark eyes flicked to mine, unreadable, shadowed.
"I didn't do that for you," he said flatly
The words sliced through whatever small relief I had felt, leaving only a hollow ache in their wake.
He took a slow step closer, tilting his head slightly, his voice low, almost deliberate. "And whenever I give help to anyone," he continued, "I take twice as much back from them. Nothing is free here. Not even my kindness."
The chill in his voice made me shiver. He didn't wait for a reply. Didn't even care if I understood.
He turned on his heel and strode away
I stayed rooted in that dim corridor long after Aiden's footsteps had vanished, his words echoing inside me like a curse, Nothing is free here.
My stomach twisted as if I had swallowed stones. The taste of bile lingered on my tongue, not from what I had seen in that room alone, but from the reality pressing down on me. I was no longer just a nameless servant hidden in the crowd. I was tethered to him now, the beast who felt no shame in blood or in flesh.
Lucian Draegor. The Demon Wolf.
And I was his personal servant.
The thought made my knees weak. My skin crawled at the memory of his piercing gaze, the smirk curving his lips as though he already owned me. I hugged myself, but the chill wouldn't leave.
If Aiden's warning meant anything, I was already trapped in a game I didn't understand
I was at the mercy of an insatiable monster.