Chapter 2: The Patriarch's Bargain
His lips were on mine before my nod was complete.
It wasn't a kiss of passion or tenderness. It was a claim. A desperate, fevered search for an anchor in the storm raging inside him. The taste of him was expensive whiskey and something darker, more primal—the chemical tang of the drug that had brought a king to his knees.
A part of me, the part that was still Dr. Elara Vance, screamed to push him away, to diagnose, to treat. But that woman had died in a basement, holding her children. The woman in Silas Sullivan's arms was someone new, forged in fire and reborn with ice in her veins.
I didn't fight him. I calculated.
His hands were everywhere, rough and impatient. The tear of my blouse was a sharp, percussive sound in the quiet room, followed by the cold kiss of air on my skin. I focused on the details, storing them away like weapons. The way the firelight played over the defined muscles of his shoulders and back. The surprising softness of his hair between my fingers as I allowed my hands to tangle in it, a performance of participation. The low, animal groans that rumbled in his chest.
He was a force of nature, and I was making the conscious, chilling decision to stand in the eye of the hurricane.
He rose from the chair, pulling me with him, his strength still formidable despite his condition. The world tilted, and my back met the soft, worn surface of the Persian rug in front of the roaring fireplace. The heat from the flames was a ghost of the heat that had killed me, and for a terrifying second, I was back in the basement. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the memory down.
For Lysander. For Lyra. The names were a mantra, a shield.
He was above me, a silhouette against the firelight, all power and shadow. His stormy grey eyes were unfocused, seeing through me, seeing whatever phantom the drug and his own need conjured. There was no recognition in them, only a raw, consuming hunger.
"Please…" he rasped, the word torn from him. It wasn't a request; it was a confession of weakness.
This was my power. His vulnerability. His desperate, undignified need. I, who had been nothing but a neglected, humiliated ornament in this house, now held a secret that could shatter its master. The knowledge was a cold balm on my soul.
When he entered me, it was with a single, forceful thrust that stole my breath. There was no gentleness, no preamble. It was a taking. A wave of pain, sharp and shocking, crested through me. I bit down on my lip, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth, preferring that pain to the sound of a cry that might betray my calculated stillness.
I turned my face to the side, my cheek against the thick wool of the rug. I stared into the dancing flames, letting my mind drift away from the weight of him, the rhythmic, jarring movement, the guttural sounds he made against my neck. I built a wall in my mind, stone by stone.
Behind that wall, I planned. I saw Kaelen's face, contorted in hate as he turned the key in the basement lock. I saw Liana's smug, victorious smile. And I saw my children. Not as they died, but as they lived. Lysander's serious, thoughtful eyes. Lyra's gummy, joyful smile. They were my reason. This violation was a currency, and I was spending it on a future where they could live.
Silas's pace grew frantic, his breathing ragged in my ear. His fingers dug into my hips, sure to leave bruises—temporary marks on a body that had already known the permanence of fire. I remained pliant, a doll for his use, my mind a thousand miles away.
With a final, shuddering groan that seemed to be ripped from the very core of him, he collapsed. His full weight pressed me into the rug, his heart hammering against my back like a war drum. The smell of him—sweat, sex, and expensive cologne—was overwhelming.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the crackling fire and our ragged breathing. The feverish tension that had gripped him seemed to break, leaving behind a heavy, satiated lethargy. His weight shifted, and he rolled off me, onto his back beside the rug, one arm thrown over his eyes, his chest still heaving.
I lay perfectly still for a count of ten. Then, moving with a silence I didn't know I possessed, I pushed myself up. My body felt sore, used. A vessel. I gathered the tattered remains of my blouse, holding them against my chest. My doctor's coat was crumpled nearby. I slipped it on, the white fabric feeling like a pathetic disguise after what had just transpired.
He didn't move. The drug, the exertion, had pulled him into a deep, immediate sleep. In the flickering light, he looked younger, the harsh lines of power and command smoothed by unconsciousness. He was devastatingly handsome, and the fact that I could even notice that sent a fresh wave of self-loathing through me.
I didn't look back. I crept to the door, opened it just wide enough to slip through, and closed it with a silent click.
The hallway was cold and empty after the oppressive heat of the study. Dawn was beginning to bleed a pale, grey light through the large windows at the end of the corridor. I leaned against the wall for a moment, my legs trembling not with passion, but with the aftershock of a tactical decision that had cost a piece of my soul.
I had to get out. I had to find a place to wash his scent off my skin, to reassemble the fragments of my composure.
I pushed off the wall and hurried down the corridor, turning the corner toward the main hall.
And I ran headlong into Liana Croft.
She was leaving the wing that housed Kaelen's room. She looked impeccable. Her designer dress was flawless, her hair was perfectly arranged, and her makeup was fresh. She looked like she was on her way to a brunch, not leaving the bedside of a man in medical distress. Her face was bright, her eyes shining with a possessive, triumphant light.
She paused mid-step, her eyes widening as they took me in. My disheveled hair, my torn clothes hidden haphazardly by the lab coat, the doubtless wild look in my eyes. Her gaze swept over me from head to toe, and slowly, a grin of pure, unadulterated contempt spread across her perfectly painted lips.
"What's the hurry, Dr. Vance?" she asked, her voice a sugary mockery. "Perhaps your conscience hurts?" She took a step closer, her eyes glinting with malicious delight. "I guess it is a little too much, even for you. Seducing a geezer for the sake of wealth and status. How… pathetic."
The insult was meant to wound the woman I used to be. It bounced off the woman I had become. I met her gaze, my own eyes as cold and flat as stone. I saw the night she had just spent with Kaelen, a parallel to my own. She saw it as a victory, a claim staked.
I saw it as her stepping into the gilded cage she'd always envied.
I shot her a cool look, my voice steady and low. "Funny, since I could say the same about you. I hope he was worth it."
I saw the flicker in her eyes, the tiny fracture in her triumphant facade. The implication hung in the air between us: We both made a choice tonight. Don't presume to judge mine.
Without waiting for a reply, I turned and walked away, leaving her standing in the hallway, my footsteps echoing on the marble, each step a move on a chessboard I now intended to win.