Silas Lockwood woke slowly, her consciousness surfacing through a haze of grogginess and confusion. The first thing she registered was the cold—an unnatural chill that seeped into her bones. The second was the restraint.
Her arms were pulled above her head, wrists bound together with something that burned against her skin. She tried to circulate energy, to summon even a spark of her power.
Nothing.
Panic surged through her veins. Her mana—her lifeblood, her identity—was gone. Blocked. The pathways in her body felt frozen, the energy that normally flowed through her veins like a river now stagnant and unreachable.
She opened her eyes.
The room was dimly lit by candles, their flames casting dancing shadows on the familiar walls. Her bedroom. She was in her own bedroom, lying on her own bed, but everything felt foreign. Wrong.
She tried to move her legs. They were bound too, spread apart and tied to the bedposts with the same strange material. She was still dressed in her business suit—the same one she had worn to the study—but her jacket had been removed, her blouse disheveled.
A sound cut through the silence.
A moan.
Silas's head snapped to the side.
On the floor, at the foot of the bed, two figures moved in the candlelight.
Lyra.
Her daughter was on her hands and knees, her dress bunched around her waist, her back arched in a curve that spoke of complete surrender. Behind her, his hands gripping her hips with possessive force, was Kael.
He was naked from the waist up, the candlelight illuminating the scars that crisscrossed his torso—and something else. Faint, reddish patterns on his skin. Scales. Dragon scales, shimmering like rubies embedded in flesh.
He was moving rhythmically, his hips snapping forward with a brutal, claiming pace. Each thrust drove Lyra forward, eliciting a sound that was half-moan, half-sob.
"Aaahhh... Kael... yes... aaahhh..."
Lyra's voice was thick with pleasure, her face turned to the side, eyes closed, mouth open. Drool pooled on the wooden floor beneath her chin. Her hands clawed at the carpet, leaving marks in the fabric.
Silas's heart stopped.
She tried to scream, to shout, to do something—but the sound died in her throat. But a gag blocked her voice. There was something in her mouth, a cloth tied tight around her head, muffling any noise she tried to make.
All that escaped was a muffled whimper.
"Mmmmph! Mmmm—!"
Kael's head turned.
His eyes found hers instantly. Blue and gold—heterochromatic, inhuman. And in them, Silas saw something that made her blood run cold.
Amusement.
Recognition.
Hunger.
He didn't stop. He didn't even slow down. If anything, his pace increased, his grip on Lyra's hips tightening until his knuckles went white.
"Good," Kael said, his voice low, rough with exertion but perfectly calm. "You're awake. I wanted you to see this."
Lyra didn't seem to register her mother's consciousness. She was lost, adrift in a sea of sensation that Kael had crafted specifically for her. The bond between them—the [Soul Binding] that Kael had carefully cultivated—had turned her mind into clay, pliable and desperate for his touch.
"Kael..." Lyra moaned, her voice cracking. "Please... harder... I need..."
"Shhh," Kael soothed, one hand releasing her hip to snake around and grip her throat. "I know what you need, Lyra. I always do."
He pulled her head back, arching her spine further, and drove into her with renewed force.
PAM! PAM! PAM!
"Aaahhh! Aaaahhh! Oh god—aaaahhh!"
The sounds were obscene. Wet. The slick noise of flesh meeting flesh echoed in the silent room, punctuated by Lyra's breathless cries and the creak of the bed frame.
Silas watched, helpless, her eyes wide with horror. This was her daughter. Her child. And the boy—the boy she had dismissed as a stray, as filth—was using her like a toy.
Like property.
Kael caught Silas's eye again. He smiled.
It wasn't a nice smile.
"You're wondering how this happened," Kael said, his tone conversational despite the sweat beading on his forehead. "How your perfect little daughter ended up on her knees for a 'stray.' How I got into your house. How I'm doing... this."
He thrust hard, burying himself to the hilt.
Lyra screamed, her body shuddering. "AAAAHHH! KAEL!"
"She's sensitive," Kael noted, his thumb stroking Lyra's throat. "I've trained her well. Three days, Silas. Three days to turn your pride and joy into my willing pet."
Silas thrashed against her bonds, the restraints burning her skin. The material—she recognized it now. [Nullweave]. A rare, forbidden fabric that suppressed mana and blocked spiritual pathways. Expensive and illegal.
