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A/N: If the previous version of this chapter felt a bit slow, I agreed. I’ve completely rewritten the scene to bring the heat back to the story where it belongs. Please give it a reread before diving into this chapter for the best experience. Can't wait to hear your thoughts in the comments!

RILEY POV.

My chest was heaving after the yell.

I expected him to swing the table across the room, to run over in the blink of an eye to hurt me. But surprisingly, he didn’t move. But while one of his hands clutched at the edge of the table so hard I could almost feel it trembling, the other extended over, reaching to pluck more grapes from their branches. One grape. Two grapes. Three. Four. Five. Endlessly. Until his mouth was filled with them and the juice spilled down his chin.

I found myself gulping.

Because as he shredded them into mush, his eyes remained on me. Hooded, as if tired.

"You don’t want to use that tone on me..." he warned in a slur.

I pushed even further, my chest tight. "Well, you leave me no choice, Se—"

He didn’t let me finish. "Do you know what the rebels are?"

"Uh?" I sounded stupid.

"The rebels. I talked about them. I said there had been two inside the estate. Two pretending to be doctors because they wanted to take YOU. And the third had been your maid. Your personal maid. The one that bathes you, and clothes you, and every other thing maids do. And the only question I asked you is if you had suspected that the girl who had been serving you was working as a spy for the rebels... One question. I didn’t tag you as the culprit. I didn’t say you helped her. I only asked if you suspected her. SUSPECTED, Riley. S-U-S-P-E-C-T—"

"I heard you the first time..."

"Good. I’d asked you just that and... you got defensive?"

He was right. I could still feel my heart banging so hard in my chest and I had a feeling he could hear every thud loud and clear from across the table even if he didn’t mention it.

He rolled another grape between his fingers, before: "Why?"

I wanted to rush to defend myself again, that I hadn’t known anything. But he looked like he could literally see through me. All appetite I’d had before this was all gone, and now the food smelled like poison wafting in the air.

"I... I..."

He held one finger up in the air, hushing me before I could speak.

"Let’s say you didn’t know you were a target for the rebels. Do you know what the rebels are—"

"She mentioned once..." I blurted out before I could stop myself.

Seneca didn’t react immediately. Didn’t smile. Didn’t frown. He just had this blank stare on, like he was seeing right through me and every other thing I was hiding.

"Once..." he asked.

I nodded speedily. "Yes. Just once. She was telling me about how the slaves—"

"She mentioned once and never tried to discuss an escape plan with you?"

"No..."

"NO... NEVER... We never really got to know each other that much. She was—"

"She escaped."

I blinked through the information. "I think you mentioned that..."

I could feel the tension in the room getting hotter, enough that a bead of sweat was rolling down the nape of my neck. Seneca wasn't letting up so easy.

"Other than that... when she came to the office, she mentioned something that actually really piqued my interest, Riley..."

He got out of his chair, rising to his full height. Now, in this very moment while I remained seated, he looked even taller than he usually did. Maybe it was because I was petrified. Maybe it was because I knew the things I was hiding. Maybe it was because I knew he wouldn't hesitate to deliver punishment or torture if he found out I'd been lying through my teeth. But he looked taller. Broader, bigger, bare-chested in that robe hanging around his frame, held together by nothing but a loose tie that could slip open at any second, revealing everything underneath.

Heat rolled off him in waves.

It wasn’t just the normal warmth of a body. It was a heavy, suffocating heat that hit my face and settled over my shoulders like a weighted blanket. He was doing it on purpose. He was pushing his aura out into the room, letting the temperature of it press against my skin just to corner me. He’d intimidated me before, more than once, but this time my throat locked up entirely. The air turned so thick and hot I felt like I was going to choke on it, and he didn't even have to lift a finger. He just stood there, letting me suffocate while he watched me from beneath his thick brows.

I could feel my pulse ppunding behind my ears while I internally begged for him not to come closer—please, please, please, please, please just sit back down—-as if some hysteria in my mind would persusde him from coming closer to me. He rounded the table very calmly hile my eyes fixated intensely on the chicken before me like it was the most interesting thing I’d seen all morning.

Seneca stood directly behind the chair, not touching, but lingering enough that I could feel every inch of his being behind me.

"She mentioned a 'we'..."

My breath stuttered. "A... a what?"

"A 'we'. She used a 'we'. A plural... which means..."

"There was nobody," I blurted out. My eyes scanned the table so fast, landing on the knife that I’d dropped a few minutes into this interrogation. I thought about gripping it so fast. I thought about lodging it deep into his neck. Twisting it until the blood spilled before he realized that I truly hadn’t been the only one in the room this morning.

"You know, Riley..." he leaned in, whispered very close to my ear. "I think you keep forgetting that I’m a demon Lord for a reason. And you keep forgetting that I know when you’re lying..."

"Sene—"

"You fidget... you panic..."

"I’m really no..."

"You try to strategize killing me..."

I was panting too hard at this point. My eyes were still locked on the knife while a huge part of me screamed in my head: Pick up the knife. Pick up the knife. PICK UP THE FUCKING KNIFE. "...you forget I can feel what you feel now..."

"Let me—"

"There’s no need for explanation, Riley..." His breath was warm at the back of my neck. His fingers slithered up to dig into my scalp. He tugged at it, gently at first, and then slowly, as if he was contomep;atimg smashing me face first into the table, his grip tightened. "There’s no need for explanations. There’s no fire without a dragon. Same way there’s not a 'we' without a double. Now, I want to know, which of my brothers set fire to your room this morning?"

I couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t think.

Couldn’t even move.

"Which of my brothers have been laying their hands on you?"