Chapter 6: Chained Submission
The scent of Evander’s skin and the lingering warmth of his seed seemed to cling to Selene for days, a secret brand beneath her robes. It made her jumpy, distracted. She’d find herself staring into the middle distance during practical incantations, her fingers tracing the edge of a book, only to jolt back to reality when a professor called her name.
“Earth to Selene.” El’s voice, laced with familiar exasperation, cut through her reverie. They were in the bustling main hall, surrounded by the clatter of plates and the buzz of a hundred conversations. El poked her in the ribs. “You’ve been a ghost for a week. Where’s your head at? Is it the advanced transmutation thesis? Because I heard Professor Grimshaw is failing everyone.”
Selene forced a smile, pushing a strand of auburn hair behind her ear. “Something like that. Just… a lot of complicated theory. It’s keeping me up at night.” The lie tasted like ash. Complicated theory. The complicated theory of having two bonded mates, one of whom was her best friend’s father.
El narrowed her eyes, but seemed to accept it. “Well, stop burning the midnight oil. You look pale. Dad’s been weirdly tense too, must be something in the air.” She shrugged and turned back to her meal, leaving Selene with a cold knot of guilt in her stomach.
The guilt festered, transforming into a reckless need that pulsed in time with the bond. It was a dull ache that intensified the closer she got to the faculty towers. She didn’t knock. She turned the heavy brass handle of Dorian’s chambers and stepped inside.
The room was exactly as she remembered it from her few sanctioned visits: wood-paneled, orderly, smelling of sandalwood and old magic. He was standing by the large, leaded-glass window, his back to her, silhouetted against the twilight. He didn’t turn.
“I told the council I am not to be disturbed,” he said, his voice flat and weary.
“You’re not disturbed by the council.”
He stiffened. Slowly, he turned. His face was a carefully composed mask of stern authority, but his blue eyes were stormy. “Selene. Leave. Now.”
“Why?” She took a step forward, letting the heavy oak door click shut behind her. “Are you afraid of what happened? Or are you afraid of what you want to happen again?”
“This is not a discussion. You are a student. I am your professor. This ends. It was a… a catastrophic failure of judgment, compounded by unnatural magic. It ends now.” He gestured toward the door, his hand steady, but she saw the faint tremor in his fingers.
“A failure?” She let a slow, challenging smile touch her lips. Her heart hammered against her ribs. This was the precipice. “It didn’t feel like a failure when you were fucking me over Draven’s desk. It didn’t sound like one when you were growling in my ear.”
“Enough!” he barked, the word cracking through the room like a whip.
“No. It’s not enough.”
Her hands went to the clasp of her robes. She never broke eye contact with him as she undid it. The heavy fabric whispered as it slid from her shoulders and pooled at her feet. She stood before him in only her thin chemise. His jaw tightened, a muscle twitching furiously. She saw the struggle in his eyes, the war between his rigid moral code and the raw, demanding pull of the bond.
With deliberate slowness, she pulled the chemise over her head and dropped it onto the pile of robes. She stood completely naked in the center of his study, the firelight gilding her skin. Her nipples tightened in the cool air. She saw his gaze drop, raking over her body, and she saw the exact moment his restraint shattered.
It wasn't a gradual surrender. It was a dam breaking.
A guttural sound ripped from his throat. He crossed the space between them in two long strides, his hands grabbing her shoulders, his mouth crashing down on hers. This wasn't the passionate claim of Evander Draven; this was a conquest, a punishment and a benediction all at once. His tongue plunged into her mouth, demanding, possessive. He tasted of coffee and dark, unresolved power.
He broke the kiss, his breathing ragged. “You foolish, reckless girl,” he snarled, but his hands were already on her breasts, his thumbs circling her nipples with a rough, almost painful pressure that made her cry out.
He didn’t lead her to the bed. He half-dragged, half-carried her there, a large, four-poster monstrosity of dark wood and velvet hangings. He threw her onto the thick duvet, his eyes blazing as he tore at his own clothes, buttons flying, fabric ripping. He was on her before he was fully undressed, his trousers around his thighs, his cock—thick and violently erect—pressing against her belly.
He didn’t bother with foreplay. He shoved her legs apart with his knees and drove into her with a single, brutal thrust that stole the air from her lungs. She was wet, her body already screaming for him, and she took every inch of him with a gasped sob.
“Is this what you came for?” he grunted, his hips pistoning against her, the bedframe creaking a violent rhythm. “To be used? To be my little fucktoy?”
“Yes!” she screamed, her nails digging into his back, her legs wrapping around his waist to pull him deeper. “Gods, yes, Dorian! Don’t stop!”
He fucked her with a relentless, punishing intensity, each thrust a word in a silent, furious argument. He flipped her onto her stomach, pulling her hips up, and entered her from behind, his hand fisting in her hair. The change in angle made her see stars, his cock hitting a spot deep inside her that felt like it was unspooling her very soul. She came with a shattered cry, her body convulsing around him, but he didn’t stop. He kept pounding into her, through her climax, until his own release tore through him with a raw, broken shout.
He collapsed on top of her, his weight a crushing, welcome anchor. For long minutes, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the pop of the fire.