Where did a D-Rank street rat get Nullweave?
"You poisoned me," Silas realized, the realization hitting her. The tea. The "herbal mix." Lyra had—Lyra had poisoned her.
"Smart," Kael acknowledged. He slowed his pace, grinding deep, making Lyra whimper. "But not just poison. A [Binding Bitterness]. Expensive stuff. Worth every credit."
He leaned forward, his chest pressing against Lyra's back, his lips brushing her ear.
"Tell your mother what you did, Lyra."
Lyra's eyes fluttered open. They were hazy, unfocused, but she turned her head toward the bed.
"I... I drugged her," Lyra said, her voice dreamy. "For Kael. Because he asked."
Silas felt something inside her crack. Her daughter. Her own daughter had betrayed her. For him.
"Good girl," Kael murmured. He kissed Lyra's shoulder, his eyes never leaving Silas's face. "You see, Silas? Love is a powerful tool. Your daughter loves me. She would do anything for me. Even hand over her own mother."
He pulled back, resuming his brutal pace.
PAM! PAM! PAM!
Lyra's moans grew louder, more desperate. "Kael... I'm... I'm close... please... let me..."
"Not yet," Kael denied. "Hold it."
"Please!" Lyra begged, tears streaming down her face. "I can't... it's too much..."
"You can," Kael said firmly. "And you will. Until I say otherwise."
He looked at Silas.
"Watch, Silas. Watch what I've made of her. Watch what I'm going to make of you."
The implication hung in the air like a blade.
Silas's struggles intensified. She pulled at the Nullweave ropes until her wrists bled, kicked at the bedposts until her ankles bruised. But the material held, its magic suppressing not just her mana but her very strength.
She was B-Rank. A Warlock. A researcher feared by her peers.
But she was helpless against this monster.
Kael continued his assault on Lyra's body, each thrust a statement. A claim. He was marking territory. Establishing dominance. And Silas was the audience, forced to witness her own impotence.
Minutes stretched into an eternity. Lyra's voice grew hoarse from screaming, her body trembling on the edge of release that Kael kept denying her. The room filled with the scent of sweat and sex and something darker—the coppery tang of blood where Lyra's nails had torn through the carpet.
Finally, Kael's pace became erratic. His jaw clenched.
"Now," he growled. "Cum. Now."
"AAAAAAHHHH!"
Lyra's body seized. Her back arched impossibly, her mouth open in a silent scream. Waves of pleasure crashed through her, so intense her vision went white.
Kael roared, burying himself deep and holding. His body tensed, muscles standing out in sharp relief as he released inside her.
Silas watched her daughter's womb fill with the seed of her enemy. Watched Lyra collapse, boneless, onto the floor. Watched Kael pull out, his member glistening, still half-hard.
He stood up, his breathing heavy, his eyes glowing in the dim light.
Lyra didn't move. She lay crumpled on the carpet, her breathing shallow, her eyes closed. Unconscious.
Kael stepped over her body.
He walked toward the bed.
Each footstep was deliberate. He stopped at the edge of the mattress, looking down at her with an expression that held no warmth. No mercy.
Only cold, calculated hunger.
"Subject 704," Kael said softly. "That was my designation in the Whitmore facility. You know that name, don't you, Silas? You signed the paperwork. You approved the experiments."
Silas's blood ran cold.
Recognition. Not of his face, but of his purpose.
The boy from the facility. The one they had discarded. The one they had thrown into the incinerator.
He had survived.
And he had come back.
"I spent five years in that lab," Kael continued, his voice low. "Five years of torture. Of experimentation. Of being treated like meat."
He climbed onto the bed, crawling over her frozen body.
"You branded me," he whispered. "You placed the slave mark. You held my leash."
His face was inches from hers now. She could see the scales more clearly—red and black, pulsing with an inner fire. She could see the fangs that extended slightly past his lips.
Vampire. Dragon. Something else.
"You thought I was trash," Kael murmured. "You thought I was nothing."
His hand reached up, fingers tracing her jawline with a touch that was almost gentle.
"I'm going to show you exactly how wrong you were."
He smiled.
And Silas saw, for the first time, the true face of the monster she had helped create.