Chapter 3: The Bond's Compulsion
Dawn had not yet broken, but a thin, grey light was beginning to seep through the leaded glass of Selene’s window. The cozy warmth of her chambers, usually a comfort, felt cloying. She had slept fitfully, the new, silent connection in her chest a live wire humming with a distant, building storm. It was a tension, a pull, like a fishhook lodged deep in her soul, and someone was slowly, inexorably reeling it in.
She slid into the copper tub, the hot water a welcome shock against her skin. Steam rose in lazy curls, carrying the scent of lavender and chamomile. She leaned back, closing her eyes, trying to quiet the frantic echo of another’s panic through the bond. It was his. Dorian’s. A rising tide of dread and resistance that made her own heart hammer in sympathy.
The door to her chambers exploded inward.
Splinters of dark wood and the shattered brass lock clattered across the stone floor. Framed in the ruined doorway, backlit by the grim hallway torchlight, stood Dorian. His robes were disheveled, his black hair a wild mess. His chest heaved as if he’d been running for miles. And his eyes—those stern, frozen blue eyes—were wide with a terror that was entirely his own.
“Selene.” Her name was a strangled gasp.
He took a jerky step into the room, his body moving with the stiff, unnatural gait of a marionette. He was fighting it. She could feel the violent strain in his muscles through the bond, a war between his will and the magic that now owned him.
“The bond,” she whispered, understanding dawning. The pull she’d felt. It was a command.
His gaze swept the room, landing on her in the tub. The steam did little to hide her. A raw, hungry sound ripped from his throat. He was on her in three long strides, his knees hitting the wet floor beside the tub with a painful crack. Water sloshed over the sides. His hands, trembling violently, gripped the copper rim, his knuckles white.
“This isn’t me—” he choked out, his voice ragged, tearing with self-loathing. “This magic has— it’s a corruption. A sickness.”
His body told a different story. The evidence of his forced arousal was blatant, straining against the fabric of his trousers. The bond screamed with his conflict—a searing shame intertwined with a desperate, clawing need that wasn’t entirely the magic’s doing. She could feel the ghost of his hidden attraction, now magnified and twisted into this compulsion.
He reached for her, not with tenderness, but with a kind of furious inevitability. His hands closed around her upper arms, and he hauled her from the water, dripping and gasping, pinning her against the cold, wet tiles of the wall. The contrast between the steam heat and the chilling stone was a shock.
“Dorian, wait—”
He didn’t. There was no patience, no preamble. He fumbled with his clothes, his movements frantic, graceless. Then he was driving into her, a single, punishing thrust that stole the air from her lungs. His body was a cage of tense, angry muscle, his face buried in the wet curtain of her auburn hair.
“I can’t stop it,” he groaned against her neck, each word a confession of agony. His hips moved in a brutal, relentless rhythm, each thrust a punishment—for her, for himself, for the magic that had betrayed them both. “This violation… it’s not who I am.”
The tiles were cold and unyielding against her back. The steam swirled around them, misting his skin and beading in her lashes. She could feel every rigid line of his body, the frantic beat of his heart against her shoulder blade. And through the bond, she felt the devastating depth of his belief that he was being unmade.
She turned her head, her cheek scraping against the rough tile. Her hand found his back, her fingers splaying over the fabric of his robes. Beneath it, she felt the raised, jagged lines of the scars her nails had left in the Scriptorium.
He flinched at her touch.
“Stop talking,” she whispered, her voice surprisingly steady despite the jarring impact of his body against hers.
She twisted further, ignoring the discomfort, and found his mouth with hers.
It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was a silencing. A claiming of her own. Her lips were firm against his, halting his broken words. Her fingers dug into the fresh scars, a deliberate, painful pressure, anchoring him to this moment, to her.
A shudder wracked his entire frame. For a heartbeat, his punishing rhythm faltered. The self-loathing in the bond spiked, then fractured, overwhelmed by a surge of something darker, more primal and infinitely more honest. His mouth opened under hers, and he kissed her back with a sudden, devastating hunger, his hands sliding from her arms to grip her hips, holding her still for his deep, frantic thrusts.
The steam thickened, clinging to them both.
The steam thickened, clinging to them both. His rhythm became frantic, a final, desperate surrender to the compulsion. A raw, guttural cry was torn from him as he shuddered, his seed jetting into her with a force that felt like a fracture.
She felt the sudden, intimate warmth flood her insides, a startling contrast to the cooling air on her skin. The sensation, so primal and claiming, tipped her over the edge, her own climax crashing through her with a silent, breathless intensity. A thin, warm trickle escaped, tracing a path down her inner thigh.
He pulled away from her as if burned, his breathing a ragged mess. He turned, rubbing a hand violently through his already disheveled black hair, unable to look at her, at the evidence of what he’d done. The bond flooded with a shame so corrosive it made her own stomach clench.
“I… Selene, I am…” he stammered, fumbling with his robes, trying to collect the tattered remains of his dignity. His voice was hollow. “That should not have… I would never…”
“It’s okay,” she started, her voice soft, but he was already moving.
He bolted for the door, a man fleeing a crime scene. He wrenched it open and nearly collided with the figure standing just outside. “Damn it,” he cursed under his breath, sidestepping with a jarring lack of grace.
It was Kaelis, her roommate El’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, who looked equal parts startled and amused by the Professor’s disheveled state. Dorian didn’t stop, pushing past him without another word and disappearing down the hall.
A moment later, El herself appeared at the doorway, peering after her father’s retreating form before turning her curious gaze into the room. “What in the seven hells was that about?” she asked, leaning against the splintered doorframe. “Since when does my dad do a morning sprint through the dormitories?”
Selene had already grabbed a towel, wrapping it tightly around herself. “The grimoire,” she said, the lie coming a little too easily. “We hit a… volatile translation snag last night. I think it frazzled him more than he let on.”
“Volatile enough to break down your door?” El raised a skeptical eyebrow, but she was already distracted, pulling out her comm crystal. “Looks like Kaelis finally decided to show up. Anyway, you sure you’re okay? You look pale.”
“I’m fine,” Selene insisted, her mind already racing past the morning’s chaos. She needed answers this thing binding them together. She made a mental note to visit Isolavienne Hallowmere and Professor Draven later; if anyone had insight into magical bonds and forced compulsions, it would be them.
Her insides ached all night, a deep, persistent throb that was both a physical memory and an emotional echo. She felt the constant, low-grade pull of his sorrow through the bond, a heavy anchor tied to her soul. Or maybe, she thought as she stared into the dark, the sorrow was her own.