But it wasn’t over. The bond, sated for only a moment, began to hum again. He rolled off her, but his hand slid between her legs, his fingers slick with their combined fluids, stroking her back to life. “Again,” he murmured, his voice hoarse, and she was already arching into his touch.
He took her again, slower this time, with a dark, exploring hunger. He laid her on her back and worshipped her body with his mouth, sucking her nipples until they were sore, trailing kisses down her stomach, before burying his face between her legs. His tongue was merciless, licking and thrusting until she came again, bucking against his mouth.
He moved up her body, sheathing himself inside her once more. This time, the pace was different, a deep, almost languid rhythm that was somehow more intimate, more devastating than his initial fury. He looked into her eyes as he moved, his expression unguarded, filled with a terrible, beautiful wonder. He kissed her, a soft, lingering kiss that tasted of her own salt, and she felt something crack open in her chest.
When he finally spilled inside her for the second time, it was with a long, shuddering groan that seemed to come from the depths of his being.
They lay tangled together in the wreckage of his bed, the sheets damp and twisted. The fire had burned low, casting the room in deep shadows. His arm was around her, his fingers absently tracing patterns on her shoulder. The silence was thick, charged.
She took a shaky breath. “Evander Draven spoke to me. After… after the office.”
Dorian went still. The casual tracing stopped. “What did he say?”
“He said… he said the bond isn’t just between you and me.” She felt him tense beside her. “He said I’m bonded to him, too. That there can be more than one. A primary and… secondaries.”
Dorian was silent for a long, long time. The only sound was the settling of the logs in the fireplace. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and drained of all emotion.
“I know.”
The two words hung in the air, cold and final. He knew. He had always known. The intimacy of the last hour curdled in her stomach, turning from something warm and claiming into something calculated and shared. He shifted away from her, the loss of his warmth immediate and brutal.
“You knew?” Her voice was a whisper, fractured by the betrayal. “And you still… you still took me like that? Knowing I was bound to another man as well?”
He swung his legs out of bed, his back to her as he pulled on his trousers. The muscles in his shoulders were rigid with tension. “The bond is a compulsion, Selene. A dangerous, ancient magic that disregards propriety and reason. What we are doing is a mistake.” He dragged a hand through his disheveled black hair. “I need to clear my head. I need to think about what we are.”
He finished dressing without looking at her, his movements sharp and efficient. Then he simply walked out, closing the chamber door with a soft, definitive click that echoed in the silent room. Selene felt her heart shatter, the pieces slicing her open from the inside. She was just a mistake to him. A complication.
A hot tear traced a path down her temple into her hair. Then she felt it—a different tug, a soft, insistent pull that originated deep in her belly, a gentle counterpoint to the ragged tear Dorian had left behind. It was Evander’s bond, a warm, beckoning thread. Numbly, she rose from the sullied sheets and pulled on her robes, following the sensation out into the silent, stone corridors of the faculty dormitories.
The tug led her to a door she knew was his. It was unlocked. She pushed it open to find Evander and Isolavienne curled together in a large bed, bathed in the soft glow of a single magelight. Isolavienne, a woman with kind eyes and silver-streaked hair, looked up but didn’t seem surprised. Evander simply watched Selene, his gaze heavy with understanding.
He lifted the sheet and blanket on his other side in a silent invitation. Without a word, Selene let her robes fall back to the floor. She climbed into the bed, her naked skin pressing against Evander’s side, and he immediately wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close so he was holding both women. The simple, accepting warmth was a balm. She closed her eyes, breathing in his familiar scent, and started to drift into an exhausted sleep.
But a distinct hardness pressed against her hip through the sheets. She shifted slightly, and the shape of his erection became unmistakable. She glanced at Isolavienne, who gave a small, knowing smile. Then Isolavienne moved behind Evander, her body molding to his back. There was a subtle shift in the air, a coalescence of magic, and a thick, shimmering phallus of solidified energy formed between her legs.
“Easy, love,” Evander murmured to Selene, his hand stroking her hip as Isolavienne guided the conjured cock into him from behind. He let out a low, gratified groan, his body pushing back against his mate. Then he turned his attention to Selene, rolling her onto her back and moving between her legs.
He was already slick from Isolavienne’s magic. He entered Selene in one smooth, deep stroke, filling her completely. The feeling was profoundly different from Dorian’s frantic taking; this was a shared rhythm, a connection that spanned all three of them. Evander moved within her, his thrusts slow and deep, while Isolavienne moved behind him, her own pace creating a dual rhythm that made Selene gasp.
“That’s it,” Evander breathed, his forehead resting against hers, his blue eyes dark with pleasure. “Just feel it.” Isolavienne reached around him, her fingers finding Selene’s clit, circling it in time with their movements. The pleasure built, a coiling, shared heat that had Selenne crying out, her climax crashing over her in a wave of sensation that seemed to pull the others with her. Evander groaned, his release pulsing inside her as Isolavienne shuddered against his back.
For a long while, the only sound was their mingled breathing. Then, with a soft sigh, Isolavienne dissolved the magical construct and settled back against the pillows. Evander gently withdrew from Selene, pulling her against one side of his chest while Isolavienne curled into the other. He held them both, his arms a secure, uncomplicated shelter, and Selene finally let sleep take her.