The alley smelled of wet cardboard and old grease. I followed the silver-eyed man without thinking, my sneakers splashing through shallow puddles that reflected the streetlights in fractured yellow shards. He moved ahead of me like smoke, cloak blending into the shadows until he was little more than a darker shape against the brick wall. Every few steps he glanced back, that thin smile never leaving his face, as if he knew exactly how fast my heart was hammering.
I should have turned around. I should have run back to the street, back to the normal noise of cars and voices and ordinary Tuesday morning. But the question burned hotter than fear: if this was real, if the gallery was real, then none of my life made sense anymore. So I kept walking.
The alley narrowed. The walls closed in. A rusted dumpster blocked half the path. The man slipped past it without slowing. I followed.
Then the world tilted.
A hand clamped over my mouth from behind. Cold. Strong. Not the hooded man's. Another presence. Something that smelled of ozone and wet iron. A blade slid between my ribs before I could even scream. The pain was bright and immediate, like lightning striking bone. My knees buckled. Blood filled my mouth, hot and metallic. I heard my own wet gasp, felt my body slump forward.
The last thing I saw was the hooded man turning around, silver eyes glowing brighter, watching me die with that same calm, patient expression.
Then darkness.
Then light.
I woke up gasping, lungs burning as though I had never stopped breathing. Silk sheets clung to my skin, damp with sweat. The air was thick with the scent of sex, jasmine, musk, and fresh cum. My body felt heavy, used, every muscle sore in the best and worst ways. I was lying in the middle of an enormous circular bed the size of a small room, the same Great Breeding Hall I had been brought to after the Titan fight. Crystal chandeliers hung above me, casting soft golden light across the walls lined with velvet drapes and ancient tapestries of women in ecstasy.
And I was not alone.
Dozens of pale, slender bodies surrounded me. The First Circle and Second Circle lay tangled together in every direction: Liora curled against my left side, her small breasts pressed to my ribs, one leg draped over mine; Kaia on my right, heavy tits spilling across my chest, her hand still loosely curled around my soft cock; Lirien and Veyra spooned together near my feet, both glistening with drying seed; Morgana herself lay at the head of the bed, purple hair fanned across the pillows like spilled wine, one arm possessively across my stomach. More women filled the edges of the vast mattress, attendants and lesser sorceresses, all naked, all marked with my cum, all breathing slow and satisfied in the afterglow.
I sat up so fast the room spun.
My heart slammed against my ribs like it wanted to break free. Sweat broke out across my forehead. My hands shook. This couldn't be happening. I had just died. I had felt the knife. I had tasted blood. The alley. The truck. The silver eyes. It was real. It was real.
"No," I whispered, voice cracking. "No, no, no."
The girls stirred. Liora lifted her head, sleepy and smiling, her silver hair sticking to her cheek. "Alex? What's wrong?"
Kaia propped herself on an elbow, heavy breasts swaying, dark nipples still stiff. "You're shaking. Did you have a nightmare?"
I scrambled backward on the bed, sheets tangling around my legs. My chest heaved. Air wouldn't come in right. The walls of the Breeding Hall pressed in, too big, too golden, too full of naked bodies that should not be here. I had died. I had followed the man. I had been stabbed. How was I back? How was I here?
"I—I followed him," I stammered, words tumbling out too fast. "The guy from the alley. Silver eyes. He led me into the shadows and then… something stabbed me. I felt it. I died. I died in that alley. I was gone. How long was I gone? What the fuck is happening?"
The girls exchanged confused glances. Morgana sat up slowly, purple hair cascading over her bare shoulders, expression cool and unreadable as always. "Alex, you never left this bed. You have been here with us the entire night."
Liora reached for my hand, concern softening her face. "You were… incredible. You took all of us at once. For hours. You've never been like that before. You were so rough, so endless. You kept saying things you've never said, claiming us like you owned every inch of us. We lost count of how many times you came."
Kaia nodded, a small, satisfied smile on her lips. "You painted every one of us. Inside, outside, everywhere. You fucked us in ways we've never felt. You were like a different man. We thought you had finally embraced your power completely."
I stared at them, chest still heaving, panic clawing up my throat. My hands wouldn't stop shaking. I remembered nothing. Nothing after the alley. No marathon. No rough claiming. No endless hours of sex. Just the knife. The blood. The silver eyes watching me die.
"But I… I died," I whispered again, voice breaking. "I followed him. He showed me the gallery. The thrones. The men who came before me. I jumped from the window. I ran through the maze. I—"
Morgana's cool fingers touched my cheek, tilting my face toward hers. Her purple eyes were steady, almost pitying.
"You never left the Breeding Hall, Alex. You have been here, inside us, the whole time."
The room spun faster. My vision tunneled. The golden light inside me surged wildly, out of control, but it brought no comfort. Only terror.
Because if they were telling the truth, then something else had been wearing my body last night.
And I had no memory of what it had done.